A quick round of Pac-Man reminds me how I was never very good at video games. Try as I might, I can’t seem to coordinate the dot-munching yellow protagonist against the wide-eyed ghosts that antagonize him, and I “die” three times in quick succession.
My accidental switching of the console to “slow” and then back to normal speed doesn’t help me.
But the console is clearly marked as a Nintendo NES-101 from 1993, and the placard beside it contains additional information.
The Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM), located for the time being in the Armory at Seattle Center, sits filled with vintage video-game displays, and many actually work. Game players, gaming geeks and the merely curious wander in and out, all day.
There to greet them. on this day at least, is SIMM co-founder Andrew Perti, a slightly nervous but enthusiastic fellow in a jacket and tie. He shares stories with all the museum guests and tells his own for anyone interested.
Vintage gameplay
Perti grew up in upstate New York and drove to Seattle when he was 23, “on a whim.” he said. His first game system was a Sears Talking Computron and shortly after that, a Game Boy.
“Video-game systems were given to me as gifts around the holidays once every five years or so,” he remembers. “Whenever I received a new system, it was usually accompanied with several games. Those half-dozen titles were essentially my entire library for the remainder of the console. PC games were usually my own purchases with whatever money I could save up.”
Perti also got into vintage games when he bought a box of 50 Atari games and a 7800 system from his cousin in 1998. “It was really at that point that I realized that vintage games were available for much lower costs and in greater numbers than modern games and systems…. Good gameplay, in contrast to graphics, has always been on the forefront of my game-playing decisions,” he said.
Perti met Michael Carpenter when they both took a course at the University of Washington. Carpenter, according to Perti, had gone to UW to study librarianship to be a video-game librarian. His long-term role in the organization is to develop the library component, which includes “standards and practices in the institution for access to and information about artifacts — physical, digital, and abstract. Short-term, his role is the same as mine: do a lotta bit of everything.”
A third crucial partner at SIMM is Garrett Barmore, the collections manager and archivist adviser, who assists in developing a collections-management policy and best practices for archiving, Perti said.
The SIMM name came about after he attended Washington Interactive Network’s Power of Play conference in 2010. “Video games are really just one of many components which fall in the umbrella of interactive media,” Perti said. “I also chose interactive media as a way for the museum to focus on other things in the future as well, such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence and other digitally based forms of interactive media, which have education, entertainment or both as components.”
Perti also thanks the University of Washington Informatics and Library Science departments, which have been supportive of SIMMs intellectual pursuits. More than 100 students and faculty have contributed to SIMM’s development, both in and out of the classroom, he said.
‘The happiness factor’
Perti still loves the games, but the reactions of the public thrill him just as much.
“When a young child comes through the door, their eyes open wide and their jaw drops to the floor — that’s my favorite. I remember being that kid, and providing that experience for others makes me a happy camper,” he said. “Adults are a bit more reserved. After a few seconds of analysis, a broad smile appears. That’s my favorite part: the happiness factor.
“I especially like it when people who have never used a Nintendo 64 controller try and rotate it like a Wii Remote,” he added. “Sorry, kids, no gyroscope!”
As for his own favorite games of all-time, Perti recalls Quake II, from id Software and Activision; Portal, from Valve Corp.; and StarCraft: Brood War, from Saffire and Blizzard Entertainment.
But there is one game that has been his favorite since the first time he played it: Tetris, designed by Alexey Pajitnov.
“The main reason I enjoy Tetris so much is that one cannot ever win; one can only get further — like life. It’s simply a test of one’s own skill…,” Perti said. “Wouldn't it be nice if, just once, you got all straight pieces during a game of Tetris?”
The Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM) is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, except Friday, at the Seattle Center Armory, 305 Harrison St. For more information, visit www.thesimm.org.