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Chasing Nostalgia Episode 2: Pac-Man Fever!

RetroRalph·video·37m 13s·analyzed·Oct 2, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

RetroRalph tours David Sullivan's 75-game Tucson arcade collection and discusses his top five favorite cabinets.

Summary

RetroRalph visits David Jim Sullivan's arcade collection in Tucson, Arizona, featuring ~75 personal arcade games plus 80 shared with Cobra Arcade Bar. David discusses his collecting philosophy, top five favorite games (Rastan, Sinistar, Ms. Pac-Man, Arkanoid 2, Blitz), and shares nostalgic stories from his Chuck E. Cheese days. The episode explores the collector's balance between hoarding and curating, maintenance challenges, and the emotional attachment to specific arcade titles.

Key Claims

  • David owns approximately 75 arcade games personally, with another ~80 shared with Cobra Arcade Bar in Phoenix/Tucson

    high confidence · David states: 'Right now, I'm sitting on probably about 75 games of my own. I share a spot with Cobra Arcade Bar, which is in Phoenix and in Tucson Pinball. They've probably got another 80 games or so in here right now.'

  • David can beat Rastan in one credit (not one life)

    high confidence · David clarifies: 'i usually can beat it in one credit' after initially saying 'you can beat it in one credit' and correcting the earlier statement that it was 'one life.'

  • Dragon's Lair 2 cabinet in David's collection is running original laserdisc hardware (not Dexter emulation)

    high confidence · David confirms: 'This is running an actual Laserdisc player inside of it still' and 'This guy's original' with functional hardware verified on camera.

  • David owns at least 6-7 Ms. Pac-Man machines and approximately 9 Pac-Man machines

    high confidence · David states when asked how many Pac-Man games he owns: 'What do I have, like six or seven Miz Packs and one, two, three, four, five, like nine Pac-Man.'

  • Arkanoid was David's first arcade game purchase at $20 from a newspaper classifieds ad

    high confidence · David explains: 'Arkanoid was the first game that I ever owned... I found it out of a classified ad in the newspaper, and the guy wanted 50 bucks for it... he said, you know what, it's not working right. If you're interested, 20 bucks, it's sitting on the porch.'

  • Cobra Arcade Bar has custom artwork projects where artists repaint blank or damaged arcade cabinet side art

    high confidence · David describes: 'he went through and had them paint it custom. The Altered Beast is custom... The Hulk Rampage over there, too, with some custom artwork.'

  • Ms. Pac-Man was introduced in arcades at a Tasty Freeze in Tucson in 1981, where David first encountered it

    high confidence · David recalls: 'When they first came out with Miz Pac-Man, we used to live over on the east side. We heard that they had one at the Tasty Freeze, and we rode our bikes to the Tasty Freeze. We found the Miz Pac-Man. We stood in front of the Miz Pac-Man in awe. 1981.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Everything in here that is mine is for sale. But some are priced so high that it would take a lot to get them away from me.”

    David Jim Sullivan@ 4:08 — Reveals David's collecting strategy: maintains the illusion of willingness to sell while pricing favorites prohibitively high to preserve the collection.

  • “If someone loves the game, like my Killer Instinct when I'm done with that, I don't have an emotional attachment to that. I will sell that to someone if they love it for a good price, not these crazy inflated prices that we're dealing with right now.”

    RetroRalph@ 5:18 — Reflects collector philosophy: prioritizing finding passionate homes for games over maximizing profit, contrasting with market inflation.

  • “I'm going to buy a boat, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, don't buy a boat, it's the worst thing. Is it like buying a boat when you buy a pinball machine?”

    RetroRalph@ 13:01 — Uses analogy to ask about pinball collecting costs and maintenance burden, framing it as a notoriously expensive hobby decision.

  • “We didn't know. I mean, we were beside ourselves. We used to going to the Circle K and playing Xevious. And then we got this... Everything. We didn't know. I mean, we were beside ourselves.”

    David Jim Sullivan@ 21:37 — Expresses childhood wonder at discovering Ms. Pac-Man's innovations (bow, lipstick, dual exits, bouncing fruit) compared to previous arcade experiences.

  • “There was a big influx of folks in the community buying up all the Nintendo cabs and all the Pac-Man cabs and turning all of them into multi-games, 60 in one. So anyone that I would see, I would try to grab and I would just hold on to.”

    David Jim Sullivan@ 21:52 — Explains motivation for acquiring and preserving multiple Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man cabinets: preventing their conversion to multi-game machines.

