When I was a kid, I had an Atari 2600, and I would play Pac Man, Frogger, all that kind of stuff. And I did enjoy going to the arcade.
When I was growing up, I did go to the arcade. We had a neighborhood arcade, and my friends and I would go fairly regularly.
I've got Pacman, Galaga, Galaxian, Daytona 500. Those are the games I grew up playing.
I've always loved video games. I played 'Ms. Pac-man' with my dad, and I Ioved 'Galaga' and 'Tempest' and grew up on the standing arcade games. Even to this day, my dad will call me if he's playing 'Ms. Pac-man' and hold the phone up to the game.
I was actually the manager of the games department of an amusement park when I was at college, so I understood the coin-op side of the games business very well.
I was not the kid that hung out at the arcade.
My first encounter with video games was pretty conventional. I was travelling with my parents - we used to take long cross country trips in the United States every summer - and we went into a restaurant where there happened to be a Pong machine, and I was... a lot of quarters went into that Pong machine, let's just say.
I'm dating myself by saying this, but I was the test audience for 'Space Invaders.' I remember when that was the first game that wasn't a pinball game. I spent a lot of money on 'Space Invaders,' in the form of quarters, of course.
Pong can clearly be credited with having starting the coin-operated arcade videogame industry with a bang!
To me the arcade experience is the ultimate gaming experience.
