4B= Thursday, April 11, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com i
4B - Thursday, April 11, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom ~
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Every week, people gather in the basement of Get Your Game On to trade and play Magic: The Gathering cards GYGO also sels vintage video game consoles, such as N64 and SNES.
Local gamers educate, entertain in A
Get Your Game On,
Digital Ops create
inclusive community
By AKSHAY SETH
Daily B-Side Editor
"Steam? What's that?" asked
Alex Horvath, owner ofGet Your
Game On, the recognizable local
video game store that recently
moved to a new location on
South State Street.
Steam, in so many terms, is
an online service developed by
Valve Corporation to sell games
and downloadable content at
ridiculously cheap prices. It's
almost singlehandedly the rea-
son PC games have skyrock-
eted in popularity over the last
couple years, and in a context
more relatable to GYGO, one of
the most important reasons why
local game shops might become
sidelined in the years to come.
"We're pretty much the only
store in the area that does retro
gaming," said store manager
Stuart Parnes. "For the people
that want classics like Nintendo,
Super Nintendo and Sega, you
can't really download it off of
Steam, so there's that whole col-
lectability aspect, which I think
a lot of our customers are into."
A loyal customer base, com-
posed mostly of University
students, provided the initial
impetus for the move to a more
accessible location. Previously,
the store had been located on
State Street and Packard Street
- out of the waybutstill drasing
a large amount of students inter-
ested in purchasing old-fash-
ioned video games, card games
and board games.
"Most of our customers would
walk in and say that we needed
to move," Horvath said. "There's
been an almost immediately
noticeable effect on business
because we've retained the old
customer base and managed to
let more people know that we're
here."
And yet, competition still
exists in the form of larger,
chain names like GameStop. But
Parnes stresses that catering to a
niche helps eliminate abit of that
direct struggle for customers.
"This in particular is very dif-
ferent from a lot of businesses in
the sense that I know a lot of our
customers on a first name basis,"
Partes said. "People come in not
just for the store but also to have
a conversation. It's a retail store
but a place to hang out as well."
The sense of community
comes from a collective nos-
talgia that many college-aged
gainers associate with their first
experience holding a control-
ler. According to Parnes, that
nostalgia is what has allowed
more personal stores like GYGO
to maintain customers willing
to walk in and talk with fellow
gainers.
"I hear all the time when
people come in, 'Oh I had all
these games as a kid, but then my
mom sold them at a garage sale,'
" Parnes said. "They want to go
back and play all those games
that they used to have when they
were kids, and a lot of it is that
nostalgia."
At the same time, the market
continues to remain dynamic as
new students filter into college.
"College kids, right now, are
really into Nintendo but in a few
years maybe it'll be Super Nin-
tendo. I think that it'll keep shift-
ingup," Parnes said.
A few minutes' walk down to
East Liberty Street lies a differ-
ent kind of community - one
that remains anchored in the
same unapologetically nostal-
gic gaming culture that Parnes
described. Confined within the
basement of a shared work-
space, Digital Ops, now a part of
All Hands Active, is an amalga-
mation of Local Area Network
gaming center and makeshift
electronics lab.
In one corner of the room
rests a large couch occupied by
high-school students, intense
eyes locked on a flat-screen TV
as they close out a tightly con-
tested Smash session ("Super
Smash Brothers: Brawl" for all
the nOObs). The other half of the
basement is littered with circuit
boards and tools. An elderly man,
choosing to give only his first
name, Bill, sits hunched behind
a magnifying lens, soldering iron
in hand.
"Originally it was the gam-
ing," Josh Williams, educa-
tion coordinator for All Hands
Active, said when asked what
got him involved in the organi-
zation. "And nowadays, it's the
.idea of creating an atmosphere
where geeky people can just
hang out. You don't have a lot of
that in reality. Where else can
you find a place where someone
interested in physics or math or
programming or electronics can
just come and talk?"
The LAN center gets most of
its revenue by renting out a ring
of five PCs to college students
who regularly gather on week-
nights to play co-op games.
"There's lots of 'League (of
Legends)' being played right
now," Williams said. "We're
only open to the public for 40
hours a week; other than that it's
member access, but you can find
someone here almost every night
after 9 p.m. on one of the com-
puters playing'League."'
In the past, the organization
has hosted and sponsored large
"LoL" tournaments showcas-
ing The Cube, a large robot-like
contraption built specifically for.
five versus five-team-oriented
games, where players sit on top
of and inside the machine, which
is attached to five function-
ing PCs. As the organization is
largely run by volunteers, funds
collected from such exhibitions
are used to maintain the organi-
zation's philanthropic efforts in
the community.
As a part of All Hands Active,
Digital Ops is contracted by
Eastern Michigan University to
reach out to at-risk youths. The
program, commonly referred to
as Bright Futures, is meant to
further facilitate the idea that
Digital Ops can be a place for
students to foster an interest in
technology related fields.
Katherine Wiykovics, after-
school teacher for All Hands
Active, held up a small pin con-
nected to two LED lights. The
pin, in the shape of a robot, was
used by Digital Ops staff mem-
bers to teach elementary- and
middle-school students about
the basics of circuitry and elec-
tronics.
"This place is about build-
ing a community around doing
things on your own," Wiykovics
said. "It's about teaching kids
how to build these things I had
no idea even existed when I was
their age."
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Digital Ops provides science and technology programs for eiementary-school students.
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