Entities

David Jim SullivanpersonRetroRalphpersonTucson PinballorganizationCobra Arcade BarorganizationAudiepersonRastangameSinistargameMs. Pac-Mangame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball collecting represents significant financial and maintenance burden, positioning it similarly to expensive hobby acquisitions (boat ownership analogy). High barrier to entry for new collectors

    medium · RetroRalph asks David directly about pinball pricing concerns: 'We all want to get into pinball machines, but obviously that's become crazy expensive nowadays.' David recommends new purchases with warranty over used machines due to mechanical complexity

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive community sentiment around arcade collecting and preservation culture in Arizona (Tucson/Phoenix area), with operators like David and Audie building collaborative infrastructure

    high · David's 20+ year collecting history, active partnerships with Cobra Arcade Bar, willingness to facilitate community access to machines, and emphasis on finding appropriate homes for games

  • ?

    community_signal: Arcade operators actively supporting preservation community through collaborative infrastructure, shared machine space, and educational maintenance work

    medium · David and Audie partnership at Cobra; David handles routine maintenance (token pulling, joystick/button changes) while specialized technicians handle monitor work; overflow facility for inventory management

  • $

    market_signal: Arcade game prices have inflated significantly, creating pressure on casual collectors and operators. David and RetroRalph both reference 'crazy inflated prices' as barrier to entry

    high · RetroRalph states 'It's so expensive right now' and 'even on that auction, those electromechanical, the old wedge head ones are going ridiculously high.' David commits to 'reasonable' pricing to support affordability

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.112

0:00
Oh and Rastan's another one. Man, Rastan is such a hard platformer. You know David down in Tucson, he says he can beat it in one life. Dude, I understand your passion about arcades, but you need this. Need what? Need what? This is what you needed. It is so perfect here. Are you even listening to me? Dude, no. You are done with the game. What the heck, man? I was just about to level up. Dude, you need to level up with nature. You know, you didn't have to slap that out of my hand. Ralph, would you have listened to me otherwise? No. My name is Retro Ralph, and I love arcade games. When I was a kid, the arcade was a magical place. The sights, the sounds, memories etched into my mind forever. Now I'm a collector, And you could say, I'm a little obsessed, but I know there are others like me. Are you one of them?
1:10
Tucson, Arizona. Home of arcade game enthusiast David Sullivan. If you know Ralph, you know he cannot wait to see what amazing games are hiding within David's warehouse. Yeah, you heard that correctly. David has a whole warehouse filled with arcade games. Let's check it out.
1:33
David! Hey! What's up? What are you doing? Of course. How you doing? It's been a while. What's happening? It's been a hot minute. How you guys doing? I love coming to David's. I've actually picked up a couple arcade cabinets from him along the way. And the reason why it's so unique and fun coming here is because his collection is sort of always in flux, so there's always something fun and new to look at. I know. How's everything going? There are some things that are the same, quite a few. Pac-Man stays Pac-Man. That's your game, right? That's my game. You're never going to sell a Pac-Man, to be honest. Well, maybe one day. Maybe one day. But I've picked up a lot of things, and I had to move a lot of stuff out of Cobra Arcade Bar and put over in their area as well. Would you be down to do like a quick updated tour? Let's do it. All right, cool.

  • “Terrify them early and they'll be fine.”

    David Jim Sullivan@ 19:15 — Humorous justification for intentionally scaring his young son with Sinistar's speech effects, reflecting a generational arcade culture attitude.

  • “I always try to keep an Arkanoid in my collection, and now I have Arkanoid 1 and 2.”

    David Jim Sullivan@ 23:57 — Shows deep attachment to a foundational game in his collection history, maintaining multiple versions as a tribute.

    • Arkanoid 2
    game
    Blitz 2000game
    Dragon's Lair 2game
    Chuck E. Cheeseorganization
    Altered Beastgame
    Hulk Rampagegame
    Lost Worldgame
    Dance Dance Revolutiongame
    X-Mengame
    Killer Instinct 2game
    Grazley Garageorganization
    Paperboygame
    Donkey Konggame
    720 Degreesgame
    NARCgame
    ?

    restoration_signal: Active effort by collectors like David to prevent classic arcade cabinets from being converted to multi-game/60-in-1 machines through acquisition and restoration

    high · David explains: 'There was a big influx of folks in the community buying up all the Nintendo cabs and all the Pac-Man cabs and turning all of them into multi-games, 60 in one. So anyone that I would see, I would try to grab and I would just hold on to.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Generational shift in arcade game preferences evident in David's collecting: prioritizes games from his Chuck E. Cheese era (1980s) with strong emotional/nostalgic attachment, particularly Pac-Man variants

    medium · David's top five all connect to specific childhood memories and work experiences. Ms. Pac-Man collecting motivated by 1981 Tasty Freeze discovery. Rastan and Sinistar tied to Chuck E. Cheese employment breaks

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Arcade operator Audie commissions custom side artwork for cabinets, creating unique aesthetic experiences and utilizing local artist talent for IP-relevant designs

    medium · David describes Cobra's 'Arcade' project where local artists painted custom side art on Altered Beast and Hulk Rampage with thematic elements (beasts, downtown Phoenix sheriff references)

