Retrogamer Vito Foggetti.
If you remember the throbbing pain in your thumbs after a weekend of Super Mario, or blowing into a cartridge and slamming down on your gaming system to make it work, you’re not alone.
If you remember waiting half an hour for Jumpman to load on your Commodore 64, or if you remember mastering the kicks and flips of any pixelated hero, and can see no reason why you would not be able to master their chalky movements again, you’re not alone. There are others like you, and they will invite you with open arms into Toronto’s growing retro gaming community.
Meet Vito Foggetti.
Vito owns over 50 retro consoles and over 500 games. His collection includes nearly everything Atari ever put out, a 1980 Intellivision, a Commodore 64, and even two bulky coin-operated arcade machines. Vito spits on emulators and will settle for nothing but the real deal. He visits thrift shops and swaps with the technological and historical knowledge needed to wrestle up dusty and forgotten consoles and classic games.
Vito Foggetti remembers. He remembers lying underneath the coffee table in his family’s living room as a child, totally absorbed by Super Mario. He remembers mastering Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and kicking Shredder’s ass. He remembers all of this with a contagious passion in his eyes, and you can’t help but let nostalgia grip you by the arm and have it take you back to a simpler time, when you could spend a quarter blasting Asteroids, win a high score, and mischievously use the initials A.S.S.
Vito Foggetti could easily be the poster boy for the retro gaming community. He loves technology, has a passion for games, and relishes in the use of his imagination. But even more to the heart of it, Vito is not afraid of who he is.
“I know I’m a nerd, and I’m proud of it,” says Vito.
It’s precisely this sort of sentiment (I am what I am, I am not going to hide it, and I am even going to broadcast it) that saturates every facet of Toronto’s retro gaming community.
And few are broadcasting their Nerdom louder than the operators of Toronto’s Underground Cinema. Take a cold basement out of the 1980s and times your Nintendo thumb by a million — you’ll only come close to the kickass attitude of those who drop by the Underground every Tuesday night.
It’s not an event for the faint of heart: this is Video Game Armageddon.
Alex Woodside, Nigel Agnew and Charlie Lawton run Toronto’s Underground Cinema and are best known for their love of movies, but they’ve recently decided to project classic games up on their movie screen in order to super-size Super Mario. Cheers and jeers fill the theatre, in a sort of frenzy of nostalgia. Remember Fred Savage in The Wizard? Remember the climatic cry to, “use the flute?” Think you can Jimmy Woods the shit out that? Well, these guys can, and they’re willing and ready to show off their mad skills in public and on the big screen.
“We all grew up gaming,” says Alex while he stands behind a long counter selling confectionary and popcorn. Popcorn sales might be slow tonight, but he believes the night is really going to take off. He even wonders what they’ll do if the night gets too big: “I guess we’ll have to get more projectors.”
There’s something infectious about this Armageddon. It’s kinda weird, and yet nothing could feel more natural. All the symbols are familiar, from the games to the popcorn. But whether it’s conscious or not, down here, in the bowels of Chinatown, there’s a feeling of rebellion. It’s a giant f-you to the playground bullies, or anyone who’s ever judged you negatively. And even more importantly, it’s something like a rearguard action against the engine of modern society, a shot across the bow of that mighty ship called Progress.
Enter the brothers Chang and Gar Toy, owners and operators of A&C Games, and also sponsors of Video Game Armaggedon. As Chang describes it while leaning against the counter of his shop, “We’re fighting the future.”
A&C Games is easily Toronto’s largest retail collection of retro games and consoles. The narrow store is overflowing with all the classics. There’s everything from Donkey Kong to a cartridge version of the C64 game Clowns. Stuffed up near the ceiling at the back of the shop there’s a 1982 Vectrex GCE in its original box — a console which included its very own portable vector graphics monitor. Keep looking and you’ll find a Nintendo Deluxe Set, which includes a Zapper, and the infamous R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) from 1985, which would easily make you the coolest kid in school for a mere $499.
“It grew because we loved it,” says Gar who lied to me, jokingly, about being older than his brother Chang. A light hearted humour fills the entire store which continuously plays retro gaming soundtracks. “We’re trying to create a feel here,” says Chang, and it’s clearly a goal they have attained. Nostalgia drips from the ceiling. And they’re extending their passion for retro games by building a community around them.
Recently the brothers expanded next door to a basement space in order to create what may be the only remaining arcade in the downtown core. Under the banner of A&C World, the arcade has operational consoles and several coin-operated arcade machines. This space creates almost no revenue, but that doesn’t seem to faze the brothers.
“We wanted to provide more to the gaming community… [and] to get more people together,” says Chang. “We want people to interact.”
Since the A&C arcade opened in May of this year, Chang hasn’t taken a single day off. He says he needs to be there to watch the business, how it changes, and how it grows. And he admits that he tries to discourage games like World of Warcraft because, as he describes it, it’s like they’re turning you into a robot.
And then he adds the salient truth: “When everything becomes virtual it becomes hollow.”
Maybe more than simple nostalgia this is what’s at the heart of this growing community. That, whether they know it or not, they are fighting against the hollowing out created by an ever more virtual and visually sophisticated world. It’s about community and good old fashioned fun. It’s clearly not about the money.
“We’re happy to break even,” Chang says.
