Transcript
Speaker: On today's episode, we talk with Kelsey Lewin, co-owner of Pink Gorilla Games, about her similar experiences in small video game retail, the things one can do to exercise mental health, and how the love of your hobby means knowing when to put it down for other things.
Speaker: In the past, I would just kind of stay at the store forever until...
Speaker: the feeling magically went away and it never did.
Speaker: It's just like, if I just work until there's no more work to do, then this will stop feeling bad.
Speaker: But, you know, that's not, believe it or not, not a super good way to handle that.
Speaker: So, yeah, I definitely lean on, you know, having kind of other things going on in my life that I can turn to.
Speaker: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Humanity Scudu.
Speaker: This is our fifth episode, and this evening we have guest Kelsey Lewin from Pink Gorilla Games up in Seattle.
Speaker: Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker: Hi, how are you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm doing great.
Speaker: How are you doing?
Speaker: I'm fantastic.
Speaker: Down here in Albuquerque where it's cold but never snowy.
Speaker: How's weather up there?
Speaker: It's mostly just like, actually right now it's okay.
Speaker: The thing I don't like about Seattle winters is it also usually doesn't snow.
Speaker: It just kind of gets very wet.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And the cold feeling kind of never leaves because you're always slightly wet.
Speaker: The cold, soggy feeling is maybe arguably worse.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was up in Portland, not but a couple weeks ago, and I remember just stepping into disgusting wet leaves, and I was like, this is just unpleasant.
Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty much Seattle winter.
Speaker: It's okay right now.
Speaker: And I was just up in a snowier part of Washington up in the Cascades.
Speaker: And so I bought myself a very fluffy jacket.
Speaker: So now I'm totally fine.
Speaker: I have a very overkill jacket for the low of 38 it gets here.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha.
Speaker: Is that sort of like the lowest you guys get up in that area is not really like too much below freezing?
Speaker: Um, yeah, we'll get down to like maybe 28, um, a little, you know, for a few days a week or a few days over the winter, but, um, no, it never, like we do get a little bit of snow every year.
Speaker: Um, at least that's been the case for the past like eight years or so.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's not too bad.
Speaker: It's, it never gets like really freezing, like really, truly bone chilling freezing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, that's good at least.
Speaker: So like, it's, it's uncomfortable, but it's never like dire.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Well, so this is an exciting moment for me because you and I are both video game store owners.
Speaker: And what I love about the idea of video game stores is that every ecosystem holds such a wildly different experience, different parts of the state, different parts of the world.
Speaker: And, you know, what is big and popular one place might not be elsewhere.
Speaker: but also the clientele, the presentation.
Speaker: And you've been doing this for a while, I understand.
Speaker: How long have you been in the business?
Speaker: 10 years at this point, and I've co-owned our stores for six and a half-ish, I guess.
Speaker: So yeah, we're coming up on seven.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Did you buy out a previous owner or...
Speaker: Yeah, so actually, my background is I moved up to Seattle.
Speaker: I got a job at Pink Gorilla Games.
Speaker: I became a manager at Pink Gorilla Games, and the previous owner was kind of looking to get out of it.
Speaker: So myself and my business partner, who was also a manager at the time, were basically like, you know, we were...
Speaker: We were definitely the kind of employees that you could totally exploit because we just enjoyed the sort of... And now I'm very cautious as an owner to not create little me's, but we just really loved what we did.
Speaker: We loved kind of being able to be a part of the community and building that atmosphere and everything.
Speaker: So we were very...
Speaker: We did some unpaid labor, I guess we'll say, you know, ran events for free just out of the out of out of loving doing it.
Speaker: And yeah, so when he was kind of looking to get out of this, we just jumped at the chance and we're like, not only, you know, are we going to take this over, you know, we know the business inside and out.
Speaker: We had both been there for, I mean, for my part, I had been there for about four, maybe five years, and he had been there a little bit longer, about six years.
Speaker: And we just, I don't know, we believed we could, I don't, I hate to say do it better, because God bless the previous owner.
Speaker: I love him too.
Speaker: But like, you know, just be a lot more involved and really kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, so and it's been it's been good since.
Speaker: So that's that's my background is I got to come into it kind of from the inside, which is a unique position and also a, you know, it's fortunate in some ways because at the very least, like, you know, the leases were already signed.
Speaker: We already had, you know, signs on the doors and everything.
Speaker: I mean, I'm I am discovering opening a third location.
Speaker: There is a whole lot of tiny things that, you know,
Speaker: you know, I had not yet had to deal with because all we've the most we've done is move a store location across the building from one unit to another.
Speaker: So this is our first time kind of starting from scratch with that.
Speaker: And there are, you know, like you think, like I said, I've been doing this for 10 years.
Speaker: You think you kind of know all the ins and outs.
Speaker: And then it's like you need a permit for this kind of sign.
Speaker: And then you got to pay it like.
Speaker: You know, it's all kinds of I got to drill holes in the concrete so that we can like put this kind of lock in.
Speaker: I mean, all all manner of fun, random things like that.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: OK, so you've got the two locations.
Speaker: You're opening up number three any moment now.
Speaker: I mean, you guys are what a couple of weeks out is what it sounds like.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: January 1st is what we have been.
Speaker: Um, so I purposefully put on our flyers, January, 2023.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, we've been, you know, kind of privately saying January 1st and maybe even telling customers and stuff that, but, um,
Speaker: That is the goal.
Speaker: That is at least an 85% chance to happen.
Speaker: I feel pretty good about it, but it's like you just never know.
Speaker: And a couple weeks out, it's really hard to gauge.
Speaker: It's like it looks like it'll make it, but who knows?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, I mean, in the industry, the way a lot of things work as well, too, is when you say January, that gives you some ambiguity to say, well, we might have meant January 31st.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I can't see it being later than like January 7th, but you know, it's possible.
Speaker: But it still gives you a little bit of wiggle room just in case without lying.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, I mean, and, and as a small business owner, when we were getting prepared to open up our secondary spot for new game, plus, you know, the gaming center we rejected April of 2020.
Speaker: We signed our papers in February and like, man, this is going to happen.
Speaker: And then the world in March just kept getting progressively worse.
Speaker: And you just think,
Speaker: this isn't going to happen.
Speaker: This just simply might not happen.
Speaker: And ultimately we delayed it and made it work.
Speaker: But it sounds like the world has gone a little bit back to normal.
Speaker: You guys have been running these shops for quite some time now.
Speaker: Now, did you, you purchased both shops and then moved to one?
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: And actually, at the time there were three.
Speaker: So Pinkerella has had at
Speaker: At one point, we even had four locations.
Speaker: Now, locations three and four were never very good.
Speaker: They were never in particularly good spots.
Speaker: I don't feel like they were... One of them made a lot of sense because it was basically part of a building that the owner already owned.
Speaker: So it just kind of made sense, even though it didn't make sense.
Speaker: It's not a good store location, but it's essentially a free store location.
Speaker: So why not?
Speaker: And so, I mean, we've had more than two, but it's been, I mean, it's been almost seven years since we've had more than two locations.
Speaker: And I'm, I think that we've done very well.
Speaker: I have no like world domination plans.
Speaker: Like I have no delusions of grandeur here.
Speaker: I'm not trying to take over the world.
Speaker: I would be surprised if we did a fourth, it would probably be, you know, once I've like
Speaker: taken several steps back and believe in someone else's, uh, you know, entrepreneurial spirit and, uh, and effort and everything.
Speaker: Cause this isn't, I mean, you haven't mentioned it yet, but this isn't even my only job.
Speaker: I also work full time for the video game history foundation.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: I, I'm very excited to be opening a third location.
Speaker: I think it's in a great spot.
Speaker: It's in the Capitol Hill part of Seattle, which is, you know, kind of like a, it's where a lot of the cool restaurants and cool bars and stuff are.
Speaker: It's near a college.
Speaker: It's not like the biggest college in Seattle, but it is near a college.
Speaker: And it's just, it's a type of area that I think that we,
Speaker: are very familiar with our other two stores.
Speaker: It's sort of a blend of the two because we're next to the University of Washington for one of our locations.
Speaker: And then we're in sort of a touristy downtown area in the International District.
Speaker: Um, and so this feels like kind of a blend of those two.
Speaker: It's a little university and it's a little touristy.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, just kind of like the, um, the cool part of downtown to live in.
Speaker: Um, so, uh, I feel very good about it.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, I don't, I don't know if I'm, uh, I don't know how many more we're going to go.
Speaker: I think, I think even when we had, you know, three or four, it's, it's tough.