    • 2:20
    Hi there. I'm David Sullivan. I am an arcade collector slash hoarder, if you want to say it. I have a lot of arcades. I've been doing it since 99, 2000-ish. Start off with a couple and then it just becomes an addiction. You pick up more and more. It's fun. Right now, I'm sitting on probably about 75 games of my own. I share a spot with Cobra Arcade Bar, which is in Phoenix and in Tucson. They've probably got another 80 games or so in here right now. Kind of packed as we sit. I'm always looking to move a few games to bring in a few new ones. I like to find new homes for them. It's a fun hobby.
    3:02
    All right, man. Well, I appreciate the tour, but I'm starting to feel like you're more of a hoarder than a collector these days. And I feel the same way about myself because I've got a whole bunch of games that aren't working. So what's the deal here? Just don't look at anything over there. There's no hoarding going on. What's going on? Are you, because I'm in this spot where I feel like I have more projects than I do working cabinets. I feel you because I'm the same way. I have a lot of projects and not as much time as I would like to get to them. But here's the thing that I, and maybe I can use you as for advice. I don't know. Look at what I have and I don't know if you want to. No, but I'm at a point where I'm like, I'll still keep bringing in projects, even though I haven't finished the other project. So how do you even balance that? You don't. You get a bigger place. That's the answer? You get a bigger house. I get a bigger house. That's it. This is not good. Or you rent a space. Seems like you do have this movement going on. But there's games that I see here that are still staying that seem to be games you will not part with because they're part of the collection permanently. So is the idea, how does the flow work? So there are games in here. Everything's for sale. Everything in here that is mine is for sale. But some are priced so high that it would take a lot to get them away from me. I see. Okay. So there's a method to the madness. All right. I can take that. Some of the games, though, I really do like. It took a long time either to find them. It's something that I just really like. Not a real fan of the Holy Grail concept, but there are games that I really enjoy. Yeah. So I hold on to those. If I play them a lot, I keep them a lot. I keep them longer. Okay. We're going to talk about Fantasyland for a second. Is there a world after this room? Would it be possible to say you slimmed it down to 10 games you love, or is that an impossible thought? That would be hard. If I were to go there, it'd be everything gone. All right. Everything but maybe one or two. I don't think I'd go down to 10. But is there an endgame that this facility doesn't exist anymore and the machines are somewhere else? There's definitely that possibility. What's the thought on that? Don't really think about that. Just keep coming in and having fun with it. But as people come in and show a lot of interest in the games, whether it's something I really like or if I don't,
    5:10
    I'm much easier to part with the game if someone really has an attachment to it, more so than I do. I do that too. I feel like if someone loves the game, like my killer instinct when I'm done with that, I don't have an emotional attachment to that. I will sell that to someone if they love it for a good price, not these crazy inflated prices that we're dealing with right now. That's what I try to do. I try to make it affordable for everybody. If I can find the right fit, the right home, whether it's a cabinet that needs a lot of work, needs some work, needs no work, I try to be as reasonable as possible because I understand you're not going to love the game forever.
    5:56
    All right, so David, shifting gears for a little bit, because last time I was here, I feel like I had a couple missed opportunities. And one of them was you had these, like, Dragon's Lair collectibles that I had never seen before. My toys! Yeah, I know. And so you don't just do arcade games. You do collectibles, too. I do. And not only do you do collectibles, but you have arcade games that go with your collectibles. So you have Dragon's Lair 2, and I just turned it on. Is this thing going to work when it fires up? It better. Dude! Nice!
    6:24
    Speaking of your, you know, I know you don't like the Holy Grail term, But I feel like for a lot of people, this is one of those games where it's like bus tab. I think it is. And it actually is not running the Dexter software. This is running an actual Laserdisc player inside of it still. That's awesome. Did you get it fully working, Laserdisc and all? Yes. You didn't have to restore it at all? I haven't done anything to it. Wow. What do you think you picked it up for? Do you remember? I got it in a lot. Okay. There were quite a few others, so it was pretty economical. Okay, cool. Whoa, so obviously the game is awesome, but I suck at it. But I kind of want people to see these collectibles, because I had never seen these things before. We can pull them out. Yeah, we should try this first. Oh, so you want me to embarrass myself. All right.
    7:16
    Now what? You get the arrow, and then go right. Yeah, baby. Sword. Yes! Down! No! Yeah, David you are a hoarder look at all this stuff. Hey, easy! There's stuff everywhere! I walk by a shelf and there's a DVD-ROM that has Dragon's Lair Space Ace and Dragon's Lair 2. You like Dragon's Lair?
    7:44
