Portland Retro 2022 Trip Report

Hi! Frank here. Kelsey and I are still recovering from a very busy weekend at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, but we wanted to share a little bit about how it went.

For those who don't know, PRGE is an annual retro game enthusiast show. It's actually a pretty major part of our year, as it gives us a chance to reengage with the high end video game collector community. We haven't been to one since 2019 because, well, there hadn't been one since 2019, so we were excited to go back.

Every year we host the show's museum. This year's main exhibit, curated by us, celebrated 40 years of Ms. Pac-Man (plus that guy she may or may not be married to). We had a really great spread of collectibles and retail games chronicling where both characters came from, as well as their ongoing legacy. A lot of this was borrowed from friends, including Tim Lapetino, who literally wrote the book on Pac-Man.

I'd like to think we did a good job because Steve Golson and Kevin Curran (above) hung around for a really long time. Steve and Kevin worked at General Computer Corporation, and are among the creators of Ms. Pac-Man. Did you know Ms. Pac-Man was made in the U.S.A.? No? Well, you would have if you came to the museum. This was actually Kevin's first time speaking publicly about Ms. Pac-Man, so it was great to be able to meet him.

As you might have surmised from the photo above, we were also proud to host an Art of Nintendo Power exhibit, hosted by our friends at another great nonprofit, the Interactive Art Collective. This org's collection of original artwork used in the production of Nintendo Power magazine was one of the highlights of the show!

And if that's not enough, we also displayed a complete U.S. set of Nintendo 64 games, courtesy of the Northwest Video Game Museum. So really, the whole thing was a collaboration between three west coast video game nonprofits. Pretty cool, right?

Kelsey and I gave a talk on how we at the VGHF think about and approach the concept of "video game preservation." We've given this a few times now, and every show it evolves a bit. Just like us! We'd probably be embarrassed if we pulled up the video of the first time we did this, but we're like a machine now.

Something I'm personally proud of is our Game Boy Camera photo booth. Through a hardware chain that is so complicated that I'm going to spare you the details, we set up a booth where people could take photos with a genuine Game Boy Camera, and have them printed on really nice 4"x4" photo paper. Our volunteer staff absolutely crushed it running our "gift shop," and I'm proud to say we sold well over 200 photo prints! All that money is going right back into the Foundation.

All in all, it was another great year. Sometimes it's hard to remember why we put so much work into what amounts to a two-day museum, but it's impossible to quantify how many opportunities happen when we're trapped in a convention center with our game collector friends. We digitized a bunch of prototype games that we'll be donating to Hidden Palace, for example, and I was able to look at some really rare paperwork that unlocked some pieces for my own historical research project. Plus, meeting the Ms. Pac-Man's parents was amazing.

Thanks to everyone who came out! And a special shout-out to our amazing volunteers:

Hamza Salazar for the graphic design 

Sam Machkovech for exhibit sign help 

Joe Vella and Jeremy Seith for exhibit tech 

Lane Koughan, Robert Viger, Steve Lin, and Jeremy Seith for booth help 

Tim Lapetino, John Hancock, Chris Kohler for artifact help

We hope to see you all next year!