SDCC 2016: From Pac-man To Mario Panel Recap!

As mentioned earlier today in my interview with him, Pat Contri (Pat the NES Punk) hosted his first ever comic con panel this year, and he even brought some guests along.

The panel consisted of Pat himself, His friend Ian Ferguson, James Rolfe (Angry Video Game Nerd), Andre Meadows (Black Nerd Comedy), and Pixel Dan. Overall, a nice well rounded group of people to give an abridged version, but fun take on the history of video games. They even had a great turnout as they completely packed the room and even had to turn away some people (whoa!, that’s crazy).

The start of the panel didn’t necessarily start where most people expected it to. While most VG history articles, videos, etc usually like starting around the Atari era, Pat & co. decided to take a different approach and start at the very VERY  beginning of games. They talked about how Ralph Baer (may he rest in peace) and how he is one of the most important and commonly overlooked influencer who helped get games where they are today. They also touched upon the creation of Pong, the rise of the pong consoles, and of course the age of Atari. They even had a really fun video that talked all about the fall of Atari and the infamous video game crash of 1983.

Next, they went on to talk about the Nintendo age and how they single handedly saved the market in the U.S from becoming completely dead and obsolete. After that, they went on to talk about the console wars and their own personal experiences growing up with either Nintendo or Sega, and how people around them acted. Then they talked a bit about the mid to late 90’s with the introduction of the PlayStation , rise of PC gaming, and how it was to see Atari and Sega finally drop out of the console war.

Finally, they talked about the present day and the rise of retro games and nostalgia. They talked about how surreal it was to see something like the NES Mini coming out and how a lot of indie games like Shovel Knight are very much inspired by the developers having that nostalgia for playing those kinds of games when they were younger. After that they took a quick Q&A, and just like that, the panel was over. GAME OVER (I’m so sorry, please forgive me.) There was this really cool guy that came dressed up as a Tiger Electronic though.

What do you think of the panel? Where you there for it? Did you enjoy it? Tell us in the comments below!