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“…the holy grounds of classic gaming…” Matt Hawkins – GameSetWatch.com
Return to Media Kit
Over the years, Funspot has received a lot of attention in the media.
These articles are just a few of the highlights.
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3 Lives To Live
On Nov. 18, 2010, on a typically frozen day in Weirs Beach, NH, Jason Cram did something that no person before him had ever done. He scored 38,248,380 points on the classic arcade game Zoo Keeper, setting a world record and accomplishing a goal he’d spent thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars to reach. Continue reading...
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The American Classic Arcade Museum - NH's Pinball Wizards
Just one more try. I’m on my last quarter. The high score is within my grasp. I frantically mash the cabinet’s buttons, slamming the joystick every which way. My initials, JMR, finally appear on the screen as the number one high score. I throw myself into a chair, palms sweaty. Millions of other gamers have had similar experiences, spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on arcade games. To many, arcade gaming was a youthful hobby. Since the 1980s, however, the number of arcades has become much fewer. However, there is one place in New Hampshire where arcade games are preserved and available for anyone to play. Continue reading...
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Visiting Funspot: The World's Largest Arcade
Part of the fun of traveling is delving into a country's underbelly, those places that are just so damn odd it can sometimes be difficult to figure out exactly how they fit into a country's culture. And when you're on the road, you have the perfect excuse to visit those off-the-wall places that the locals generally avoid...until they have friends in town. ("Do you want to go see the world's largest ball of twine? It's just down the road!") Traveling means not only can you visit the world's largest thermometer collection, but you can grin proudly for the camera and proclaim loudly to the world, "Yes, I am indeed standing in front of 4,000 thermometers and I am loving it!" Continue reading...
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Minds Behind Ms. Pac Man Hold Reunion
Amid the glow of arcade game screens, electronic sound effects and a kickin '80s soundtrack, former employees of the General Computer Corporation, the company that developed Ms. Pac Man, Pac Man Jr., Super Missile Attack, Quantum and Food Fight, met Sunday at the American Classic Arcade Museum for their first reunion in some 25 years. Continue reading...
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Video Museum Gives Arcade Classics Extra Lives
Downstairs at Funspot, the venerable amusement center here near the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, tourists arrive in waves to play air hockey, ride the bumper cars, and pump tokens into modern video games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Terminator Salvation.
But upstairs, the dim, cavelike American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) creates another reality. Period music – Toto, Men at Work, Duran Duran – trickles in, mixing with the electronic beeps, zaps, and chirps of machines arranged in long rows like a robotic army. Among this array of classic arcade games, the largest in the world, you'll see classics such as Pac-Man and Space Invaders, but also rare finds such as Quantum and even Pong, the only one still on public display and playable. Continue reading...
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Funspot Healthy At 58
While looking through record books from the 1950s, Bob Lawton, founder and general manager of Funspot, stumbled upon the one from his first year, which was exactly 58 years ago today. Continue reading...
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Videogame Tourney A Thriller
Sounds of tokens dropping through coin slots and plastic game buttons being pushed ran between the arcade games of Funspot on Thursday, marking the start of the 12th annual International Classic Videogame Tournament at the American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) in Weirs Beach. Continue reading...
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The Museum of Mario
When Gary Vincent ushers you up to the third floor of Funspot, the world's largest arcade, in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, he knows he's welcoming you to the Promised Land. "The biggest joy I get," he says, "is the first-time visitor who comes up the stairs and they're like, 'Wow." What you behold is a carpal-tunnel-inducing Xanadu of 8-bit graphics and Casio keyboard soundtracks. More than 250 vintage coin-operated arcade games blink hypnotically in the dimly lit room, all of them still costing just a quarter to play. Continue reading...
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12th Annual International Classic Video Game Tournament Seeks Players from Every State
Weirs Beach, NH, 3/8/2010 -- The annual International Classic Videogame Tournament is quickly approaching, and 2010 marks the 12th year for this historic event. The tournament will take place from Thursday, June 3rd through Sunday, June 6th, 2010. Tournament hours are Thursday Noon-10pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-11pm and Sunday 10am-5pm. Admission is $40 and includes 200 game tokens and a commemorative color poster provided courtesy of The American Classic Arcade Museum. This year's tournament is sponsored in part by WPNH 101.1 FM, WFTN 94.1 FM, WSCY 106.9 FM & Gamer Soda. The first 200 registrants will receive a commemorative T-shirt and goodie bag. Continue reading...
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Funspot Arcade Treasures
Not content with being the world's largest arcade, Funspot in New Hampshire, USA, also houses the American Classic Arcade Museum, a collection of almost 300 original cabinets from the Golden Age. Curator Gary Vincent regales Paul Drury with the tales behind some of its most precious treasures. Continue reading...