Speaker: Cause especially if you want to be really involved, um,
Speaker: That becomes really hard past like two or maybe three stores.
Speaker: It's tough to just kind of really keep the pulse on all of them at the same time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, that's actually what I wanted to ask you, especially is trusting that somebody can help run and manage a store is one thing.
Speaker: But I mean, a lot of the, as I understand, you know, like with my experience.
Speaker: Putting yourself into the shop is so much a part of what makes your store stand out your passion your knowledge your Expertise and I mean really, you know what drives you and
Speaker: And I feel that if you go one too many, like you spread yourself so thin that none of the stores get the authentic you.
Speaker: And then the stores are simply stores with the branding and not so much your flavor.
Speaker: That is exactly that.
Speaker: Yeah, you basically just read my mind.
Speaker: I mean, that is exactly the fear.
Speaker: And like I said, I feel good about this third one because especially they're all in fairly close proximity, like not so close that, you know, we're eating food.
Speaker: each other i don't think but um you know close enough that like if you're visiting seattle and you want to hit all three of them in a day you absolutely can like you can totally hit all three of them in a day um and uh it also helps that i don't know if you know this there are no game stops in seattle anymore there's none oh fascinating i had no idea there's not a single game stop in the entire city of seattle there's some in like you know
Speaker: the suburbs but like the pretty deep suburbs like you got to get like 20 minutes outside of seattle to uh to have a single gamestop so we're actually going in um probably like four blocks from where a gamestop used to be downtown so i mean it's been a few years but it's one of those things where i'm like clearly this used to be able to support a gamestop so like there's there's demand for that here sure yeah and now um
Speaker: Uh, this is fun because I've got a lot of relatable questions that I want to, you know, share with you are, um, are you guys going to be focusing on like new games in any way?
Speaker: Cause you probably still have best buys and Walmarts and targets and a couple of places that happen to carry that, but it's certainly not like a main focus.
Speaker: Um, is that something, you know, cause we started dabbling with new games a couple of years ago and we do fine with it.
Speaker: It's not like something that excels, but we also have separate game stops here in town.
Speaker: Are you guys going to be focusing on the whole spectrum or is used, import, more niche merchandise still going to be part of your design?
Speaker: I mean, I think that's the used, import, and merchandise and that sort of thing.
Speaker: That's the sort of stuff that gives Pinkerella its identity so much more than anything else, really.
Speaker: So I definitely never want to swallow that.
Speaker: And also, I mean...
Speaker: We do carry some new stuff.
Speaker: And as you kind of alluded to, it does fine.
Speaker: It is very low margin for some behind the scenes there.
Speaker: Like you're never going to get rich off of it unless you can do it at the scale of a Best Buy or something like that.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: So 10,000 copies of any game.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: We've done, if we can afford 10,000 copies of any game, we're already doing fine.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing, right?
Speaker: I can't remember how many copies of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet we got, but it was,
Speaker: i think it was like three or four hundred of them or something and like that is for a small business that is a scary amount of uh of capital just kind of have floating and the like i hope people buy this and we still haven't sold through them but we've at least you know sold through enough of them for it to not be scary i i assume people are going to continue buying pokemon so i'm not that worried about it but like ultimately yeah
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I mean, just to answer your question.
Speaker: Yeah, I do want to definitely keep making sure we have a decent selection of new stuff at our store.
Speaker: Although I will say most of the new stuff we carry is Nintendo Switch.
Speaker: Yeah, that seems like it's a better seller.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, we carry, you know, larger releases.
Speaker: And I don't even mean, like, it's not just Call of Duty and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Like, we'll carry, you know, any new Square Enix game or something like that, too.
Speaker: So we do carry some PS5 and a little bit of Xbox as well.
Speaker: But the Switch stuff is, at least for, you know, physical copies of it, is in demand at a rate...
Speaker: far, far higher than any of the other systems.
Speaker: So yes, we're definitely going to be carrying new games.
Speaker: It will probably look mostly like a brand new Switch section as opposed to like what a GameStop looks like.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the margins, like you said, are so low that some people will come up to me and say, John, I just want to support your store with new games.
Speaker: And it's like, this is theoretically great, but you're giving me dollars, you know?
Speaker: And so don't worry too much if you don't buy a new game from me.
Speaker: The sentiment is there.
Speaker: And, you know, it's more a matter of convenience, I think, to carry them as well as encouraging people to maybe trade towards new stuff and build inventory that way.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, that's very helpful for brand new releases is, you know, you get maybe two of recent Switch games in exchange for the new one or something.
Speaker: So we have a lot of business technicalities in common as well.
Speaker: Now, what it comes down to, what I wanted to really sort of like dive into is...
Speaker: Community is such a huge part of the game.
Speaker: You really want to be social.
Speaker: You want to be affable.
Speaker: You really want to build up trust with the community, a place where people go, not even necessarily to buy, but to interact, to hang out with you, the other employees, other people that they might meet at the shop.
Speaker: And it really is building a sense of community that we've been focusing on for our stores.
Speaker: The community up in Seattle, I mean, because you're just a bigger city than Albuquerque,
Speaker: So what is your experience like in terms of community building?
Speaker: I mean, you know, you said you mentioned events, but how far do you guys go to sort of push that community?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, we don't do a ton of events.
Speaker: And I can tell that you and your stores do more for sort of building a local community than we do.
Speaker: And, you know, I think it's really cool and I would love to be able to do even more of it.
Speaker: But the kind of nice thing about Seattle, and maybe this isn't unique, but I definitely feel like we just, it's pretty natural and easy for us to just kind of
Speaker: become a place where people want to at least come hang out and do, you know, we have regulars who come in at least every week, if not multiple times a week, and they're not buying every buying something every single time, but like just to kind of stop in.
Speaker: This won't be the only time I do this on this podcast, but my employees are incredible.
Speaker: I don't know about you, but I hire for friendliness and customer service way before I hire for ability to know what year Mario Bros.
Speaker: came out or something like that.
Speaker: That stuff can be taught, but you can't teach, you know, just being a fun person to be around.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You have to have a personality that people choose to like seek out.
Speaker: You know, I want and I tell my employees, you know, present yourself as if someone requests you, as if someone wants to be around you because your experience is good.
Speaker: Ooh, I really like that.
Speaker: I might use, I might steal that one.
Speaker: Yeah, please.
Speaker: I mean, by all means.
Speaker: But it sounds like, I mean, we're fairly similar on that as well, too, is making the store an appropriately social place to be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I mean, we do some events.
Speaker: So most of the events that we do at this point are just like when we are really excited about a game, when there's people in the store who are really excited about a game and therefore kind of want to host or be around it.
Speaker: So in the past, we've done a ton of Monster Hunter events because myself and my business partner are both really into that game and then several employees are as well.
Speaker: So
Speaker: you know, just kind of a, it started all the way back with, I think, I want to say we did it for the first time with 3G, maybe it was 4U, but like, you know, this is 3DS era, so people were sitting there with like spreadsheets in front of them, and, you know, now Monster Hunter doesn't require spreadsheets, so.
Speaker: Sure, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Which is probably for the best, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But can we talk for a second about how the 3DS era might have been the best social era in gaming maybe ever?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I mean, StreetPass alone.
Speaker: I have no idea why that hasn't been brought back.
Speaker: That was another really just nice thing, you know, about the stores being a good place for people to just kind of wander in.
Speaker: It's like, bare minimum, you can always come in and get your daily StreetPasses, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, get some puzzle pieces.
Speaker: Yeah, myself and one or two other employees will probably have their 3DS on them.
Speaker: Like, you're at least going to get one or two.
Speaker: Yeah, I miss that.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember going to some of the trade conventions, E3.
Speaker: And if you have your 3DS out, like, I mean, within minutes, you have 10 people to cycle through, get your stuff, close it, do it again all day long.
Speaker: It was just madness.
Speaker: And yeah, I'm kind of sad that it hasn't been tapped into that same degree again.
Speaker: But maybe that was sort of that like Iwata magic that was just the lightning in the bottle, you know.
Speaker: So the stores are one thing.
Speaker: But you're also working for the Video Game History Foundation, Preservation Foundation?
Speaker: I don't remember the name exactly.
Speaker: No, you got it.
Speaker: You got it.
Speaker: It's the Video Game History Foundation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: History Foundation.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so this, to me, you also sent us some stickers recently, which I've just given out to people at the shop because they're super cool.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Yay.
Speaker: And you donated to our winter fundraiser.
Speaker: So your stores were a part of that too.
Speaker: So I don't want to, don't sell yourself short.
Speaker: Happy to help.
