Adventures in Video Gaming

Velocity Weekly interviewed me (above) in 2004 for a video gaming story about Madden Football 2005.

I’ve enjoyed playing video games for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I’ve owned just about every system imaginable: Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, PlayStation, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Back in 2003, I tried to parlay my love for video gaming into a business. You can read about my adventures below.

Louisville Video Gaming Association (LVGA)

After attending a huge (what I thought was poorly organized) video game tournament (Halo) in April 2003 with some of my friends, I thought it would be fun start hosting my own tournaments. It seemed like a pretty simple idea. At the time, I was working at a local newspaper and started running ads looking for local video gamers. After hearing from a lot of people, I decided to create the Louisville Video Gaming Association (LVGA).

We held tournaments and get-togethers at various venues. I even had the opportunity to write some video gaming-related columns for Louisville Eccentric Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Over the first year of its existence, the LVGA grew by leaps and bounds. We went from one tournament with around 30 participants to a tournament of nearly 150 participants. Our web site message boards had several hundred members posting messages on a regular basis and traffic to the site was around 40,000 pageviews a month. We even received some local press for our activities. I was even interviewed by Velocity about video gaming (see above).

We were doing so well in fact that I started having thoughts of opening a video gaming center. I surveyed hundreds of local gamers on the LVGA website and determined there was a demand for such a business.

Louisville Gaming Center

Me and a partner opened the Louisville Gaming Center, Louisville’s FIRST console-only gaming center, in December 2003. The plan was to host tournaments, leagues, b-day parties, and corporate events. Since video gaming had become so popular, I thought it would be a great place for friends to get together and play video games. The LGC got great press from LEO, Velocity, and Fox 41 (Fox in the Morning and Fox News at 10).

Unfortunately, the business didn’t do as well as we had hoped. We decided to close shop after four months. Looking back, we just didn’t have a good plan and were a little ahead of our time. The idea didn’t catch on. Plus, it was difficult to run a retail business with a family at home.

It was a great experience for me and I’m proud to say that I tried it.

Click on the thumbnails below to view some pictures of the gaming center.

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I had a great experience with the LVGA and Louisville Gaming Center. I met a lot of great people and formed some wonderful friendships. Now that those days have passed, I’m content sitting at home playing video games with my kids.