Great news Giant Bomb forum dwellers! Earlier today, the official launch of the International Video Games Hall of Fame in Ottumwa, Iowa was held! They plan to construct a grand museum in the future to cement the reputation of Ottumwa as a bustling center of video game happenings and goings-on, and to provide the entire world with a place to relive the great accomplishments of the history of video ga-
THIS SHITHOLE IS NOT THE VIDEO GAME CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. PERIOD.
Iowa has nothing to do with video games. Ottumwa was a place where a bunch of guys played video games for a while, then decided to let everyone else know how awesome they were because of that. Yup. That's it. It's one group of gamers saying they're better than everyone else. That's like one high school cafeteria table thinking they are better than all the other tables in the room. That's great if you think that, but here's the thing: Nobody fucking gives a shit. Ottumwa was a high score hotspot in the early 1980's, getting some attention from Time magazine because somebody broke a Defender record. Wow. Better get out the checkbook and donate to the cause, it was a high score hotspot! People gather there and play video games, holy shit! Better put a museum there, then make outrageous claims that don't involve actually contributing to the medium!
One of Iowa's House of Representatives members showed up for this event. A U.S. congressman, elected to help shape laws that actually affect people, has nothing better to do? The GOVERNOR personally proclaimed Iowa the "Video Game Capital of the World". Go stab broken glass into your kidneys. How much attention do you need? I mean, I can understand their dilema, given that nobody gives a shit about Iowa to begin with, but this is just silly. This is grasping at straws. This is an example of people throwing themselves in with a story to make themselves seem important. "I could have been on one of the 9/11 planes!?" "Oh, really? You fly in the northeast often?" "No, I went to New York once when I was eight, by car. But I was thinking about going!" Die in a fire.
It would be one thing if this place just happened to be the location decided upon by an international panel to host a recognized video game museum, or quite another thing if Ottumwa housed a few important, world class game developers, but it's not, it doesn't, and officials have the audacity to claim their state means something in the video game world? THEY HAVE NO GODDAMN BUSINESS MAKING THAT CLAIM. I got my Kotaku commenting account banned a couple months ago for voicing my disgust for this bullshit, but Giant Bomb doesn't employ thought policing nazis (that I know of), so I can say it here: Nobody fucking cares about Ottumwa, Iowa. If we're going to have a Hall of Fame for video games (silly, I know) why wouldn't it be in Bellevue Washington or Irvine California, or Kyoto, Japan? Call me crazy, but a place where talented individuals actually make the games we love would be more fitting. I hope a massive earthquake sinks Ottumwa into hell.
It should be somewhere in Canada... think of all the awesome games that comes from Canada. Think about it, we got: - Digital Extremes - EA Black Box - EA BIG - EA Montreal - Ironclad (SoaSE) - Ubisoft Montreal - Bioware - Rockstar Toronto - Rockstar Vancouver - Relic - Radical - EA Canada (The largest studio in the world) - Blue Castle - Silicon Knights
I totally just looked at a Wikipedia list for those. And I found something cool out there: did you know that Punch Out Wii was made in Canada?
Back then nobody believed that video games would become anything. They thought of them as a passing fad, but a few passionate people traveled to an arcade in Iowa and showed off to the world media what these silly little games were capable of. The promotion of these contests led to competitive gaming which years from then would lead to there being a national Starcraft tourney in Korea. So, now, where is Korea in relation to Ottumwa? Oh yeah, THE WORLD!
So no one gives a fuck about Iowa huh? What an idiot. I live in Iowa and it's the perfect spot for a video game museum. But some people just have to be whiny little bitches and complain about shit because they are stupid. WHAT THE FUCK DOES 9/11 HAVE TO DO WITH THIS YOU FUCKING HOMO! One more thing dipshit we don't get earthquakes out here you fucking idiot.