Speaker: I mean, you know, video game, uh,
Speaker: Everything is it's important to us.
Speaker: You know, it's it's far more than hobby.
Speaker: It's really it is a lifestyle.
Speaker: We've been doing this, you know, for God knows how long as soon as we can pick up a controller and never want to see it go away.
Speaker: But how did your involvement with that start?
Speaker: Um, so basically, I mean, I'm someone who has for a pretty long time been very interested in, I want to say video game history, but really what it was, was that there were all of these pieces of video game history, or, you know, just video games that I was seeing come through, um,
Speaker: The shop, this goes back to before I even owned it, that I was like, how did this get made?
Speaker: Like, why is this a thing?
Speaker: You know, the first one I remember feeling that way about was Paki and Marlon on the Super Nintendo, which is a...
Speaker: Yeah, it's a game about diabetic elephants on the Super Nintendo.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I was like, you know, I'm just like, this is, you know, I'd heard of edutainment before, so it's not like a totally foreign concept, but I'm just like, how, why was something like this made?
Speaker: Or, you know, the Game Boy sewing machine.
Speaker: And when you look it up, like for the most part, most of the, you know,
Speaker: There wasn't really any history about these things.
Speaker: If you saw content about it, it was mostly to make fun of it.
Speaker: Oftentimes, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, what I was kind of getting.
Speaker: So if I was trying to figure out why the Game Boy sewing machine existed, I could Google that and the results would be like, because they're stupid, ha ha.
Speaker: It's like, well, I don't think anyone, as a business owner, I don't think anyone...
Speaker: like sets out to be stupid or have a bad idea you know like this clearly did not come from nothing so what was what were they at least trying to do even if you think it's terrible right so yeah sometimes weird partnerships crop up and you're just kind of like you know there's as in yeah and so the history are you saying is to really like find out the why and the uh to give people more factual information about the existence of things
Speaker: Yeah, so I mean, well, that was my start in it was I was just really interested in some of these stories.
Speaker: And I was like, well, if no one else has told them, maybe I should start trying to tell them.
Speaker: And so I had a YouTube channel for a little while where I would do very extensive research into some of these, you know, stranger things and try to do the story justice and explain why, you know,
Speaker: explain it in a way that wasn't just like, haha, this is stupid.
Speaker: Explain it in a way that's like, here's why this came about.
Speaker: And here's what they were saying about it at the time.
Speaker: And here's what, you know, what they were trying to do with it.
Speaker: And so, but as I was doing that, you know, I was just very frustrated with like,
Speaker: You know, I'd research for like 50 plus hours and was just finding crumbs.
Speaker: And I'm like, I know that, you know, these are consumer products like and there's the people who worked on them might even still be alive.
Speaker: Like, why is there no information anywhere?
Speaker: Why is it so difficult for me to tell these stories?
Speaker: And so that led me to.
Speaker: the Video Game History Foundation, which had just launched at the time.
Speaker: It launched in, like, publicly launched in February of 2017, and that was kind of my peak frustrated historian.
Speaker: So, basically, I just reached out and was like, look, I don't know what help you need, but I've got a degree in communications.
Speaker: I've got some, you know, PR experience, some business experience.
Speaker: Like, can I, like...
Speaker: you know, just can I just help out?
Speaker: Can I do your PR?
Speaker: Can I do something like that?
Speaker: And
Speaker: Essentially, I just kind of bothered the founder, Frank Cifaldi, until he relented and just started volunteering a bunch and warmed my way in, basically.
Speaker: Sort of the key to success is simply bother the right people enough until they sort of concede.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that's how I got my first job at a video game store.
Speaker: It was a local spot in 1997, is I hung out with the owner frequently enough, and I was like, hey, can I have a job yet?
Speaker: And he just goes,
Speaker: When can you start?
Speaker: I was just like, yes, you know, and I don't actually encourage people, you know, berating people into submission.
Speaker: But that's a that's a really exciting opportunity.
Speaker: And I'm super excited to sort of see.
Speaker: Now, is this it is strictly online archives and like is there going to be.
Speaker: I'm woefully unaware, actually.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: I'll explain.
Speaker: So we are a physical archive in Emeryville, California, which is just outside of Oakland.
Speaker: And, you know, our entire staff right now is three people, which is actually huge.
Speaker: It's up from, you know, zero paid pay.
Speaker: full-time staff when I started.
Speaker: So we have a full-time librarian and then myself and the other co-director.
Speaker: And so there's a physical archive, but the real like meat of the product is, well, I guess let me, let me back up a little bit.
Speaker: So the physical archive has a lot of stuff.
Speaker: The, the kind of meat of the collection is, uh,
Speaker: us video game magazines we have video game magazines from all regions from all you know time periods but we have a nearly complete collection of every us video game magazine from you know all of all of history and what i i mean you might be like okay yeah that's probably a lot of magazines like no it is it is so it is
Speaker: 10,000 plus magazines like it is so many magazines um and that's mostly because um just as a researcher or a historian magazines are a very like dense uh way of studying video game history like you know if you pick up a magazine from 1994 or whatever like you're going to get
Speaker: not only information about the games that were coming out then, but you're also going to kind of get like, okay, what are people talking about at the time?
Speaker: Why is this, you know, what are people excited about or fearful of?
Speaker: Or like you just kind of get this 3D picture that not a lot of other sources give you.
Speaker: But we also collect developer archives.
Speaker: That's a huge part of the collection is trying to, because, you know, video games are kind of a...
Speaker: kind of a closed box, you know, like a kind of a black box product that, you know, companies don't really let you see behind the scenes of very much or they do.
Speaker: It's very selective.
Speaker: And you have, you know, a couple of exceptions to that, like Double Fine is very good about showing off.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Sometimes the no-clip documentary guys can, you know, get in somewhere and give you a good picture.
Speaker: But for the most part, you know, game development is very closed off.
Speaker: So, you know, we have a lot of, we have a very large focus on trying to, you know, find developers, particularly older developers, and, you know, see what they've still saved, see if any of it
Speaker: can be saved because a lot of stuff was like, okay, well, I backed up my hard drive on floppy or on tape or something, but you know, who knows if that's still going to work.
Speaker: And then, so, I mean, the, the actual mission of the foundation is that we are, I mean, the, the mission statement is that we're preserving, celebrating and educating people on, on video game history.
Speaker: But the, what that really means functionally is like,
Speaker: we want it to not be insanely hard for people to tell the stories of video game history.
Speaker: Like we want it to be easier.
Speaker: We want,
Speaker: If you walk into a Barnes & Noble, I want there to be just as many games about video games and it's many books about video games as there are about music as there are about movies, because there should be.
Speaker: And right now it's just really hard to research.
Speaker: So that's the physical archive.
Speaker: But the you know, the what we're really trying to do and is a huge project for I mean, it's it's been going this entire time, but is really finally starting to to come together.
Speaker: is a digital archive that people can access from, from anywhere.
Speaker: So that's being built right now.
Speaker: That is the librarians job most days is working on that.
Speaker: We've,
Speaker: We've digitized a ton of stuff.
Speaker: It's just not, you know, it's like, it's a bunch of data.
Speaker: It's not like a thing that's fun or easy to search through right now.
Speaker: So that's what's kind of being built.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Well, it sounds very much like the moving a mountain one grain of sand at a time.
Speaker: And I can't even imagine the singular scanning of every page of over 10,000 magazines alone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And with the magazines, I mean, so we don't,
Speaker: the ones that are on our shelves are not scanned but we have scanned um like over 1100 magazines just this last year but we we try to scan duplicates because in order to like really get a good scan of a magazine you have to destroy it um you have to oh shoot okay you know take it out of its binding and everything right yeah so um you know and we're cross-referencing with uh things that have already been scanned so that is 1100 magazines that
Speaker: had not been scanned yet or at the very least I think a couple of them were like you know scans that were done in 2004 and so they're like 100 dpi or like something really terrible so there's a couple that we redid but for the most part it's it's 1100 magazines that had never been scanned before so wow
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay, so you have the physical location.
Speaker: Now, is this some place that people can go visit and check it out?
Speaker: Or is it simply physical for the sake of having a contained unit for this stuff to live?
Speaker: It's really small.
Speaker: So we are by appointment only, and we don't have a ton of slots because, I mean, it is literally... I mean, I live in Seattle, so it is two people that work in that very tiny...
Speaker: uh office slash library so it's it is not a like fully staffed library but that doesn't mean it's closed it just means like you gotta like email me or something and we'll figure something out just we don't we don't fling the doors wide open unfortunately no that makes a lot of sense i was sort of curious to see if you know like you and a group of friends could like yeah come in and check stuff out for the day because that's a great theoretical but also i understand like the the
Speaker: there has to be a limit.