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Funspot Report (from Retro Gamer magazine)
Bob Lawton puts his beer down and gestures out of the bar to the huge arcade beyond. "In the mid-Seventies, we had a small arcade with pinball machines and shooting galleries. This Italian operator from Concord came in one day and started waving his hands around saying, 'Let me get rid of all this junk and put in some good games!' The first videogame we had was Tank 2 and it grew from there. One game could take as much as a whole room of pool tables! I loved that guy..." Continue reading...
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The Best Arcade In The World
As you ascend the stairs to the top floor of Funspot Arcade, you half expect St Peter to be handing out quarters, because this is truly Retro Heaven. Rows of mint cabinets stretch out before you - Red Baron cockpit, Atari Drag Race, the shimmering Star Castle, a full-motion Space Harrier.. every turn brings a fresh jaw-dropping discovery. You simply never want to leave. Continue reading...
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Funspot Owner & Weirs Times Publisher, Bob Lawton, Receives Meredith’s “Citizenship Award”
“In 1952, at the age of only 21, this year’s recipient borrowed a few hundred dollars from his grandmother to start a miniature golf course and arcade named the Weirs Sports Center,” began Sue Cerutti, Executive Director of the Meredith Area Chamber of Commerce, at a recent meeting. “Now fifty-seven years later, that start up, known as Funspot, is a 70,000 square-foot family entertainment center that was officially recognized in 2008 by the Guinness Book Of World Records as the largest arcade in the world.” Continue reading...
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Lawton's Laurels
Funspot, the venerable, three-level, 60,000 sq. ft. FEC in Wiers, NH, is no stranger to publicity and fanfare after almost 60 years in the business of fun, its still ongoing development — inseparable from the life and career of Bob Lawton, who at 21 borrowed $750 from his grandmother to start his first mini golf course and arcade as the Wiers Sports Center — shows the embrace of the most successful fun center trends and thinking, alongside several unique approaches to the business. Continue reading...
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Lessons Learned From 57 Years At The Helm
When you step into a modern family entertainment center, you're often greeted with an array of dazzling high-tech video games employing the latest audio, video, and special effects. But the recent 11th Annual Classic Video Games Tournament at Funspot in Weirs, New Hampshire, showed there's quite a following for the older games as well. Continue reading...
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American Classic Arcade Museum
Who could have guessed that putting 250 ancient video arcade mechanisms in one place would open a temporal wormhole for aging gamers to relive their wasted youth? That's the American Classic Arcade Museum. Continue reading...
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Return To The Classics
Enthusiasts of classic video games have gathered at Funspot for competition, record-setting, and overall fun and camaraderie at the 11th annual International Video Game Tournament. Continue reading...
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World Flocks To NH Arcade Tournament
(NECN: Lauren Collins, Weirs Beach, N.H.) - It may look -- and even sound -- like fun and games, but these folks are in serious competition. It's the Eleventh Annual International Classic Video Game Tournament, and it draws gamers from all over the world to Funspot, the landmark arcade in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. Continue reading...
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Inside the World's Largest Arcade
Heading north out of Boston, Massachusetts towards New Hampshire, there’s not much along the highway capable of taking you by surprise. This is rural America, and there seems to be little here more than the occasional charming tourist town. But around the shoreline of the glacial Lake Winnipesaukee, the small village of Weirs Beach hides a secret: the world’s largest arcade, Funspot. Continue reading...
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Family Mini-Golf Tournament Still Going Strong
In an age when families find themselves increasingly separated by distance in this fast-paced world, the Mathson family, formerly of Winchester, Mass,. has found a way to keep the family spirit alive. In fact, they may just hold the record for the most consecutive years participating in a family event. But no one is really counting, they’re just too busy having fun. Continue reading...
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The Best Arcade In The World
When the cream of UK arcade players headed across the pond to compete against their US rivals, retro gamer set Paul Drury along to report on where you should be taking next year's summer holiday. Continue reading...
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Skee-Ball, Nearly 100 Years Old, Still Draws Them In At Arcades
Skee-Ball was invented and patented in 1909 by J.D. Estes of Philadelphia. These first games were 36 feet in length and, as one can well imagine, required considerable strength to play. So in 1928, the length was reduced to 14 feet. This new, shorter Skee-Ball achieved tremendous popularity and appealed to women, children and the elderly. In later years, a 10-foot long Skee-Ball made its debut. Continue reading...
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King Of Kong Is A Top Scorer!
