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together to trade games, tell stories and to
hold video game tournaments on classic
consoles such as the Atari 2600. NWCGE
events were held in various places ranging
from a Church to Hotel Lobbies.
- John Hancock sider it very lucky to live in such as rich As time went on, the members of NWCGE
place of both independent game stores and
REALITY 101: VIDEO GAMES ARE grew. Each member of NWCGE added cool collectors that work together. In the
HARDER TO FIND something special the group. As the mem-Northwest, I am happy to have stumbled
bers grew, the group decided to do multiple upon being part of the NWCGE, or the
Let's face it…with video game collecting; gatherings. One annual show was to be Northwest Classic Games Enthusiasts. The
finding things in abundance locally can be done in Portland/Vancouver area with the North West Classic Games Enthusiasts
very challenging. For many help of NWCGE member Rick
reasons, video games have Weis and others including my-
grown in popularity. With self. A Loyal group of local
this reason, it is sometimes vendors started to be interested
hard as a video game collec- in appearing at the local shows.
tor to add to ones collection
in abundance for reasonable One vendor in particular,
prices. VIDEO GAME WIZARDS even
agreed to fully sponsor shows
Several factors are making it at their expense, which is not
harder to find games locally. chump change.
One reason I see is the
reduction of independent ENTER JET CITY RETRO
video game stores and inde- With the flexibility to have multi-
pendent rental chains selling ple game conventions in differ-
older video games. There is ent cities such as Portland and
nothing wrong with Large Seattle, NWCGE once again
National Chains, but if you evolved. NWCGE Nathan
are a collector of pre Play- Martin helped create a classy
station era games such as I, and upscale game convention
this leaves limited options. that happened on April 26th-
Other reasons persist as 27th of this year. Debuting at
well, such as the the in- the heart of Seattle in the
creased value of video Decca Hotel, the show was a
games, making people pre- glimmering example of every-
ferring selling their used thing a local video game con-
games online versus at a vention could offer. With many
yard sale. Heck, even Good- returning vendors of previous
will now diverts several game shows, here were some
pieces of its video game highlights of the game conven-
items for its own online tion.
auctions, again making it (NWCGE) is a not-for-profit organization.
harder for the average game collector. DEALS: There were so many, you could NWCGE is a NW-centric group created in
write a book on just what was at the show.
WHAT IS NWCGE? 1997 with the interest of preserving the
cultural and historical aspects of the video- Thousands of games and some rare sys-
I empathize with any collector trying to find games. Founded by Lee Krueger, the idea
(Continued on page 47) games on a budget locally. I myself con-
of NWCGE was to have local gamers get
46 | Video Game Trader Magazine | July 2008 | www.VideoGameTrader.com
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