Speaker: And especially if it really is.
Speaker: That's the goal.
Speaker: I mean, if we're on, if we get to a place where we're even, if our library is even like twice the size of what it is right now, I mean, at that point, at least there's room for some furniture and stuff.
Speaker: Like we have, there's a desk in there, but the desk is also our digitization station.
Speaker: So it's got like,
Speaker: the giant scanner and the big like chip reader and dumper and everything.
Speaker: And it's, it's, it is not a big enough facility right now for like what we do and want to do, but, but we're getting there.
Speaker: I mean, it's at the very least a nice, like, you know, we, we absolutely will show people around in there and it's a, it's a nice way to do that.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Someday I would hope to actually like make my way out there and just check it out physically, even by appointment, walk in and even just take it in.
Speaker: Now, something that I really sort of like getting into is, you know, it sounds like there's a lot of really great stuff in your future, a lot of stuff going really well right now.
Speaker: But I know that as a business owner, you know, and I've had my store for about 15 years is, I can't lie, there's been moments where it's been, I mean, phenomenal.
Speaker: And there's been moments where it's just sort of like, you know, I'm done.
Speaker: But there have been moments in the middle of the road that have just been like, I simply am so defeated, I don't know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know where to go.
Speaker: I don't know if I've got the passion anymore.
Speaker: Like the fire is just as dim as it gets.
Speaker: Have you had moments like that where you sort of look at everything and you say, I should be loving this more than I do, or God, like this is too much.
Speaker: I don't know what's next.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, I am very lucky having a business partner because it kind of gives us both a little bit of space to sometimes be like, I'm not, I can't right now, you know, like I'm, I'm overworked and I'm just not feeling it right now.
Speaker: It, it makes it
Speaker: it makes it a little easier to navigate those moments.
Speaker: I was, when I was doing this full time, yeah, that was definitely more of a, it's hard, especially at first, I think, to kind of learn how to take time off.
Speaker: And, and it's one of those things too, where I feel like,
Speaker: You know how people say like if your room is messy, like you're just going to kind of stay depressed, like it's hard to be happy in a really messy room.
Speaker: And the stores will get like that too, where you just like you're not, your heart isn't in it as much as you want it to be at that moment.
Speaker: And you're also looking around and seeing like so many things you want to change.
Speaker: And it's just this paralyzing feeling of like, I don't have the energy to fix these things that would probably make me feel better about everything.
Speaker: So I've definitely been there before.
Speaker: I'm lucky that, like I said, I'm lucky I have...
Speaker: um you know both another outlet and also uh a business partner that allows you know allows for me to kind of feel those things without it feeling catastrophic but you know i 15 years is a really long time and it's a very um like it's a very impressive amount of time for a game store to to be around so i mean i
Speaker: Do you have a, not to turn the tables on the interview here, but like,
Speaker: do you have a long-term plan for like you, I think we both know neither of us can do this for like 60 years, right?
Speaker: Like there's just no way.
Speaker: As much as I would theoretically love to.
Speaker: I'm getting old and every day is a little creakier.
Speaker: So, yeah, I don't, at this point, it very much is sort of like seeing, it's playing it by ear, you know, and maybe it's every three months I sort of reassess and go, how's it going?
Speaker: Sort of like a mental health check-in and, you know, is this where I want to be?
Speaker: So I just play it by ear at this point.
Speaker: You know, I don't know what's next.
Speaker: I don't know what the timeframe looks like at all.
Speaker: And I'm kind of okay with that at this point.
Speaker: You know, there's been moments, I think, where it's been a lot more amplified, especially when you have things like someone steals something as a bummer.
Speaker: But when somebody breaks in the shop and you get a phone call in the middle of the night, it's just like, it's crushing, you know?
Speaker: Like, have you guys had any really major incidents of that sort that have just sort of like made you just take a step back and go, I just, I don't know.
Speaker: I can't tell if you're asking because you know what I'm going to say or if you're actually asking.
Speaker: 2022 was the... It wasn't just the worst year for it.
Speaker: It was an inconceivable change in that kind of stuff happening around us.
Speaker: So we, you know, the store has been around for...
Speaker: 16 17 years at this point we have never had any really major break-ins we had plenty of theft and that's just like i people will exactly like that is just the nature of the game and it doesn't matter where you are you can be in the middle of nowhere you can be in the middle of a city you can be in a red state blue state purple state doesn't matter like theft is just part of the game um
Speaker: But we really hadn't had any major problems with it until 2022.
Speaker: And I think our first break-in might have been last year.
Speaker: But I mean, we had... At our international district store, we had a rash of them.
Speaker: Like we had a... One happened while I was out of town for my birthday, which is just the worst thing to wake up in the middle of the night too, because I can't even...
Speaker: do anything about it.
Speaker: And again, thank God I have a business partner.
Speaker: And then we had, I mean, we had
Speaker: a week or maybe it was 10 days or something, but where it, the store was broken into, uh, once or no twice.
Speaker: And then we had a two different broken windows.
Speaker: So, and those, these were all separate incidents.
Speaker: Um, and it is crushing.
Speaker: It is so demoralizing.
Speaker: I am normally fairly strong about this stuff.
Speaker: I firmly believe that stuff is just stuff.
Speaker: I hate replacing windows more than I hate thinking about what was stolen.
Speaker: Like the window is so much, please just like break the lock or something, please don't break the window.
Speaker: But yeah, like it was a, it was a very, very tough year for us.
Speaker: And we have unfortunately had to really step up security and it seems to have worked actually like pretty well.
Speaker: But I don't,
Speaker: like how much we've had to step up security.
Speaker: I mean, we now have cameras absolutely everywhere.
Speaker: We have an alarm system.
Speaker: We have gates at two of our stores, like a fold, you know, scissor gates that go over
Speaker: at our at our new location it goes over the entire storefront so all the windows and like we just we got to put the whole thing behind bars at night basically um and uh at our international district location um you know we're inside of a building and we had to sort of because the other businesses inside that building are just not like high theft target businesses so we had to kind of take the initiative and
Speaker: reinforce the doors in that building and put, put bars on the doors.
Speaker: Cause people were breaking in that glass and then breaking in to our place.
Speaker: So, um, you know, it's, it's been a tough year for it.
Speaker: It is, uh, it, it's definitely, um, there were some very low points for me in just the, like, you know, I'm sure you felt this way before too, where you're just like, I,
Speaker: Like not the small local business, like do this to Walmart.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Yes, more than enough.
Speaker: And of course, I don't encourage terrible behavior to any degree, but it's always like, why us?
Speaker: You benefit so little from stealing from a place like us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, I mean, that was really, really hard.
Speaker: And we finally, you know, kind of locked it all up and got to a place where we weren't checking the cameras at five in the morning every night because that was, you know, again, having a business partner, like I can see when he has accessed the cameras.
Speaker: And at some point we had a chat together where I was just like,
Speaker: look, both of us are waking up in the middle of the night and checking the cameras.
Speaker: Like we cannot live like this.
Speaker: This is bad.
Speaker: So we got to a point where we were not doing that.
Speaker: And then we had our first theft during open hours, major theft during open hours in which someone, someone came in with a weapon and demanded the register.
Speaker: So, and yeah,
Speaker: I am I mean, that was the one that really that really broke me because I mean, I wasn't there for it.
Speaker: And that made me feel even worse.
Speaker: And I'm sure you could relate.
Speaker: And just, you know, I I.
Speaker: That was a very tough thing.
Speaker: And, you know, just trying to figure out how to best protect employees.
Speaker: I really do think that was probably a one off, but it's still, you know, when you get to the point where you finally feel like, OK, I've locked everything down.
Speaker: This isn't going to happen again.
Speaker: It's like, well, I wasn't counting on that.
Speaker: So, right.
Speaker: And I. I don't know, I feel like I'm speaking about it sort of.
Speaker: I might not sound like I'm taking it seriously enough right now.
Speaker: And it's just because I have, I, it's been, it was such a difficult thing for, um, for all of my employees and stuff to go through.
Speaker: I mean, um, you know, we had a, we had like an emergency store meeting and, um, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't want to get too depressed.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: You're good.
Speaker: We are, we are definitely all like trying to move on from it.
Speaker: And I, I do feel, I do feel like we are, um,
Speaker: you know, reaching a, a, a safer thing now.
Speaker: I mean, that, that incident made all the local news stations and there's hopefully changes kind of happening to that area now to make that sort of thing a little bit less likely, but it's yeah, it was a, it was a rough year for it.