    Looks like it. I don't like it that much, but it looks like it. Alright, where are these Dragon's Lair toys? I need to see these things. So I've got these right over here. I've got the full set of Dragon's Lair toys. You've got the Singed the Dragon, Daphne, Dirk, and Mordrak. I don't necessarily collect things with this idea that they're going to be worth something more in the future. Not really, usually. I mean, if they are, that's great. Did you collect these thinking they'd be worth something one day? Actually, I bought the set, and I bought it from a collector, so I paid too much for it. Oh, really? And this was an arcade-related buy. Oh, it was? It was just like some of those guys over there, some of the pops that I have. I have a Dig Dug. I've got all the Street Fighter pops. Okay. I have those I like to pick these up because they have what's a build a figure. I actually have two of them two of those An old apocalypse. This is another one. You had to piece together. You had to buy all the pieces for it and then wait together All right, so David I gotta say this is this is probably one of the coolest pieces in your collection So you said this is actually running the original Laserdisc player still working all good. It is you wanna see it I definitely want to see it. I have to see it. Come on. Let's check it out. What's that board? I can't remember that people use instead of the laser disc player. I can't remember what it's called. Oh, the Dexter. It should have all three of the games on there. Oh, so the Dexter. I don't know as much about it. So the Dexter has all three. I think he's got Space Ace, Dragon's Lair, and Dragon's Lair 2, if I've got it right. Maybe you can get it with different ones. I've never had to deal with it. But this guy's original, you said. This guy's original. Prepare to be amazed. I know I want to see it Let see it Oh my gosh there it is That awesome man Look at that That so crazy That is awesome How does it know what I was always wondering It it bolted on I was always wondering if you move it. Cause like, you know, when you deal with anything that's a laser, you never really want to jostle it too much, so... Yeah. But you've moved it and it's been fine, so... I got lucky, I actually put it on its back, in the back of a Honda Element. You know, I guess maybe when people thought...cause was it interchangeable with a different game? Could you put a different laser disc in it? I don't know. I wonder if you could put like Dragon's Lair 1 in 2 or something. Maybe people did that. I don't know. Maybe. I really don't know. It's so cool, man. That's such a cool piece. David, that was so cool. The Dragon's Lair is awesome. That's neat. I can't even believe it still runs the original boards. It's a gem. Yeah, it totally is. You know, last time I was here, you were talking about sort of your involvement with Cobra Arcade. Mm-hmm. All right, so David, what do you do over at Cobra? So, Audie and I have been friends for a while now. I've got a few games in there. I'll go pull tokens. I do some of the little stuff, some coin jams, pulling tokens, changing out joysticks and buttons and things like that. Not the heavy lifting. We have another guy who does the monitor work, things that I would break. So he takes care of that. But if you want to see, we could go down there. I can show you around. Dude, that would be awesome. If you haven't been there. Yeah, let's go. That'd be so fun. Let's go down there. All right, cool. Let's do it.
    10:39
    Hey guys, come on in, Funhaus! Uh, why is it so dark in here? Welcome to the Theater of Magic! Hello, hi, great job.
    11:13
    This place is pretty impressive. I mean, I feel like Audie really takes good care of these machines. Like, all of them look nice. He does, he does. He takes a lot of pride in how the games look and how they work. If they don't work, they come out. Unless we can fix it on the spot. There's no reason to not have a good working game in here. What do you think the most played game is in here? Down here, we get a lot on Dance Dance Revolution, which didn't come on, but that Lost World, probably the biggest one on the bottom floor here. Why do you think Lost World? Just because Jurassic Park is so popular and it's a gun game? I think it's a gun game. Overall, the shooters that we have get used quite a bit. Well, I see a lot of cool stuff down here. You've got Killer Instinct 2, which I know that was a really popular fighting game. You've got X-Men, and that's the big guy, the six-player. I think which is, have you ever had to move that thing? We moved it in and it stayed right there. Was that like seriously the biggest pain to move? That's a big pain to move, it is. Could you put it in a house you think? You could if you have a big house. It separates right? Like get a bigger house and you can expand. He keeps going back to this bigger house thing. All right, so is there anything else besides, I mean this is awesome and super impressive, but is there more than what's here? We've got more upstairs. You like pinball, let's go upstairs. Yeah, let's go check out the pinball. Let's do it.
    12:30
    Oh man, there's more stuff. Oh yeah, this is even more fun. Pinball's galore. Yeah. So out of all this stuff, you said you do some of the servicing stuff. What's, where do you spend the most of your time? The pinball machines? Pinball wall. Yep, that is a constant. All right, so. Constant repair, constant. I have a lot of people that I'm friends with that are like, I kind of convinced them to buy full-size arcade machines and they love them now. We all want to get into pinball machines, but obviously that's become crazy expensive nowadays. But what would you say, like, what would you say to someone if they were like, I want to start collecting these? someone goes, I'm going to buy a boat, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, don't buy a boat, it's the worst thing. Is it like buying a boat when you buy a pinball machine? It could be. I mean, you're going to have to know a little bit more about, you know, taking care of them, and you're also going to have to deal with it daily. Yeah. An arcade game is mostly just electronics, and here now you're dealing with, like, mechanical things. Harder to get into, lifting up the whole, yeah, the play field and everything. It's a little difficult. What do you think though about like what would you say someone should buy if you're going to buy your first one you think someone should buy like a used one