Wil Wheaton was this year’s keynote speaker at PAX ’07, the annual Penny Arcade fan festival. He does what he has come to do best. He reminisces about the glory of arcades, a foundational component to his (and my) generation. He’s 35 now. So am I. And he goes on to say how video games, no matter how violent they might’ve been, did not lead to a life of crime. Instead, they were key to our social upbringing.
Arcades were to my generation what Xbox Live and World Of Warcraft are to this generation. They were social gathering places as much as anything else, and I really miss them. I miss the flickering neon on the walls, the wierd smelling smoke, the stained casino carpet, the Van Halen and Joan Jett on the jukebox and the times we had to choose between one more game of Tempest and a can of Coke from the vending machine. There was actually a time when you could get a cold can of Coke for a quarter. I would tell you how much we paid for movies, but I’ve made enough people cry this month.
Even to a vehement loather of Wesley Crusher like myself, the speech is incredibly good. At the end of the day, Wheaton is a mighty geek who relishes his geekery, and I applaud the brilliance of placing him in front of a massive and appreciative crowd — a crowd that cheers like hooligans at a soccer match when he makes an Oregon Trail reference.