On paper, Seth Gordon's documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" sounds like it might appeal only to hard-core gamers. It could well be titled "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Donkey Kong World Record" or "Men Who Game Too Much," and much of its action consists of watching youngish men (and one elderly woman) slumped in front of arcade games, working the buttons and knobs as if it's second nature. And yet, the movie's a kick: Gordon, a Seattle native, has a knack for shaping a story, taking the audience on a ride as manic and unexpected as that on any video-game console. Continue reading...
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All Hail Donkey King
Long before Xboxes and Wiis, the arcade was the field of battle for video games, waged a quarter at a time, sometime back in the first Reagan administration. The new documentary "The King of Kong" uncovers today's diehard fans of that earlier era's games, people whose thumbs are callused from games like "Pac-Man" and "Centipede" instead of more modern fare like "Grand Theft Auto." Filmmaker Seth Gordon chooses to focus on the high-scores competition between two "Donkey Kong" mavens, feebly playing up their rivalry and squandering his promising topic. Continue reading...
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Bizarro World
Andrew Gardikis is a 17-year-old kid from Quincy with a shaggy mop of dirty blond hair and a long, lanky frame that he's still growing into. In the video game world, Gardikis is famous for being one of only three people to achieve the so-called "Holy Grail" of gaming records: a perfect speed run on the original Nintendo Super Mario Bros., which means that he finished the game and saved the princess in 5 minutes and 8 seconds. Continue reading...
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It's The Spot For Fun!
Promotion is the name of the game in the amusement industry and nobody does it better than the Funspot family fun center in Weirs Beach, N.H. Founded in 1952 and currently located on 21 acres of property, Funspot is closing in on half a century in business and still growing. The facility recently added an indoor golf center with six deluxe golf simulators and a pro shop offering custom clubs and top of the line merchandise. Plans are on the drawing board for a hotel and convention center, too. Continue reading...
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Game Boys!
RICK FOTHERGILL DOESN'T look like a world-class athlete. With a gray-flecked T-shirt clinging to him like Saran wrap and a pair of pale legs protruding from his baggy shorts, the 27-year-old concrete tester from Ontario, Canada, looks as though a round of golf might kill him. Continue reading...
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Randy Lawton, Caretaker of the Classics is Also a Pinball Wizard
Taking care of over 500 video games and pinball machines is a labor of love for Randy Lawton, Chief of Technical Services at Funspot, who practically grew up in the arcade here and has been keeping both the old and new games running for nearly 30 years. His work on the innards of the game machines qualifies him as the resident "pinball wizard", a title he has also held during the 1970s when his mastery of the intricacies of the games earned him a reputation as one of the top pinball players in the country. Continue reading...
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World's Oldest Video Game Champion Still Young At Heart
The Coronation Day Video Game Championship held at Funspot over the weekend was a homecoming of sorts for Doris Self, the world's oldest video game record holder. Now 74, Doris learned to water ski at Weirs Beach in the 1940s, taking lessons from Bob Lawton, Weirs Times publisher who, at that time, was giving water ski lessons at the Weirs. Self made history when, at the age of 58, set a new world record on Q*bert, one of the most popular games of the Classic Era of video games. Born in South Boston, Doris said that she was always active, having been a tennis player from an early age, and she says that there are few experiences in life that she missed out on. She has gone bungee jumping, parasailing and celebrated her 40th birthday by going surfing at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a few miles from where she currently lives. Continue reading...
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Billy Mitchell Achieves Perfect Pacman Score at Funspot!
On July 3, 1999 at 4:45 P.M., taking nearly six hours to accomplish the feat -- on one quarter -- Billy Mitchell, 33, a Fort Lauderdale hot sauce manufacturer visiting the famous Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, NH, scored 3,333,360 points -- the maximum possible points allowed by the game. The results will go into next year’s edition of the Twin Galaxies’ Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records -- which is the official record book for the world of video game and pinball playing. Continue reading...
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Curt Vendel Donates 8 Rare Games to American Classic Arcade Museum
Curt Vendel of New York had a dream; the establishment of a permanent Atari Museum. Unfortunately he realized that was not likely to become a reality and this left him with a problem - an extensive collection of rare coin-operated games in storage gathering dust. So how does one solve such a problem? What did Curt do? He called Mike Stulir of Back In Time Classic Gaming and Mike hooked him up with Gary Vincent of the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in Weirs Beach, NH. Because of this connection, Curt donated several classic games in his collection to Funspot's American Classic Arcade Museum. Continue reading...
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Fun Without The Sun
To drive the rolling roads around Lake Winnipesaukee is to risk arriving, entirely by mistake, in some other decade. The Moultonborough general store rears up out of the year 1781. The area's grandly named little motels pull you straight back to the 1950s. The motor ship Mount Washington has been carrying passengers around the lake since 1940. And then there is one little corner of Laconia where it is forever 1983, and robots are trying to take over the earth. Continue reading...
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