Speaker: And like I said, not, we had quite literally never had anything like this happen, not break-ins and certainly not, you know, the last thing that happened.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Um, I am, uh, I'm, I'm a little beaten down by 2022, but I feel much, much better about the next year.
Speaker: I'm glad you can look at the incident now and obviously not like laugh, but I mean, I know like when things get so heavy, it's almost as if you can do nothing but sit back and just sort of like chuckle.
Speaker: Cause there's no other emotion to express just the magnitude of frustration and like disbelief.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But during moments like that, I mean, you know, you have the partner who's supportive and that's an extremely good thing.
Speaker: But like, what do you do on sort of like the personal level to sort of even yourself back out?
Speaker: Because I know that like, you know, I go to therapy.
Speaker: I've got friends that I talk to.
Speaker: I work on trying to like meditate through these moments.
Speaker: And I have this meditation app on my phone that's like, hey, man, just take five minutes and just...
Speaker: give yourself a little bit of grace.
Speaker: What is it that sort of like helps recenter you and gets you back into the game in sort of like a healthy way?
Speaker: So I also go to therapy.
Speaker: I will say for that last incident, I don't think anything else would have helped other than what we did, which was get everybody together and just kind of have a
Speaker: You know, I wasn't really sure what the mood was going to be going into it.
Speaker: And I really just wanted to see where everyone else was at.
Speaker: And there was there was a lot of like gallows humor.
Speaker: There was, you know, some some fear, obviously, that we all kind of talked through.
Speaker: And I I.
Speaker: you know, actual therapy is, is vital, but I do feel like that was sort of a necessary part of the healing process from that.
Speaker: For me at least.
Speaker: And I don't know if I, I, I hope others feel the same that, you know, it was just, it was an opportunity to kind of everyone be like, okay, yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That just happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What do we all need?
Speaker: Cause that was crazy.
Speaker: But yeah, in general, I mean, I, I,
Speaker: I go to therapy.
Speaker: I usually try to do something productive somewhere else if that's like if I really am just feeling stuck.
Speaker: And that can be, you know, that can literally just be
Speaker: doing the laundry or having a nice long walk with the dog or something like that.
Speaker: But, you know, not in the past, I would just kind of stay at the store, uh,
Speaker: forever until the feeling magically went away and it never did.
Speaker: It's just like, if I just work until there's no more work to do, then this will stop feeling bad.
Speaker: But, um, you know, that's, that's not, believe it or not, not a super good way to handle that.
Speaker: So yeah, I definitely, I definitely lean on, um, you know, having kind of other things going on in my life that I can turn to, um, and not just work things.
Speaker: I mean, sometimes I'm just,
Speaker: like drawing instead of, uh, instead of working.
Speaker: Um, and yeah, having, having animals helps, I think too.
Speaker: Very much.
Speaker: I think, yeah, we're both animal people and sometimes retreating home after a long day, not even thinking about video games, but just like picking up a cat or a dog and just like burying your face and saying, just give me, you know, this is, this is what I need.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, having employees who really stand beside you and support you and even a community that loves you and helps you like sort of work through it is a really good bet.
Speaker: But I really think you tapped into something nice, which is no matter how much you love games, and I mean, clearly we're both inundated by it day in and day out.
Speaker: Stepping away from even that atmosphere for a second, I think has done good for me getting into art, going on walks, you know, like you said, I think those are phenomenal outlets.
Speaker: And no matter how much you you love your hobby or your job or whatever it might be, I so strongly condone finding just any place else to step away, even for a couple minutes a day.
Speaker: Yeah, and something I'll say that I think I'm actually just kind of thinking of this for the first time, but maybe this would have been helpful for me to hear.
Speaker: So maybe it'll be helpful for someone else.
Speaker: Like I have hobbies that I like much less than I like gaming and I still make sure I find time to do them, even though they are like a quote unquote
Speaker: you know, less enjoyable hobby.
Speaker: I feel like they're still, they're like necessary.
Speaker: It's like necessary to do something, even if you like it slightly less to just step out of it for a little bit.
Speaker: Like I, I sort of enjoy baking, but not like a ton.
Speaker: It's like, it's nice at the end.
Speaker: It's frustrating in the middle.
Speaker: It's like, but I will make sure I cook or bake every once in a while.
Speaker: And it's like, this just, this is good for me.
Speaker: It's good for me to do something like this.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Something new, maybe something outside of the comfort zone.
Speaker: I mean, something that you're, you're not proficient in, you know, if I pick up a video game, I'm usually pretty good at it.
Speaker: And that's, it's nice to sort of feel that like indulgence of like skill, but also it's nice for me to pick up a guitar and try to learn a new song that I'm not good at, you know, give myself a further objective.
Speaker: I like that advice a lot.
Speaker: Actually, I think it's kind of nice to cultivate sort of the untapped skill market.
Speaker: That's excellent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so I'm really excited that that you're doing.
Speaker: So when you started video games, I mean, what were you doing before before Pink Gorilla?
Speaker: I mean, like, where did the hobby of gaming start for you?
Speaker: You know, like, did you have a family who played?
Speaker: Was it you in isolation playing, renting games every weekend, playing games with friends?
Speaker: Like, what was that like to start for you?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I've kind of grown up with it.
Speaker: You know, I got my dad's original Game Boy when I was like four years old because he wasn't really using it.
Speaker: And, you know, Super Mario Land and Tetris and baseball.
Speaker: And those were the games I had.
Speaker: And eventually when Pokemon came out, I got that too.
Speaker: And so, I mean, I've been around games my entire life.
Speaker: I've always had at least...
Speaker: one or two consoles in the home, you know, as a kid and as a teenager and everything.
Speaker: I was always, like, at least sort of playing a video game.
Speaker: But I was never, like... I was never a devourer of all games.
Speaker: I had some games that I absolutely loved that I did devour.
Speaker: And then in between, I might be, like, kind of poking at something.
Speaker: But I wasn't like, oh, God, what's the next thing I need to play?
Speaker: What's the... You know?
Speaker: And I think partially for that reason, I didn't really...
Speaker: think about the fact that there was a game industry until I was like embarrassingly old.
Speaker: Like it, like it was, it was in college that I was like, Oh, you can like work in video games.
Speaker: This is an industry, you know, like they're not just pieces of entertainment.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I grew up playing games and liking them.
Speaker: That's why I wanted to get a job at a video game store is cause it was definitely something I enjoyed.
Speaker: And but, you know, I didn't think I was going to go into it as a career.
Speaker: And I certainly didn't think I was going to go into it as two careers.
Speaker: So, you know, I went I went to college thinking I was going to go into like sports marketing or something like that.
Speaker: My some of my family works in sports and I was like, well, I like sports.
Speaker: That's an industry.
Speaker: I know that that'll be fine.
Speaker: But yeah, working at Pink Gorilla in college, I was like, oh, you know, I
Speaker: I really enjoy this and, you know, ended up doing some like PR work in video games and just some kind of, you know, I was I was gearing up to graduate and probably go into something like vaguely businessy inside of the video game industry, like a marketing or a PR or something like that.
Speaker: And I was, you know, I was taking business classes and communications classes and stuff.
Speaker: And then, you know, this opportunity came up to take over the store that I had poured so much into.
Speaker: And I, again, wasn't really sure that this was going to be like I was going to always want to do that.
Speaker: I was like, well, yeah, I've totally got the energy for it now.
Speaker: This is this is cool.
Speaker: You know, I want to see it succeed.
Speaker: But I was like, but this, you know, I'm probably not going to fall in love with this.
Speaker: It's it'll be fine.
Speaker: But I did.
Speaker: I really, really enjoy, you know, that part of my life.
Speaker: But yeah, it was.
Speaker: uh i definitely feel like a lot of the getting into the game industry at all was sort of an accident you know i was it wasn't like a lifelong like i'm i'm gonna work in video games someday i'm gonna make my own video games i was just someone who always who always liked them like you know i had a game informer subscription but like other than that like i i wasn't a uh you know and i watched some like g4 and stuff on tv but i wasn't sure i wasn't
Speaker: so into games that like, I could tell you what was coming out at any given time or what, you know.
Speaker: And it's great.
Speaker: Cause now like I look at somebody like you who isn't just, um, a game store owner up in Seattle, but as somebody who has a strong YouTube presence, uh, but especially known for loving video games, I mean, loving the world of it, whether or not it's games that you've actively played or have any desire to play.
Speaker: your knowledge base of just gaming in general is very authoritative and very cool.