or should they go with try to buy I mean I know brand new they're expensive. If you can if you can afford to get a brand new one get a brand new one. With a warranty and stuff. With warranty and everything you'll have less problem there'll be little things little bugs to fix. Yeah. On anything that's what's going to happen but if you get the older ones you're definitely going to have to check your coils and check everything else. The rubbers and all that stuff. Yeah there will be a lot of things that you need to do. It's so expensive right now. We were just talking about cost with auctions and everything. Talk about crazy. Those things are going for like tons of money right now. Even on that auction, those electromechanical, the old wedge head ones are going ridiculously high. I see some games up here that I would love to have in my collection, like Contra. Contra's awesome. Love that. Contra's a good game. Got a Mortal Kombat 2 and Offroad. Yes. Offroad. Love Offroad. Hey, before we go, I'd like to show you something next door. All right. Some cool artwork. Yeah, let's do it.
    14:25
    So David, what's this place about? So this is Overflow, some of the games that we didn't have room for over there, or if something breaks we can take them in. A lot of these are custom artwork that Adi had the artists do for one of his other projects, which was called Arcade. So he had a lot of artists come in, take some of the side art that had already been mangled or it was just black on the sides and he went through and had them paint it custom. The Altered Beast is custom. On one side, showing all the beasts you can turn into. On the other side, showing all the different levels that you have to go down to go and finish the game and beat everybody. That's so neat. Rampage over there, too, with some custom artwork. He does, yeah. So the Rampage, I think they kind of went with the... Downtown Phoenix or something? Downtown Phoenix vibe on that one. I think there's a little Border Patrol coming after somebody or getting smashed. I think that's supposed to be Joe Arpaio down there. Oh no, it's supposed to be Sheriff Joe. I think that is. And on the other side, they've got some more over here.
    15:30
    You know, Lizzie, and they've got the wolf looking like a cholo over here. It's pretty neat, especially because if there was no artwork on it anyway, it kind of makes it unique, right? Definitely, definitely. Cool. We kept a few things as necessary. We've moved a lot back over to the warehouse, but it's a good spot to have. David, that was cool. Thanks for taking me over to Cobra. Yeah, yeah. On the way back on the drive, I was thinking, I'm like, I wonder what David's top five games are that you have in your collection. Would you think you could do that? Give me your top five? I could give you top five as of right now. It changes. It's hard to say a definitive top five. One of those is not here, but I could show you four others. Okay. That are always on the high on my list. All right. And then because top five is tough, I'll let you do like a couple honorable mentions. Everything else.
    16:22
    So this is not in any specific order. Okay. But these are five that are always near and dear. All right. Rastan is one of them? Rastan is one of them. I would have never guessed that. So why? As a child, one of my first jobs was Chuck E. Cheese. Okay. And at Chuck E. Cheese, we had a nickel part and we had a quarter part. And all the new games came to the quarter part. And this was one of the ones in the new games. And every time we had a break, we would go play this game. We would hear this game, the soundtrack is fantastic on this. The soundtrack is awesome on this. All day long. Awesome, awesome. We would hear it all day long, and all we wanted to do was go and play it. Everybody thought that they could beat this. We had an arcade tech who would actually lift up the control panel, we could put our hand down, and we could get free credits on our break to play it. That's awesome. So I've had this, I've actually owned Rastan probably three or four times through different sets of trades and sales and everything. you know it's come and gone this one's been here the longest i really do dig it that's awesome and okay so i know i said that you could beat it in one life it's not one life but you can beat it in one credit i usually can beat it in one credit it's pretty good one life would be tough i've gotten it in a couple lives but it's there are some dumb parts in there where i get ahead of myself it's pretty good i get my ass handed to me on this i need some rastan i'm gonna actually ask you for like the david sullivan rastan tips book or something i don't know if you're willing to I want to see you play it. No, it's bad. See if you're better at this than Altered Beast. No, I'm just as bad.
    17:56
    All right, all right. So Rastan's one of your top. Maybe after we'll play it. All right. What about number two?
    18:04
    This would be top three for sure. I don't blame you on this one. This one's like definitely one of the ones I feel like I have to have in the collection, but it's getting up there in price. It is. Yeah. This one is a pricey one. It's hard to find. Yeah. Very hard to find. So we just tried off camera to power it up, and it didn't power on. Nope. And I happen to have a J-Rock board, so sounds like we might be working some kind of J-Rock board deal or something. We may need to. I'd like to have Sinistar rolling again. We could play it on that The speech freaks me out It scares me It actually does Like I remember as a kid it scaring me and it seems like there so many people that are like my age or whatever that played it that have that same impression and I don know if it just because I would have been in that age range where like a game speaking would freak you the hell out but you were saying that it freaked out your son because you used to have it in the house. It did. I had this in the house and I would turn it up as high as