Hello MMO-Champion community,

I'm not much of a fundraiser but I want to help promote this cause as much as I can. Please take a look if you can and even though donations as little as $1 are accepted and greatly appreciated, there are 4 incentive based tiers that award customized arcade tokens, keychain, t-shirt, and having your name/business recognized on a plaque in the arcade.

Thank you so much for the support, in any form and at any level.

Linking some info from the page www.gofundme.com/dadsarcade

Dad’s Arcade – A memorial arcade in honor of my Father

An unfinished tribute to my father has now become a fully-fledged memorial basement arcade project to keep his spirit alive in my life as well as the lives of his grandchildren. He brought the home arcade experience into my life when I was a small child and in his honor, I wish to do the same thing for my children (aged 2.5 years and 10 months) so they too can know how thoughtful and caring their grandpa was and how much he loves them when they grow up. Please help us reach our goal to finally make this project more than just an idea and you too can enjoy a piece of gaming history and recognition for your contributions.



About this campaign

Since even before my Father had passed away after complications from Pulmonary Fibrosis in June 2013, I had an idea of a way I could make a tribute to him. My Dad had brought gaming into my life at an early age by one day randomly bringing a couple of full-sized arcade machines into our basement. For those of you who don’t know, my Dad was not a gamer in the least and I can’t recall any instance of him playing a single video game or pinball. However, that incredible act of kindness can easily show how much he cared for his family in life, especially his children. This single event was short lived as my Dad was unable to get these ‘70s era machines fixed once they broke down and ended up selling them but it’s turned into easily one of my best childhood memories regarding my Dad.

Today I am married and have started having children of my own and deeply desire to re-create this memory for my young children in my dad’s honor. Since my Dad was no ordinary man (he was often referred to as “Big John”) I knew that truly only a “Big” gesture of a basement arcade dedicated and named after him would be the proper way I would want his spirit to live on in my family’s life. My wife and I are at a point in our lives where we are ready to make this happen and though the basement of our house is mostly unfinished and not appropriately modeled as such to be properly turned into an arcade, we’re not shying away from completing this project and since we know people that can help us with the construction aspect of this project, money is the only (and biggest unfortunately) hurdle for us to jump. The cost of going about this process is much more than we can afford and though we're working on filtering any money we can into making this happen, the fact is thanks to numerous debts, we simply can't get this off the ground ourselves.

That’s where the gofundme community comes in! In exchange for a highly appreciated donation to get this cause finally completed after over 2 years in the making, I will gladly offer you a commemorative item for “Dad’s Arcade” as well as various levels of recognition that will be the FIRST thing people see (along with a memorial plaque for my Dad) upon entering Dad’s Arcade.

Risks and Challenges

Money by and large really has been the only challenge in getting this project done and due to several unforeseen medical bills scaling from my whole family; I had to take steps back by selling off machines that I had gotten restored and as a gift just in order to keep our finances afloat. It was the hardest choice I had to make in regards to this project and since I’m either back to square one or either further behind than that (currently I only have 1 arcade game that I broke a significant part of while restoring) depending on your perspective, I felt it was time to ask for help. Though reaching out in this way is somewhat of a risk, after much thought I feel like it is the right thing to do. I feel this is the right platform for this because in a way, all of our friends and family and others that my Dad had made a presence in their lives can now have their own hand in making this idea a reality and a permanent addition to our home. Assistance in finishing/remodeling (especially in terms of an ideal electrical setup) of this section of the basement is what has been holding us back.

The Future

Many, many ideas are up in the air currently about what we plan to do once the project is complete. We're currently working on the logistics and discussing the likelyhood of hosting tournaments and arcade parties for those who have donated in some way, shape, or form. We would very much so like to open our doors (or home rather) to those kind enough to contribute to the cause. For those not local to Minneapolis however, we don't want to leave anyone out and are absolutely exploring the possibility of either setting up a youtube channel to have a video log of our progress and eventual parties as well as maybe even getting a stream channel setup for live coverage.