Speaker: And it's, it's very clear to see the passion that you hold when it comes to just what gaming is, you know, you can talk to somebody who's a connoisseur of books or anything, and very few have read every book, you know, nobody has a matter of fact, but to, to simply love the whole of it, you know, that's, I think what really sets this kind of thing apart from somebody who just says, I'm a hardcore gamer.
Speaker: It's,
Speaker: I love video games.
Speaker: I love all of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The good, the bad, the everything, you know, because it's the history.
Speaker: That's definitely me.
Speaker: I mean, I, I've, I, I'm about to participate in some game of the year debates and stuff.
Speaker: And I mean, I have not played enough video games that came out this year to like really be an authority on that.
Speaker: But, but I love learning about, I love learning about video games in general.
Speaker: And, you know, I, part of my falling in love with this, that I sort of skipped over in this was through the,
Speaker: being at Pink Gorilla and kind of discovering the, like, game collector community.
Speaker: And I, you know, you can see behind me, I have a ton of video games.
Speaker: I don't really actively collect anymore.
Speaker: But it was how I started learning about a bunch of really interesting things, like a bunch of games that I don't think I would have otherwise heard of, a bunch of, like,
Speaker: you know weird stories and like oh this you know there's a rare variant of siphon filter that has the twin towers on it and like you know like just weird weird stuff like that that i would have never um i would have never come across if it hadn't been for like kind of starting in a used game store environment and then just kind of uh being around a bunch of people who who love that aspect of it i mean i feel like i've surrounded myself with um
Speaker: people who love all of the different areas of gaming, whether it's collecting, whether it's history, whether it's just playing the, you know, the modern releases or retro games or whatever, like it's just kind of this whole
Speaker: you know, a circle of different parts of the game industry.
Speaker: And I'm very weak on like e-sports and stuff and MMOs.
Speaker: So it's not, it's not literally everything, but it's, you know, I'm with you.
Speaker: I'm with you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's almost like too big for me to keep up with.
Speaker: That's like a separate, you have to be dedicated hobby.
Speaker: I can't, I'm too old for that.
Speaker: Now with a massive library of games behind you, you, you collect, but is there like,
Speaker: the elusive one, the Holy Grail.
Speaker: Is there something that, even if it's just off of interest, you've heard stories about it, like what is the one thing that you're still looking for that eludes you?
Speaker: No, I don't have any anymore, but I can tell you what they were because I got them all.
Speaker: So I have, you can't see it here.
Speaker: Let me see if I can tilt the camera.
Speaker: That is not a good view of it, but that is a complete Bandai Wonderswan collection.
Speaker: There that is every single Wonderswan game in existence, which was a very, very difficult thing to do.
Speaker: It's a really cool handheld that basically I'm a big Gunpei Okoy fanboy, which he's no longer with us, but he was a very influential early employee of Nintendo, like when they were making toys and stuff.
Speaker: So his influence is kind of like, you know,
Speaker: A lot of his influence is still seen in Shigeru Miyamoto.
Speaker: Basically a lot of just kind of playfulness and like
Speaker: his big philosophy design philosophy, excuse me, was what he called lateral thinking with withered technology, which was basically like, let's take something that is not cutting edge, but has been totally perfected and is totally cheap now.
Speaker: And let's make something like very fun and unexpected with that.
Speaker: And then we can offer it for cheaper than any other toys on the market.
Speaker: So after he left Nintendo, he went and started a company called Koto Laboratories, which partnered with, um,
Speaker: with Bandai to create a new system.
Speaker: And it's very like, you know, it's very of that kind of philosophy.
Speaker: It is definitely not cutting edge.
Speaker: This is like, you know, when the Game Boy Advance is coming out and there's color screens have existed for forever, but this is a,
Speaker: black and white screen but a really really nice black and white screen they do make a color version eventually um and it's a system oh i have one next to me yay okay i can show it i just always have one next to me it's fine that's important yeah yeah there's uh some games that can be played like this as opposed to like this so both horizontally and uh and vertically which is very cool um
Speaker: it's he died before the system came out unfortunately um but it is it's a system with a lot of like uh a lot of unrealized potential and almost realized potential and so i just think it's a very fascinating little system um you know they sold a dev kit straight to consumers so you could make your own games and then they did like um you know
Speaker: competitions for those consumer-made games.
Speaker: So it's just like an early indie scene, early homebrew scene kind of thing.
Speaker: There's a fishing sonar for it.
Speaker: A lot of just really funky, fun stuff like that.
Speaker: But I had two holy grails for the system for the longest time.
Speaker: Because when I say complete set, I don't just mean stuff you could buy on the shelves.
Speaker: I mean all of it.
Speaker: So the first of which is a...
Speaker: It sounds so silly every time I say it out loud.
Speaker: A pregnancy tracker for the WonderSwan.
Speaker: It is so much like the Game Boy, you know, the WonderSwan was very, very cheap and it is a computer.
Speaker: So in an era where a
Speaker: making a like kind of bespoke computer for your specific need is a very expensive thing to do, which is why the Game Boy sewing machine exists.
Speaker: It's essentially the, the computer brains of a, you know, more complicated sewing machine.
Speaker: You know, this was, this was basically the same thing.
Speaker: It was like, what can we, we can do this like fancy piece of technology, but,
Speaker: for cheaper if we just use this video game system that already exists.
Speaker: So it comes with a little infrared scale and, you know, helps you do a bunch of like exercises to track your pregnancy and track your weight and your eating and everything.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: In my mind, I was kind of hoping with the black and white screen that I came with like a little ultrasound scanner you rub out of your stomach.
Speaker: And you could see your little baby.
Speaker: This one's a color.
Speaker: This is actually the Swan Crystal.
Speaker: So it's the like third iteration of it.
Speaker: But yeah, so that was my holy grail for a really long time.
Speaker: It took about five years for a single one of them to pop up on Yahoo Auctions because it is just, I mean...
Speaker: no one bought this thing as you can probably imagine and i believe it was mail only mail order only like it's just a very you know very small run um and the other one is also a wonder swan uh these explanations take so long i'm sorry but i think they're fascinating um i am fascinated
Speaker: There is a artist in Japan who you might have heard of who goes by his name is Toshio Owai.
Speaker: He made electroplankton on the DS as well as Otaki on...
Speaker: uh, Famicom disc system and stuff.
Speaker: So he's, he's, um, he's a, an experiential artist, like a kind of sound design and, and visual design, um, kind of more like, he's not like painting.
Speaker: He's like making experiences and exhibits that you go to.
Speaker: And so, you know, he got into video games fairly early cause it was just kind of part of the, um,
Speaker: the artistry stuff.
Speaker: So because there was this WonderSwan dev kit that you could just buy as a consumer, this was something that, you know, I imagine appealed to him and was like, well, you know, as an experiential artist, I can create something with this and put it in an exhibit.
Speaker: So he
Speaker: created this, we created two things.
Speaker: One is a very, it's a collaboration with another artist whose name I forget, but it's a very simple, just kind of like dancing illustrations thing.
Speaker: You just press the buttons and the illustrations dance.
Speaker: But the other one is called Tenori On, which turned into, later turned into an actual instrument that was sold by Yamaha.
Speaker: But the original version of
Speaker: It's a WonderSwan game, and it's essentially like a big grid, and you just fill in things, you know, different little segments of the grid, and it's playing a song based on where you fill in these things.
Speaker: So kind of like Mario Paint-ish, you know, where you're just kind of...
Speaker: putting sounds on a, you know, on a line, but instead expressed kind of through a grid.
Speaker: And it's just this sort of like, you know, music, playful music tool.
Speaker: So you can make like a cute little piece of pixel art and it will also sound like a fun,
Speaker: little song because all of the notes are meant to, you know, work together, no matter what configuration you put them in.
Speaker: Um, so this was literally just an art exhibit.
Speaker: Um, he didn't like make copies of this game at first.
Speaker: Um, it was just like, you could go to this art exhibit in Japan and experience it and go home.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: there was just this big outcry from the WonderSwan fan community, particularly this sort of homebrew indie scene community that was using these dev kits that was like, okay, we know you used this.
Speaker: Can you please sell it to us?
Speaker: This was awesome.
Speaker: We loved it.
Speaker: And I was researching this for a while and he literally shows up on the message board and is like, huh, yeah, I guess I could do that.
Speaker: So he buys 120 cartridges from this, like, you know, dev kit thing that's sold through a company called Qt, Q-U-T-E.
Speaker: But he buys 120 cartridges and he just hand flashes 120 of these things.
