Episode list

As the popularity of retro gaming rises, there is a growing need for documenting and preserving the stories of developers, video game companies, and their software. Join Dr. Ken Horowitz as he discusses his experience documenting Sega, and how it may serve as an example of continued efforts by the gaming community to protect the legacy of our beloved hobby.

Join game designer Rob Wieland on a tour of tabletop role-playing games. Whether you're an old hand, a fanatic Critter or someone who's just die-curious, this event is for you. Rob will talk about the latest version of Dungeons and Dragons, the worlds he has worked on like Star Wars and Firefly, and help out any Dungeon Masters with their burning questions.

Jon St. John is instantly recognizable by a generation of gamers for being the voice of Duke Nukem. Johnny Gioeli's music is recognizable to anyone who has played a Sonic the Hedgehog game since 1999. Find out what it is like to be associated with an iconic video game character, and the differences and similarities in performing one as a voice versus performing for one musically.

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Kevin Bunch and Marty Goldberg trek back 35 years ago to the so-called "Atari Crash" that shook the U.S. games industry to its core. Was it really all Atari's fault? We look at different sides of the story, and the great Atari creations that never got a fair shot throughout the late '80s.

Building an online community can be difficult, but it can also be extremely rewarding. Some of the people behind the online community Cartridge Club would like to share some lessons they've learned on creating and fostering a welcoming place for people to celebrate their passions.

Join YouTube Gamers Musty Hobbit from "Second Breakfast", Jason from "Corpse_Flood Gaming", Church "The Game Grinder, Taylor from "Rising Blue Phoenix" and Christopher Pico "The Old Ass Retro Gamer" as they discuss their theories for content programming on their channels, and how they work to grow their audience. Whether you are a fan of their work, an aspiring YouTuber, or just someone who wonders just what goes into making those videos, this panel has something for you.

Cosmotrons is a NEW four player space battle video arcade game with a premium cabinet that started as a passion project for Shane and Dave. Revealing their game at MGC 2017 resulted in being voted as the #1 multiplayer game at the show, going on a 6,000+ mile West Coast tour with Cosmotrons, and into making actual production units. At MGC 2018, the production "Delux-o-Tron" fiberglass cabinet for Cosmotrons will be revealed. Participate in this session to learn more about Shane and Dave's journey in producing new arcade games.

Watch Out for Fireballs!, the game club podcast hosted by Kole Ross and Gary Butterfield, appears at MGC 2018 to talk about the classic GameBoy game Donkey Kong '94. Butterfield and Ross host several shows about games and culture on the Duckfeed tv podcast network.

Throughout the history of video games there are titles that go unnoticed by the majority of gamers. Let's sit down and go over a few of our favorite unappreciated games from various generations, both old and new. From the Atari, Nintendo Entertainment System to newer systems like the PS4 and Switch, there are Hidden Gaming Gems all over the place. In classic VGBS Live fashion, people in the audience are also encouraged to share their stories as well.

Eugene Jarvis and Gary Stern have each been a fixture in the arcade world for more than 30 years, and today run two of the largest and most well known arcade companies - Eugene runs Raw Thrills and Gary runs Stern Pinball. In this presentation, hear the two of them answer questions that compare their experiences with the transition that arcades have gone through recently, and hear what they think the future may hold. They will also take some audience questions at the end.

Join the newest pinball designer Keith Elwin as he shares how the brand new Iron Maiden pinball machine from Stern Pinball came together into the amazing package you can play now.

Grab a cup of coffee and get to informally chat with the creators of Houdini: Master of Mystery. Last year, they had one prototype - and this year the game is in production for people to play and buy. Get the chance to hang out with the production team and ask questions about how it all came together.

Mortal Kombat was a genre-defining game, and one that many other games sought to attempt to replicate, but never quite got the formula right - perhaps until now. Galloping Ghost Productions is working on putting the final touches on a new Mortal Kombat style game called Dark Presence, which even uses many of the Mortal Kombat actors. In this panel, the game creators and many of the original Mortal Kombat actors will discuss the creation of Mortal Kombat, and how that same spirit is being used to create the new Dark Presence game.

There has been a lot of movies lately inspired by video games, including the new Rampage movie. How do the creators of these games feel about Hollywood taking their creations to the silver screen? Find out when Brian Colin, creator of Rampage and freshly back from the Hollywood premier is joined by Jeffrey Lee, creator of Q*Bert, as they discuss their thoughts and feelings about what happened when their games went Hollywood.

In 1990, Nintendo turned the fictional Video Armageddon tournament from the film "The Wizard" into the legendary Nintendo World Championships. We gather a bunch of the NWC champions and finalists to preserve the history of what was in many ways one of the first large-scale eSports event series.

Philo Barnhart is an animator with an incredible portfolio. His work includes The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Rescuers Down Under, The Secret of NIMH, Happily Ever After, An American Tail, and special effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Some of his most unique work, however, was working on the Dragon's Lair and Space Ace series, both of which had sequels that are less known that Philo was involved in. Join him as he discusses these sequels, as well as his other work in animation, and maybe even get to see him create some new art while he talks.

Join Joe Drilling of Same Name, Different Game and Eric Grider of Game vs. Game to take a look at the history of ports. Today, games are typically close to identical across various platforms but in the past strange licensing agreements and wildly different specs for the platforms the games were made on often necessitated radically different takes on a game with the same name on two different systems. Starting with Space War. being ported to the arcade as Computer Space, trace the lineage of game interpretation in this great panel.

Join legendary game developers David Crane (Pitfall!, Kaboom, A Boy and His Blob) and Garry Kitchen (Keystone Kapers, Donkey Kong 2600) as they talk about what it was like to make games in the early 1980's, tell about a number of funny happenings during the development of some of your favorite games, and take questions from the audience.

Join Undisputed Street Fighter author Steve Hendershot and Art of Atari author Tim Lapetino for an inside look at the unique, east-meets-west formula that has made Street Fighter a global sensation for three decades. The series' gameplay, characters, and aesthetic all reflect a hybrid, Japan-meets-America style that's proven difficult to replicate-even for series producer Capcom. We'll look at the elements that have made Street Fighter so special, and examine why thirty years after the series' debut, the magic of its cross-cultural formula remains both potent and elusive.

Scott Adams is known as the father of the adventure game and was extremely influential in starting this fun genre of games back at the dawn of the home PC era. Today, Scott, along with his wife Roxanne are working on new adventure games with CLOPAS. Scott and Roxanne will be sharing his beginnings, the present activities and new company, and future endeavors they have planned together.

Eric Wile had a major hand in the development of several extremely popular MMO titles such as PlanetSide, Star Wars: Galaxies and Vanguard Saga of Heroes. His crowning achievement is with the popular EverQuest franchise, as he developed EverQuest: Macintosh Edition. Find out about the development of these games, Eric's role in that development, and lots more about what it is like to create MMO games in this presentation.