Videotopia in Washington, D.C.

I recently took a 33-hour round-trip bus ride to Washington, D.C. to visit the Videotopia display there, residing in the National Press Building mall. This page contains my thoughts and lots of pictures of the experience.

Although I didn't realize it at the time, due to the fact that I'm a Canadian, it was President's Day and therefore a national holiday. What this meant was that the display was completely deserted as folks stayed home in droves. This, of course, worked out well for me since that meant I didn't have to wait to play any of the games, nor would people get in the way of my taking pictures.

While there I was told the games are fixed on a regular basis, so assume anything I say is broken will have been fixed by now, so don't let that stop you from going. Also, if you notice a broken game, tell them! They want to know so they can fix it.

This is a picture of the hallway leading to the entrance of the exhibit. I found it a difficult display to find, since there are no signs posted anywhere, or any indicators that the display is located in the mall portion of the building. It is also very unassuming from the outside - I was expecting the huge archway I had seen in the photos. What happened was that the display got shafted on space by the museum, so they could only display 85% of the games and hardly any of the custom displays. Too bad!

Once inside the entrance, you are greeted by this unlikely pair - Gauntlet and Qix. After paying the entrance fee, I purchased an additional $20 in tokens and discovered how truly bad I am at Qix on the actual machine. I'm much better at it on MAME...

It's Laserdisc Row! Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and Firefox sit side by side. I played each only once. Dragon's Lair and Space Ace are both games that are more fun to watch someone else playing. Firefox simply didn't make any sense. Each time I thought I should be dead, I got another life. Or something. I'm still not sure.

Beside the laserdisc games are Donkey Kong and his diapered kin, Donkey Kong Junior. I pumped a few tokens into Junior, being that I was once quite good at it. I'm not anymore. Around the corner from these bad boys were a couple more games, but I neglected to take their pictures and now I can't remember what they were. Oh well.

	This is a picture of the hallway leading to the entrance of the exhibit. I found it a difficult display to find, since there are no signs posted anywhere, or any indicators that the display is located in the mall portion of the building. It is also very unassuming from the outside - I was expecting the huge archway I had seen in the photos. What happened was that the display got shafted on space by the museum, so they could only display 85% of the games and hardly any of the custom displays. Too bad!
Once inside the entrance, you are greeted by this unlikely pair - Gauntlet and Qix. After paying the entrance fee, I purchased an additional $20 in tokens and discovered how truly bad I am at Qix on the actual machine. I'm much better at it on MAME...
	It's Laserdisc Row! Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and Firefox sit side by side. I played each only once. Dragon's Lair and Space Ace are both games that are more fun to watch someone else playing. Firefox simply didn't make any sense. Each time I thought I should be dead, I got another life. Or something. I'm still not sure.
Beside the laserdisc games are Donkey Kong and his diapered kin, Donkey Kong Junior. I pumped a few tokens into Junior, being that I was once quite good at it. I'm not anymore. Around the corner from these bad boys were a couple more games, but I neglected to take their pictures and now I can't remember what they were. Oh well.