it could go and every time he would. That's mean dad. Why would you do something like that? I know. Got to make him grow up right. Nice. Beware, I live. I hunger. He didn't like it. He didn't like all the noise. Yeah, I wonder why. How old was he then? Six or so. He was a young guy. Terrify him early and they'll be fine. That's right. I didn't think it would scare him, but this did. And he grew up okay, right? Yeah, he's okay. Okay. He's doing all right. So what's your reason for loving this game? This one actually is very close to the same as the Rastan. This is another one they had in Chuck E. Cheese. And this is one that we would go over and play at break. I think actually I went and played it during break. Nobody else really did. Never really got into Defender or Stargate. But this is one of the Williams games that I just absolutely love. It's hard, hard, hard. It is. But it's so fun. It is. Frustrating, but fun. number three is going to shock you no i i i'm just gonna take a wild guess that is it pac-man related or it may have something to do with that oh okay i mean i wouldn't oh never mind um so i i like all pack i like that baby pack over there i like pac-man i like pac-man plus i think my my go-to pac-man equal opportunity pack i think my go-to though is mizpak okay i think that's the one that i will gravitate towards though pac-man plus is really good as well i do like that speed chip or no speed chip i like the speed chip if you're gonna play it it's got to be speed chip well no i mean it could be either one okay it could be either one but the speed chip is just it's funner do you know how much pac-man stuff you own or i'm just throwing it out there do you actually know you don't know off the top of your head come on what do i have like six or seven Miz Pack and one, two, three, four, five, like nine pack. Okay, so before I ask you why Miz Pack, man, dude, like. I got a great story for you. What is. That's why. I know, but why. Yeah, tell me. I need to know. Why so many? You have all of them. All of Tucson must not even have a pack. There must be no Miz Pack or Pac-Man left in Tucson. Oh, they're still around. They made so many of these. This is a drop in the bucket. This is nothing compared to what's around.
    21:12
    So when they first came out with Miz Pac-Man, we used to live over on the east side. We heard that they had one at the Tasty Freeze, and we rode our bikes to the Tasty Freeze. We found the Miz Pac-Man. We stood in front of the Miz Pac-Man in awe. 1981. We loved it. We couldn't believe it. She's got a bow. She's got lipstick. There's two ways to run out of the thing. The fruit bounces. Everything. We didn't know. I mean, we were beside ourselves. We were used to going to the Circle K and playing Xevious. And then we got this. I distinctly remember going and finding this game and playing it and just loving it. It was great. There was a big influx of folks in the community buying up all the Nintendo cabs and all the pack cabs and turning all of them into multi-games, 60 in one. So anyone that I would see, I would try to grab and I would just hold on to. Because I didn't want to see that happen to all of them. At the end of the day, it would restore them all to whatever they were. Pac-Man's or Ms. Pac-Man's and not multi-games. Yes. Yes, I'd like to have them all at least working. Yeah. A working game, whether that's with a CRT or with an LCD, because it's just kind of how things are nowadays. Yeah. Just having a working game would be fantastic. That's awesome. There's a common theme. I'm not going to tell you right now because we're going to get to that at the end. But there's a very common theme between all your favorites so far, and I'm curious. So this is an awesome number three. I'm with you, Ms. Pac-Man, all day long. but I'm just curious if this theme is going to weave itself within all these other games. So what's number four? Well, we'll have to move down just a little bit further, and we'll see number four. All right, cool. Real close by. Okay. Real close by. Arkanoid 2. Arkanoid is actually probably my number four, but the Arkanoid I have has a bum monitor. This one works. This one plays very well. Arkanoid was the first game that I ever owned. Oh, wow. So this one started the collection. This started everything. This was, not this one, but the title, Arkanoid. I got it out of a want ad in the paper, and the guy wanted 50 bucks for it, and I called him. Dude, that's awesome. 50 bucks, 50 bucks, and I called him, and he said, you know what, it's not working right. If you've got 20 bucks, it's sitting on the porch. Put 20 bucks in an envelope and take it. Really? So I put 20 bucks in an envelope. I've never got a game for 20 bucks, but that's pretty awesome. Okay. Yeah, and I took it away, and I took it home, and it was scrolling, and it was actually the hold. It was just the horizontal hold. Exactly. I got that fixed, and we played it, played it, played it, and then a friend of mine, this one I was in the Army, and a friend of mine left to go back to New York. He loved to play it, and he bought it for $100 and took it with him. So this isn't that one. No, this isn't, and even the other one I have back there, but I always try to keep an Arkanoid in my collection, and now I've got Arkanoid 1 and 2. Arkanoid 2 actually is probably a little funner than the first. Why? Why do you think it did? There's just it's got a lot more of the little drop down vows that you can get different things multiple balls and breaks in the screen and everything. It gets like a little bit more chaotic probably than the first one. Be very much more chaotic. Yes. Stood the test of time. Definitely. It's a fun game. Yeah definitely. So it's you know upgrade of breakout or super breakout. Yeah. But it's definitely a good game.
    24:34
    All right, so we've got four down, one to go. Okay. Let's check this thing out. Dude. Smash TV, nice. Is this the one you were talking about, David? The one you'd consider selling? That is a Smash TV, but that's not the one. What do you mean? Let me show you. It's not this one? Not that one. All right, is the other one nice too? Sure. Okay.
