California Extreme 2008 ... commentary from around the Net.

• from the San Jose Mercury News
• from SFGate
• from KTVU
• from the San Francisco Chronicle
• from pinside.com
• from Jeff, a first-time attendee
• from Dan, a multi-year attendee
• from Aaron Giles (of MAME fame), his 9th year in a row!
• from kieferskunk, a multi year attendee
• California Extreme makes the list of great arcade experiences

More to come!

Congratulations to all our winners of the pinball tournaments. See the list below for the winners!

Solid State:
1.  Keith Elwin
2.  Andrei Massenkoff
3.  Jim Belsito

Modern:
1.  Keith Elwin
2.  Trent Augenstein
3.  Andrei Massenkoff

EM:
1.  Neil Shatz
2.  Andrei Massenkoff
3.  Gene Lewin

Casual Division:
1.  Ron Rezendes
2.  Neil Inn
3.  Mike Hafner

Three pinball tournaments are based on the eras of the games: modern (1990 to present), solid state (roughly 1975 to 1990), and electro-mechanical (roughly 1960 to 1975).

A fourth tournament is reserved for casual players only, players who have never won a prize in any previous pinball competitions.  This is a bonus division -- casual players are also eligible to win in any of the other three tournaments.

For a brief description of the rules, go here.  For complete rules, go here.

"Coolest fxxxin arcade ever!" - Eugene Jarvis

"CAX is a great idea and fun to attend." - Steve Ritchie

"I was having a really crappy summer, and then I found out I was going to California Extreme ... it's better than Disneyland!" - Thomas Peter  

"Basically, if you're in the Bay Area, and you love arcade/pinball machines, you can't miss this show - it simply isn't allowed." - GameSetWatch

"I just want to thank you for all the hard that you do to put this together every year. This will be my fourth year attending and it just seems to get better every year. I can't tell you how great it is to see and play all the great machines that people bring in every year." - Tom Dion

"I just wanted to let you guys know how much I enjoyed your event this year. It was well worth the 7,000 miles I traveled to be there; I'll definitely be back next year." - Brian from Hoboken

"Thank you guys so much for all you efforts! I don't think you get much credit for all the hard work that goes into your show.  Really, this is what I look forward to most all year!" - Sam Kurde

CAX 2007 had over 430 games!!

Click here to see pictures from the 2007 show and from earlier years.

Arcades were once a fixture on the American urban landscape, and games were plentiful in rural cities too. The closest heir of today is the so-called "Family Entertainment Center", which is populated with a myriad of devices designed only to take your coins quickly and leave you with a pile of tickets, which you exchange for cheap, trashy toys. This is entertainment? California Extreme was born with a desire to share fun coin op games that are in the hands of private collectors, and to hopefully spread the word that pinball machines were once plentiful, and that videogames were not synonymous with "martial arts" and violence. Buy/sell/trade! The show is a great place to bring games you want to sell, and also a good place to add to your collection, or even start it! Not all games will be for sale; many collectors bring games to show (or show off!) that they would never sell. So .. Can I play the stuff? Yeah .. Everything is on free play. You can play from the moment you arrive until we shut off the power at closing -- Play as many games as you want, in whatever order you want to. There are *HUNDREDS* of games, all set to play for free. This is a your chance to try those older games, or the newer games that you'd never put money into in an arcade. There are also many games that never got produced, and are very hard to find.