Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade

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Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade
Directed by	Lincoln Ruchti
Produced by	Michael Verrechia
Release date(s)	2007
Running time	90 min (Sundance Film Festival)
Country	United States
Language	English
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade is a documentary about the "Golden Age of Arcade Games" directed by Lincoln Ruchti. The film premiered January 22, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and has also been shown at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival, as well as other film festivals.

1 Plot
2 Reception
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

In the eighties, video games were synonymous with arcades, and games were bringing in enough quarters to fill the Rose Bowl. This led Iowa entrepreneur Walter Day to declare himself the sole authority on high scores. In 1982, Day launched his Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard. Teenage superstars came from all over North America to join Walter in a LIFE Magazine feature spread, which recognized them as video game world champions. This led to the nationally televised 1982 Video Game World Championships, a touring National Video Game Team, and the promise of fame, fortune and groupies.

The film revisits Day and the LIFE players, now middle-aged men, as they reminisce on the arcade scene, its demise, and the dreams that crashed with it.

[edit] Reception

Stephen Garrett of Time Out New York comparing the film to the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which covers similar ground and also premiered at the same time, opined that Chasing Ghosts explored the material far better.^[1]

Pixar director Andrew Stanton, director of the film Finding Nemo, saw the premiere of the film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and enjoyed it so much that he arranged for a private screening of the film at Pixar's Emeryville, California campus for the Pixar employees on June 22, 2007.^{[citation needed]}