    25:00
    All right. Smash TV. No, no. This is, it's classic game collection. What? Take that out. No. Put in a new board. Turn the monitor. Do you remember what I just showed you about all that custom artwork that people do? Think about how cool that custom Smash TV artwork can be. You just shot it off. I was thinking it was that one. That one looks great. I could just take that one right now. We could just go. It'd be great. Yeah, you could make this the running man on the side. You could have Schwarzenegger on the side. Gosh. Does the control panel at least have the holes I could maybe figure out how to make it work? It does. Look at this.
    25:39
    Oh, wow. Actually, it's got some extra holes. I'm a Bondo, Bondo man. You should be. You may have to be.
    25:48
    All right. So you have an offer on this gem? I'm never going to have a Smash TV. I'm never going to have one. It's just, I should just be at peace with the fact. Classic game collection? Classic Game Collection. What even is that? It's in a Williams cabinet. It is Smash TV. Technically, it just doesn't have any of the things that make it Smash TV. Like the control panel, like the artwork, like the PCB.
    26:12
    But I am Retro Ralph, and I know where to find stuff. All right, David, what's the last one? Come on down. I'm coming. Plenty of room.
    26:25
    It's right here next to one of your favorites. Flips 99 next to NARC. Blitz. I like Blitz 2000 a little bit better than Blitz 99, but Blitz is Blitz. I really dig the other four. They're classics. They bring back something for me. This one, I used to play a lot on whatever Nintendo I was playing at the time against this friend of mine. We used to play this all the time. Nice. So it's a competitive game. It's a competitive game. I do. I definitely do. I will beat up the computer pretty bad my son will beat me up pretty bad he's really good at this I feel like it's been a little while for me for Blitz but Midway was classic of having that whole thing they called the rubber band effect where the end of the game would get extra difficult it was like NBA Jam would do that you'd be kicking the computer's ass and all of a sudden it would just come back I can't remember if Blitz does that same thing it's been a while what Blitz will do right here is you'll fumble the ball out of nowhere or they'll pick you off Yeah. It's the computer keeping it close. It's crazy how the AI did that. But I guess, you know what? If there's anything cool about that, it evokes this pressure while you're playing. Like, oh my gosh, I got to win, you know? And so, yeah, that's pretty cool. And also, it probably sucked a lot of quarters, too.
    27:42
    Well, along with that, a way to win the NBA Jam is don't go out ahead so quick. Oh, really? Let it stay close or let them go out ahead of you And then you can make the comeback Oh that cool It usually works Yeah that weird I loved NBA Jam but it was like I played it more on a console than I did in the arcade. So I have to revisit NBA Jam, I think. I also need to revisit Blitz. Definitely. This one's fun. Yeah, for sure. It doesn't take a lot of thought. You don't have to worry about plays or too many plays or knowing a playbook or knowing defenses too well. You just smash people. All right. So I got to admit, it's a pretty good list. But I said you could have some honorable mentions. So what other games? Like, rattle them off real quick. Like, which ones? Top. Top for you. Top games that are not here. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you have them or not. 720 Degrees. Paperboy. Oh, Paperboy's great. Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong Jr. I keep one of the classic game collections in my collection so I can play Amidar. And I can play Pango because I don't have those alone. So those are easy. Those ones I could play all day long as well.
    28:55
    All right, Dave, it's beer time. Thanks for today. Today was super fun. Thank you. This is the what motivates you to collect, the why. The why. Yeah. So like, obviously, the theme that I noticed when we were going through your top games is a lot of it's rooted in the nostalgia of that game of that period of time for you. So it was like something drew you to that game. You probably played it a ton. And now, I would think, and you got to tell me, but for me, I feel like if it's a game, at some point in time, not only do I like the game, but it takes me back to that moment. So what is it for you? You said it. I mean, it's the same type of thing. But the why and why I do it and why I got into it would be, you know, I didn't start out to have a collection like this. You know, I grew up in the 80s going to the arcade, riding my bike to the arcade, having arcades available. Yeah. So it was not like mid-'90s when it was dead, 2000s dead. You know, I grew up playing. I remember all these games coming out, the excitement of the games, the excitement of being in the arcade and having a good time. It brings back all of that for me. When I picked up the first game, you know, I had no idea this was going to happen. I actually sold that game, came back here to Arizona, and I picked up a pinball. That was what got me back into it. All right. And then I started looking and it just rolled from there. It's just so cool. It's so cool. When I open the doors for most people to come in, whether they're going to buy a game from me, whether they're looking for something, their eyes light up. They come in here and they're kids again. I love it. They come in and it is just everything that I remember as a kid seeing. So it's fun. That's awesome. So we probably crossed over time periods with games. So what you said sort of resonates with me because I feel like we, you know, you talk about the time period that you remember. And I feel like there's, you know, there was obviously the time where arcades started just becoming like extinct almost. And they're back now in a different form. In the arcade at my time, it was 80s games, but like the 90s stuff. It was like they still kept those classics around because people were still playing them. So it was interesting. So I love hearing that. And I think when you said people come in here and they get excited, I think you can get multiple generations they get excited about for different reasons. Like someone might be like, this Donkey Kong's awesome. And someone else might just go, oh my gosh, Mortal Kombat was my game. And that's what they remember. So did you ever imagine ever that it would turn into this? Like ever?