" It should be somewhere in Canada... think of all the awesome games that comes from Canada. Think about it, we got: - Digital Extremes - EA Black Box - EA BIG - EA Montreal - Ironclad (SoaSE) - Ubisoft Montreal - Bioware - Rockstar Toronto - Rockstar Vancouver - Relic - Radical - EA Canada (The largest studio in the world) - Blue Castle - Silicon Knights I totally just looked at a Wikipedia list for those. And I found something cool out there: did you know that Punch Out Wii was made in Canada? "
Who cares? It's just Iowa's way of trying to boost tourism. Not that big of a deal really. I think your a little too upset about something that's not so important. There's bigger fish to fry.
Canada has a lot of awesome developers, but personally I'd give the vote to Scotland. It's easily the best place to go if you want to study to get into the industry, and there's a lot of big games studios around where games like Grand Theft Auto, Lemmings, Worms, Tomb Raider, Crackdown and so forth were developed..
But basically, yeah, it's just a cheap attempt to boost tourism. It's not like it's ever going to become like Holywood, videogame resources don't need to be contained in one place where all developers will need to migrate to if they want to find any decent work. It doesn't make a difference if the game is developed in the UK, US, Canada, Japan, India or even in some guys basement.
" So no one gives a fuck about Iowa huh? What an idiot. I live in Iowa and it's the perfect spot for a video game museum. But some people just have to be whiny little bitches and complain about shit because they are stupid. WHAT THE FUCK DOES 9/11 HAVE TO DO WITH THIS YOU FUCKING HOMO! One more thing dipshit we don't get earthquakes out here you fucking idiot."
" So no one gives a fuck about Iowa huh? What an idiot. I live in Iowa and it's the perfect spot for a video game museum. But some people just have to be whiny little bitches and complain about shit because they are stupid. WHAT THE FUCK DOES 9/11 HAVE TO DO WITH THIS YOU FUCKING HOMO! One more thing dipshit we don't get earthquakes out here you fucking idiot. "
This is a perfect example of why it should not be in Iowa.
But realistically, wouldn't they want it in an area with at least some sort of tourism base?
" Back then nobody believed that video games would become anything. They thought of them as a passing fad, but a few passionate people traveled to an arcade in Iowa and showed off to the world media what these silly little games were capable of. The promotion of these contests led to competitive gaming which years from then would lead to there being a national Starcraft tourney in Korea. So, now, where is Korea in relation to Ottumwa? Oh yeah, THE WORLD! "
Didn't know that, cool stuff.
Video game capital of the world to me is, and always will be, the basement of this one shady store downtown. They have a mad stack of PS2 and other obscure titles there.
Well fuck, I thought there would be more idiots defending the stupid museum idea. Seems like you folks actually see through the bullshit and realize the whole thing is just a tourist grabbing lie. Well done, carry on.
There is no 'Video Game Capital of the World' There are good developers everywhere, like xyzygy said there are good devs there. Like in the UK we have..
I agree that while they have every right to put a video game museum in Ottumwa, Iowa, announcing it as the video game capital of the world is just downright stupid. The really annoying thing here is that unless unlike the very large majority of people you are actually fairly into the video game industry, you will have no idea whatsoever that Ottumwa, Iowa actually isn't the huge motherland of video gaming they have been proclaimed as.
How is this a bad thing? Don't we want our medium to be legitimized in the eyes of others? Don't we want people to understand that we're not just playing with glorified toys all day?
GDC + E3 + Blizzard + Giant Bomb + Acitivision + SCEA + Double Fine + EA + Infinity Ward + Insomniac + Lucas Arts + Naughty Dog + Neversoft + Sega + Tecmo + THQ = My case for CA being the video game capital of the world.
OP comes over as a total lunatic. Agreeing with everyone saying that there are so many good developers all over the world that a centralised "capital of gaming" can't be found in that way. I guess since it seems as if the overwhelming majority of the large scaled gaming press is based in San Francisco then that might be a good place? That said all this "capital of" business doesn't mean fucking shit so whatevs.
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