Speaker: um so yeah that one took me a very very very long time to get but i finally have it so this is like tangibly limited you've got like i mean a percentage of these cartridges i i consider this like owning an original work of art you know like this is an actual artist he's very famous in japan um that's crazy
Speaker: And this is he made 120 like prints, quote unquote, of his art.
Speaker: And I feel I feel fortunate to have it.
Speaker: It's a really cool program.
Speaker: And now it's finally online.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I want to tell you something that I love is you just listed two things I've never heard of.
Speaker: You know, I've researched plenty.
Speaker: I've got lots going on.
Speaker: I've seen a lot of things over many years.
Speaker: I had no idea about either of those things.
Speaker: And I think that's thrilling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's again, that's like that's one of the reasons I love that system so much is there are just so many fun little weird stories like it on there.
Speaker: And I mean, you know, do I still have a holy grail?
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, so I have this very large Wonderswan collection and there's really, at this point, not much that you can add to it because I have all the games, but like at Tokyo Game Show one year, they had booth babes that wore this like cool Wonderswan outfit.
Speaker: Like, oh, I'd love to add that to the collection.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I'd say that counts.
Speaker: Yeah, we're well past games at this point.
Speaker: It's now into like very silly territory.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I think that's a thrilling idea of just, yeah, what kind of like tertiary collectibles are there.
Speaker: I did actually convince a Nintendo employee back in 2000.
Speaker: three, I think at E3 to give me one of their, their blue shirts and like their skin type made for women.
Speaker: But this woman, Lisa actually brought me an extra one.
Speaker: Just, I don't know why she was just very nice to me.
Speaker: And I kept it for several years, eventually ended up giving it to somebody I was dating and it's gone at this point, which is unfortunate.
Speaker: But like stuff like that to me is even more exciting.
Speaker: It's not even like a swag item that you get from a booth.
Speaker: It is like,
Speaker: this weird off item that simply exists in the realm of like promotional only insider kind of stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That kind of stuff is really cool.
Speaker: And I think, um, you know, it's something that as game store owners, we're probably very fortunate to be like able to look beyond video games at this point.
Speaker: Like you eventually have kind of seen all of the video games at some point.
Speaker: And so, um,
Speaker: I imagine you're kind of in a similar boat as me where you're just like, I don't know that I need more games.
Speaker: Like I see games.
Speaker: I love games.
Speaker: There's a lot of them.
Speaker: You know, I buy games if I'm like about to play it, obviously.
Speaker: But other than that, I'm not really adding actively anymore.
Speaker: That's yeah.
Speaker: What I've got in my room here is sort of like where it ends.
Speaker: And I'm fine with that at this point.
Speaker: It's no longer the hunt.
Speaker: It's simply, I mean, yeah.
Speaker: If I see something super crazy, if it's been sitting on my shelf for like a month and nobody's bought it,
Speaker: Okay, if it's something I've been eyeballing, I'll take it eventually.
Speaker: But I like to leave all the stuff for the customers and, you know, the really thrilling things.
Speaker: But every now and then something cool pops in.
Speaker: But it's, yeah, it's no longer me, like, completing a checklist at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, we have a two-week rule for employees at the store that you got to let items sit for two weeks.
Speaker: So they have a very, very generous discount.
Speaker: So they have to wait two weeks to see if a customer buys it first.
Speaker: And I try to also abide by that rule myself because I don't think it's very fair otherwise.
Speaker: Otherwise, yeah, there's too many ins to like getting all the good stuff before it hits the shelf.
Speaker: And then your store sort of diminishes in terms of like, you know, somebody watches an inbox Earthbound get traded and they go, oh, I can't wait to buy this.
Speaker: But then if the employee snags it right off the bat, it's like, well, that sucks.
Speaker: You know, like you want the customers to get the thrill of like the insanity.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So, Kelsey, you've got a heck of a time in front of you.
Speaker: You've got a whole lot of stuff that you're in the middle of.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm so excited to see the opening of your third shop.
Speaker: I can't wait to see what the History Foundation continues to do.
Speaker: But before I let you go, I've got a handful of questions for you.
Speaker: And I want to know five things.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: I want to know outside of gaming.
Speaker: What's a book that you would recommend?
Speaker: Question one, what is a book?
Speaker: Oh, and it can't be.
Speaker: So I have a lot of video game history books.
Speaker: You certainly can.
Speaker: I mean, ideally, I want it just to be accessible to somebody.
Speaker: If they said, hey, recommend a book to me.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: Yeah, man, I hate that I'm going with a sort of self-helpy one, but it was one that was very, very useful to me, which is a book called Atomic Habits, which I'm sure it's on a lot of, it's on a lot of
Speaker: list who who wrote that james clear or something like that is his name i can't quite remember but it's it's essentially um so i i have adhd and it is uh you know it's something i take medication for and stuff but um sure this was a book that was very helpful to me in sort of breaking down like the um you know when you when you feel like
Speaker: you can't start something and you can't, uh, like everything just kind of feels overwhelming.
Speaker: Um, this is a book that's, uh, kind of helps you build habits in a, in a healthier way and have a healthier relationship with things.
Speaker: It's like, okay, maybe you're not going to like go for a walk tonight.
Speaker: Like you said, you were go for a run.
Speaker: Like you said you were, but like,
Speaker: put on your shoes and okay, maybe that's it.
Speaker: Maybe that's all you get to, but at least then you didn't like break the streak.
Speaker: Like you still sort of did the thing.
Speaker: And it, I don't know, it, it helped me, um, just kind of have a healthier relationship with expectations with myself and, and, uh, you know,
Speaker: kind of building positive changes in my life in a very, in a way that didn't make me feel like I needed to just, you know, overhaul everything, because that never works.
Speaker: It never works to just be like, okay, clean slate, you know, New Year's resolution is lose weight and, and do this and do that.
Speaker: And, you know, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker: You said atomic habits, atomic habits.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds outstanding.
Speaker: And as somebody else with ADHD, anything I can do to help sort of regulate any sort of genuine flow on a day-to-day is terrific.
Speaker: I've been trying to make habits out of certain things, and it's awful when I buy something to help sustain the habit, and then I lose the thing that helps me sustain the habit.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I've been there.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, that's something I'd love to check out myself.
Speaker: Now...
Speaker: And it's great because nearly every one of these things that I'm asking you could also like be related to video games to some degree.
Speaker: But what about a favorite movie, film or TV show?
Speaker: I was worried you were going to ask this because I watch so little movies and TV.
Speaker: I have seen an embarrassingly small amount of movies in my life.
Speaker: So I'm going to probably have to recommend something basic.
Speaker: But it's very, like, is also wonderful, which is my favorite movie of all time is Airplane.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just watched that like two weeks ago.
Speaker: Did you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's phenomenal.
Speaker: It's not like, you know, a hard hitting, like a smarter person would say something very, a very intelligent, deep, dark movie.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: Airplane makes me smile every time I see it.
Speaker: And I can quote most of the movie.
Speaker: So if you haven't seen it yet, it's just, it's worth, like, it is, it's worth it.
Speaker: I think that's important.
Speaker: So, you know, maybe turn your brain off, let yourself go and simply allow yourself to watch a movie without needing it to be a three hour long epic.
Speaker: It can simply just make you laugh for 80 minutes and be like, that's exactly what I needed.
Speaker: Yeah, you don't have to always be smart and profound in every part of our lives.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, but it's great, too, because like for as much dumb humor as a movie like that has, there's a lot of really fun, clever subtext that I think in the delivery or the lines written, anything that Leslie Nielsen does to me feels like there's some modicum of like this hyper intelligent man that dips down into like the silliness that is so appreciated.
Speaker: Yeah, there's something he in particular taps into that is just like, yeah, he's a he looks and feels so serious and like you should be respecting him.
Speaker: And like, you know, he gives off an air of authority and then he's just he's very silly and it's fantastic.
Speaker: Perfect delivery.
Speaker: Not a man like him.
Speaker: All right, now, one of my favorite subjects of all time, and living up in Seattle, I'm sure that there's an abundance of options, but I want to know if you've got a favorite food.
Speaker: Ooh, um...
Speaker: Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker: It changes like day to day, you know, but the sushi in Seattle is phenomenal.
Speaker: Are you looking for a restaurant recommendation or like?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I mean, if you say, hey, I love this restaurant because they have this plate or whatever it might be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Say someone says, hey, I'm coming up to Seattle for a day.
Speaker: What's the spot and what do I get?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, so this is not something that anyone can just always do because it is one of it is a very, very expensive restaurant, but it is it will change the way you think about sushi.
Speaker: And that sounds dramatic, but I genuinely stand behind it.