    31:28
    No. In my head, I had four games in my house. That's all it was ever going to be. I was happy with that. Yeah.
    31:37
    You see what happens. Well, you realize that this is therapy for a lot of people. Whether or not they know it or not, there's a lot of people that are like-minded, that love these games and want to collect them. And so I feel like it can feel like it's maybe a sickness at first, but there's way worse things that people could be into. And I agree with you, it's super fun. What do you think the future of this hobby is? Because we see these prices going up and things are getting crazy. So what do you think? I think certain games are always going to be in demand, but there's always going to be a lot of them. Donkey Kongs, Pac-Man, Galaga's, they're out there. There's enough around. So I don't see those prices going crazy. It's the hard games to find. It's the rare games. Those are the ones that I think are going to go high, stay high. Unfortunately, what's going to happen is unless you've got the younger generation coming in with a lot of money to keep it going, it's going to price a lot of people out of it. And then you've got people with arcade one up, and they go and they get that because they can get four or five games on there. And then they actually devalue some of these arcades because of it. Because I feel like if no one preserves them eventually, it will just go to the landfill. Yeah, and I don't want that to happen. I know you don't. Anyway, you did mention one thing. There was one last thing. You said that some games are really rare. And you happen to have a rare game that we just found out went on an auction for a ridiculous price. It did. And you have one of them. I have one. But you didn't know that it was going for that. We just found that out live. I didn't know. So I kind of want to go check that game out. What game is it again? It's an Asteroids game that Atari licensed to Sega to make. All right. Let's check it. Do you think it'll power on? We can give it a shot. All right. Before we go, we're going to see if that power's on. And I know you keep saying I'm going to play Rastan, but I'm just saying that ain't happening. Like, I don't want to be embarrassed. It's not going to happen.
    33:28
    Maybe. Maybe I will. Maybe. Maybe I will. What are you thinking? Yeah, no. Never mind. David! It says Sega Asteroids. Sega was an Atari game. What is this thing?
    33:42
    As far as I know, Atari licensed Sega to make Asteroids. I believe it was in Japan only. Okay. It's the only one I've ever seen. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure why it's got a joystick. Somebody may have done some kind of modification on it. It probably had buttons on it, similar to what's right here. The cabinet itself, as you see, has got Sundance. Yeah, it says Sundance on one side. It's a Sega cabinet. Sundance, there's a blog on Sundance online about that game being very, very rare. When I got this, it was Asteroids. So I don't really know a lot about the Sundance part. I did see, actually, on that auction that they just had, there must have been one of these on there. It was playing Asteroids, right, I think? Well, they said it was a Sega Asteroids at the auction. I'd like to see a picture. I didn't see the picture of it. How much did they go for again?
    34:35
    God, I don't remember. It was like over $2,000. It was a lot. It has like a Sega badge on the back. And it's almost like a disclaimer saying like, hey, it's a Sega cabinet, but it's running Atari software or something. Exactly. Even on the screen it says Atari. Yeah, it says Atari. Even the game says Atari. This is cool, man. This is like one of those like, did you know that it was? I mean, you had to know it was somewhat rare, but probably maybe not to the extent that. Not to what I found out later. I picked this up with... I had some cool stuff with this. It was this. It was a gauntlet with a volleyball in it, a pinball, and I got a Zeke's Peak. I don't even know what that is. Ice cold beer? Oh, ice cold beer. Zeke's Peak is like the harder to find brother of that one. Oh, I haven't even heard of that. Doing the balls. Yeah, I had one of those. Oh, nice. And the weird thing is it's got some like death fan in there. It's got a fan that looks like it could kill you if you get too close to it. It's like a metal-bladed fan. Run, coward.
    35:31
    The David Sullivan Rastan Challenge. I got this. You're going to lose. How am I doing so far? Really good.
    35:43
    Bye, David. You give me an A ring? Awful. Time for you to school me on it. I really didn't know what to expect going into this. I told Mason I had an idea to capture the people behind the collections. What drives them to collect? Why do they even do it? It's different for everyone, but there's one common thread that connects us all. Nostalgia. A longing affection for the past.
    36:19
    These are more than games to us. they take us back to a time and a place that we adored and cherished. We can't get that time back, but we can hold on to what it was and breathe new life into the games along the way. I'm so glad David is one of these people because with him, he's helping the mission. He's truly chasing nostalgia. And that, my friends, is pretty damn cool.
    36:50
    you