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Five years. Has it actually been that long? It doesn't seem like it sometimes. So much has changed since April 15th, 1998, which was the day that the OPCFG officially opened its doors for the first time. To truly understand how far we've come, though, perhaps it would be best to go back to...
To start at the beginning would be to start with me. I've been playing video games since about 1978. The first system I ever owned was a generic Pong standalone machine that came from Sears, I think. Shortly thereafter, the Atari 2600 came into my life, and a few years later the Atari 7800. Sometime in 1989, I dove headfirst into the world of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System, and shortly after that the Sega Genesis, Turbografx-16 and Super NES became fixtures in my life. While I enjoyed playing games during the late '70s and early '80s, it wasn't until I discovered the NES that it became my favorite hobby.
Sometime in 1994 I was first introduced to the joys of importing games when I happened to stumble across a small shop - the late Video Game Warehouse of Orange City Florida - that was using Famicom boxes as decorations. One of the boxes hanging there was the box for the fabled Gradius II, which my friend Chris and I had been hoping to find ever since Konami of America decided against releasing it in the U.S. I talked to the owner of the VGW, Shawn, and he agreed to sell me Gradius II, Holy Diver and a converter to play them on my NES.
Then, in 1997, Shawn came through for me again by locating and ordering for me Dracula X: Nocturne In The Moonlight for the PlayStation. I had heard that the U.S. release was going to have different cover art and not include the bonus art book and music CD that was bundled with every copy of the Japanese release (all true, as it turned out). Around the same time, it became obvious that Konami was not going to release several of their arcade collections (most notably the Gradius Deluxe Pack) for the PlayStation or Saturn. Disappointing, yes - but what could I do about it?
Then came the big announcement later on that year - Konami was going to be releasing a special shooter pack in the U.S. sometime in early 1998 - the Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus and Gradius Gaiden, together on one disc! I had been following both of those games ever since the news of their Japanese release first reached me. Fantastic, I thought. This is going to be great!
Right around this time, I contacted the webmaster of a fledgling Castlevania site. He and I shared the same opinions regarding Konami's apparently boneheaded decisions, and we emailed each other back and forth discussing what we could possibly do about it. Because of our conversations, an idea for a possible import game-related fanzine started forming in my head, and one night at work the title for this fanzine hit me -
"The Order For The Preservation Of Classic Forms Of Gaming"
Yeah, that's right. The original name of the OPCFG was "The Order For The Preservation Of Classic Forms Of Gaming". I didn't do much with my fanzine idea, as it turns out, but the name stuck in my head.
As time went on, no new news about the Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus surfaced - until one day in January of '98, I opened up the latest issue of EGM and stumbled across the following bit of news: The Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus had been put on "indefinite hold" by Konami of America. They went on to say that "its chances of being released here have been diminished".
Not good. So I fired off a letter to Konami of America. I won't go into the complete contents here, but it was a fairly long, rambling missive about not canceling the proposed set. I signed it as "President, The Order For The Preservation Of Classic Forms Of Gaming" because I thought it would make me sound a bit more important if I did. ^_^
A week later, I got a reply.
Sometime between February 10th and 14th 1998, the reply arrived. It was a letter from Mr. Chase Ayers, who was at the time Consumer Services Coordinator of Konami of America. It was short - and extremely disappointing.
Dear Robert,
Thank you for your interest in Konami. Let me say I agree on every point you made in your letter. Mr. Severin asked me to reply to your letter since I am a gamer myself. Konami has officially canceled Salamander Deluxe pack because there was not enough focus on this Japanese shooter. I do not quite understand why myself especially when Gradius Gaiden was the fourth hidden game on the CD (not to rub it in, sorry). I am not supposed to mention the many import places that are popping up around the US and this may be the reason why. I have several import games (and a Jap. to Eng. Dictionary close by) and enjoy them as much as possible. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us here at (847) 215-5100.
Thank you again,
Chase Ayers
Consumer Services Coordinator
Konami of America, Inc.
Chase Ayers
Consumer Services Coordinator
Konami of America, Inc.
It's been five years, and I still don't understand this whole thing about there being "not enough focus" on the game. For chrissake, they made the damned game - they could put all the focus on it that they want! But, I digress. Chase also included the following handwritten postscript in the letter:
P.S. "Could you send me some info on your organization. You could say I'm somewhat of a collector of classic games!"
He also included some flyers - two for the (I believe unreleased, although I may be wrong) arcade game Fighting Bujutsu, and one for the PSX compatible Enforcer light gun. Joy. Anyway, his postscript got me thinking - all I had for my "organization" at the time was a title and a vague fanzine idea. Why not do something more with it? Obviously I wasn't the only person that was upset by the cancellation of the Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus - and surely, with enough of us working together, we could get it released here. Immediately I discarded the fanzine idea - the big thing was the Internet, and I knew could reach more people with a website. One stumbling block existed - I knew nothing about HTML, or even how to get a website hosted.
So I contacted someone that did... someone that I knew shared my feelings on the issue and would be sure to help out. That someone was Kurt Kalata, the webmaster of that fledgling Castlevania site that I mentioned earlier. He liked the idea, and working with the info I gave him, he started to create a small website using a subdirectory of his Castlevania Dungeon account with Classicgaming.com.
Finally, on April 15th - after a month and a half and a minor name change, and on TAX DAY as it turns out - the website was up and running. Only Kurt and I knew of its existence at first, but once the word started getting out, that would change...