Classes
- Professional gamer and cosplayer who is known for winning the second season of WCG Ultimate Gamer on the SyFy Channel.
- She has been named the highest earning female gamer in the upcoming Guinness World Records Book Gamer’s Edition
- She currently streams on Twitch TV as a member of the professional gaming team Dignitas.
Winner of the Centipede contest in 1981
Was in the original Life Magazine photo
Wrote for Joystick magazine
Worked for Atari Corp. for 10 years starting in 1983, made five games for the Lynx during that time
Worked at a couple of small companies making home computer and console games with Franz Lanzinger and Mark Robichek
Currently living the retired life and doing iOS programming as a hobby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eIdfaDBjDg
- Defender was one of the most important titles of the Golden Age, selling over 55,000 units and becoming one of Williams Electronics best selling game and highest grossing arcade game.
- Game development was led by Eugene Jarvis and was his first video game projects.
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At 15, Tim Balderramos first grabbed media attention by laying claim to the Pac-Man World Title in 1983. He has remained among the top five Pac-Man players in the world ever since.
Tim’s affinity for video games led him to his choice of Computer Science for a major at the University of South Dakota, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1993. He completed his Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1998. Tim now works as an IT consultant.
He later became only the fourth player in history to get a perfect score on the Arcade version of Pac-Man in 2004 and the first to do so on the PC-based Arcade Emulator platform. Tim’s Pac-Man high scores are noted in both the Twin Galaxies’ Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records and in Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2008.
Tim in effect came out of retirement to compete in the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship in 2007 – qualifying for a trip to the grand finals in New York City and taking 5th Place overall. On June 19, 2008, Tim formally announced his retirement from competitive gaming – returning briefly to take part in the Pac-Man Twin Galaxies Kill Screen Challenge in North Hollywood, California in 2015.
Tim currently resides in the Twin Cities with his wife, Candice, children Jared and Dia, and niece Cheyenne – with whom Tim still enjoys an occasional game or two. His interests include running, wrestling, hockey, and (of course) Pac-Man
David Bishop was the Executive Vice President of NAMCO USA INC., and he became passionate about games during the 1970s as the stereotypical nerd who, when not obsessively studying, spent free time hanging out in pinball arcades, conducting tabletop war games, and running all night D&D sessions!
David first entered the game business when he landed his dream job as a mall arcade worker while attending college in 1981, and he immediately became so enamored with the emerging video games that he changed his major to Electrical Engineering to pursue game design. David remained with the arcade business when he finished school, and during the 1980s worked his way through the management and technical ranks of a southeastern arcade company to eventually become the VP of Technical Operations.
David moved from Atlanta to Silicon Valley in 1987 to join Atari Games Corporation and establish their national mall arcade chain, and in 1990 David helped relocate that same growing arcade chain to initialize NAMCO in America and ultimately enable the release of new games under its own brand. By the late 1990s, David was managing the largest chain of amusement facilities in the Americas with nearly 500 sites, 2,500 employees and over 27,000 games, rides and attractions on location.
Throughout his 35-year career, David advanced NAMCO as well as the game industry through a wide variety of positions and responsibilities, from technician to COO to his favorite role of “Chief PAC-MAN Evangelist”, and he helped pioneer numerous new entertainment concepts, from the earliest known commercial LAN gaming center in 1982, to a full motion flight simulation center in the early 1990s, to his latest project, Level 257 in Chicago, a 43,000 square foot melding of hospitality, social entertainment, and gaming inspired by PAC-MAN and featuring a chef-driven restaurant.
David currently serves on the Board of Directors of NAMCO USA and focuses on the development of new entertainment concepts as well as the use of emerging technology to craft innovative experiences (including, for example, “more immersive” game attractions using cutting-edge Virtual and Augmented Reality hardware.)
David resides in a suburb of Chicago with his wife Jeannine (who also worked at Atari Games) his daughter Jessica (who literally grew up in the game business and works in it herself today), and their beloved dog, Guinness.
And… David STILL plays games every day!
Thanks very much to Triforce, and to Walter, for their work over the years to bring people together and to be the authors and creators of wonderful architecture and achievement in the world of gaming. I’m deeply honored to be mentioned amongst the names today. Chris McCandless went on a deeply personal journey, and one of his apparent conclusions was ‘Happiness is only real when shared’. I think I know what he means by that, how connections to other travelers and people matter, and shared experiences grow deeper with understanding.
In 1990 I was a child who had already experienced much of the worst in life, and I didn’t quite understand the world around me yet. But I found a flyer for the NWC and it said something like “Someone has to win, why not you?”. My little family wasn’t in the best shape at the time, and I thought winning that thing could help us get back to our feet. Reality has a way of showing you hard answers to things you haven’t grasped yet, and can’t prepare for until you’ve already been struck by them. For many years I looked back on those early days and felt like it was all for nothing, depression was a constant companion.
A few years ago, Robin Mihara looked me up to start a conversation about the game of Tetris, and the NWC 1990 in general. Over the decades it crystalized into a legend, a truly coast-to-coast nearly year-long epic story. And what I realized was that the games themselves weren’t very important to me after all. It was the people, the friends, the shared experience, the mutual struggle against ourselves and the path of the games themselves that forged those bonds. A quarter century didn’t fade that, it brought it to deeper light. And this is a lesson I will never forget. It’s why we’re here, because we all want to share in these stories together, and games are always at their best when they bring us together.
Thanks for all of your kindness, now with young boys of my own, I am getting to experience the world with new eyes, and I’m grateful for the work of my fellow generation, and optimistic for the future of the next to come. Maybe I’ll see some of you down the road, until then may all of your blocks hit the right spaces
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