Speaker: It's called Shiro's and it's in the Belltown neighborhood of downtown Seattle.
Speaker: It is if you're seeing the Netflix documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
Speaker: I have not.
Speaker: Okay, so the owner slash head chef, I think he doesn't work there so much anymore, but he's in that documentary.
Speaker: He's one of the apprentices of the kind of hero of that documentary.
Speaker: So it is...
Speaker: It is so phenomenal.
Speaker: My favorite sushi personally is either salmon or hamachi.
Speaker: But all of like, it's all the best sushi you will ever have in your life.
Speaker: And I really genuinely believe you will like not look at sushi the same after you've had it.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I assume the sushi in Albuquerque is probably not fantastic.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: At best, it's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You will never receive this type of review for Albuquerque sushi.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, Seattle is very like because we're just, you know, we're in a fish market.
Speaker: We're right on the water.
Speaker: Like it's it's very, very all the seafood up here is very, very strong.
Speaker: So of course sushi, I absolutely love.
Speaker: But really, like you can't go wrong with pretty much any seafood or sushi in Seattle.
Speaker: It's all good.
Speaker: Makes sense.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Shiro's?
Speaker: Shiro's.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And you're talking about getting that, getting that sushi.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Now this is very easy for me to ask anybody.
Speaker: Cause I get excited, especially exciting to ask you.
Speaker: And now this could be a favorite right now.
Speaker: It could be a favorite of all time.
Speaker: It could be a favorite for any reason that you deem acceptable to answer in this moment.
Speaker: But what's, what's a favorite video game?
Speaker: I know that's a big question.
Speaker: It is, but you gave a good kind of intro to it, which means it doesn't have to be the definitive best game of all time or anything.
Speaker: Nah, I don't know.
Speaker: The game that I am just like the closest to in my heart is animal crossing on the original game cube.
Speaker: And it is, um, it's just, it's a, a cord that I feel like has not been struck quite the same way ever since.
Speaker: Um, it is a game that is just, I don't even know if it works anymore super well.
Speaker: Like I've gone back to play it very recently even, but, um,
Speaker: I think it's too hard to stick with a game like that now, now that kind of everything, there's so many good short experiences out there, and there's so many things you can do online, and just so many things to distract you, but it's a game that genuinely, over the course of months or a year, however long you play it, genuinely makes you feel like you are a part of a community, which is
Speaker: In a game that doesn't have a real community and a game that is entirely single player is just an incredible achievement.
Speaker: And, you know, the late it's, it's limited, you know, it's a game that started on the Nintendo 64 in Japan and it's not,
Speaker: It's not like it has infinite dialogue or anything.
Speaker: It is a limited game, but to play that game for 10 minutes a day for months and months is a very close game to my heart.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think I always had this fantasy when I was younger while playing the game that I would have some sort of pen pal and we would email like our towns back and forth.
Speaker: Not email, but physically mail our memory cards back and forth to one another to be like, hey, check out my town, even if it's for an hour and then mail it back.
Speaker: Oh, I wanted that so bad.
Speaker: Days lapsing in between.
Speaker: But like there was such an experience about that that, like you said, is even very limited in scope.
Speaker: But at the time, like it really was...
Speaker: Like, you know, I can draw my picture and put it in my house.
Speaker: I can go home and I can play Excitebike on my little system.
Speaker: I can go kick a soccer ball into Pierce's yard and he'll give me a bed frame or whatever.
Speaker: And at the time, especially in North America, you're either in one of two camps either, you know, like, why would you play this?
Speaker: Or I'm hopelessly addicted.
Speaker: I can't explain it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's a great choice.
Speaker: I think Animal Crossing really was such a unique thing.
Speaker: And you're right.
Speaker: They've made infinite advancements, but also with our times and expectations being like, you know, I want more, more, more, now, now, now.
Speaker: That game forced you to really sort of take it easy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice and slow.
Speaker: Yeah, they've really, they have since very much given into like what people think they want out of the game, which is still like,
Speaker: I will never say that Animal Crossing New Horizons is a bad game.
Speaker: It's a good game.
Speaker: it's a bad animal crossing game.
Speaker: I think that it just, the difference between that game and the first game, I mean, there's a million, but like just in general philosophy, it's like in, in new horizons, you are God.
Speaker: And in the original game, you are just some guy and very different experiences.
Speaker: And that's, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker: That's a good way to put it.
Speaker: I'm going to tell you about my final animal crossing fantasy.
Speaker: And I wish that this would have happened, but,
Speaker: I loved digging up Nintendo's in the first one and throwing it in my room and going and playing all the really simple basic games or scanning in cards or whatever.
Speaker: But I always wanted there to be something, especially with the DS version or any follow-up that had online access where you could invite a friend over.
Speaker: I would love to have a Nintendo in my room and I invite a friend over online and we sit down and we play a two-player NES game.
Speaker: At the same time, just even if it's a simple, you know, 16 kilobyte game, like just, it gets you like socializing again, even in like, it's your couch co-op online.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, it's like role-playing being a child a little bit, you know, it's like, it's like you're inviting your friend over after school or whatever, but it's all happening virtually.
Speaker: And that's exactly what I wanted.
Speaker: If they would have added that to New Horizons, cause you know, you have the NSO,
Speaker: online.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you already have access to these.
Speaker: And yeah, that would have been really cool.
Speaker: Limited to that.
Speaker: Maybe someday, maybe someday.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Maybe when I'm done with gamers anonymous, I'll go to Nintendo and make the best animal crossing ever.
Speaker: So finally, with with four great recommendations under your belt, there's one last one that I seek and I want to know if you could give anybody
Speaker: for any reason, maybe it's younger you, maybe it's older you, maybe it's somebody you've never met a really solid piece of advice.
Speaker: What are you going to say?
Speaker: Um, my, my sort of like life philosophy.
Speaker: And I, I got this from my dad.
Speaker: Um, I don't think he ever said these words to me exactly, but like, it's just something I kind of picked up.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So life does have a lot of luck components to it, and there's nothing you can really do about luck.
Speaker: But when you have an opportunity, you need to be ready for it or it will pass.
Speaker: Like you have no chance if you're not ready for the opportunity.
Speaker: You're not guaranteed a shot like no matter what, but you have no chance whatsoever.
Speaker: if you aren't prepared for it.
Speaker: And it's what kind of made me like, you know, it's what's made me work so hard in everything I've ever done is like, okay, you know, I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, I had no idea that I was going to be like given an opportunity to take over Pink Gorilla, nor was I even like thinking that was a possibility, but I knew that I needed to work hard in that because kind of who knows what opportunity could
Speaker: come from doing that job well.
Speaker: Or, you know, if I'm going to be making content about video game history, I need to make sure I'm like really putting everything into it and not making a, you know, a half-researched lazy YouTube video.
Speaker: Like it needs to be really good, even if only, you know, 200 people see it.
Speaker: It needs to be really good because if the right person is part of that first 200 people that see it,
Speaker: that could open doors, you know, and, and, you know, just having pride in your work in general, but like, um, yeah, I think, I think success absolutely has a luck component, but, um, that part you can't control, you can control how ready you are for those times to, uh, appear.
Speaker: So that's not very concise.
Speaker: I'm still looking for a nice way to say that, but that's fine.
Speaker: I, I, yeah, that's a phenomenal advice.
Speaker: I really think a lot of it is, um,
Speaker: Operation, excuse me, operation, opportunity mixed with preparation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is really like that's a phenomenal way to describe how we should approach kind of everything.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So now to finally wrap up, where can people find you if you've got like a Twitch or a website or like, you know, where's the best place to access anything that you got?
Speaker: Yeah, so I am on Twitter at Kelslewin, K-E-L-S-L-E-W-I-N.
Speaker: And on, you know, I've got other social medias, I guess, but that's really the one I'm the most active on.
Speaker: Pink Gorilla is also on all of the social medias.
Speaker: It is Pink Gorilla Games on most things, and then Pink Gorilla LLC on Twitter, because I didn't set that up, and I...
Speaker: I'm still a little peeved about that.
Speaker: The Video Game History Foundation is at GameHistory.org on everything.
Speaker: It's also GameHistory.org if you want to go to the website.
Speaker: So a lot of links, a lot of socials, but I talk about both from my personal account if you go there first.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Well, this is very exciting.
Speaker: And so I want to thank you for being part of this podcast, for offering us some insight into what your experience has been like and just, you know, giving you giving us a glimpse into, you know, a little bit of behind the scenes of both of these businesses.
Speaker: And so, Kelsey, thank you for helping create humanity.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: We'll see you guys next time.
Speaker: Thank you.
