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Iowa City Annoints Itself Video Game Capitol of the World

By gamepolitics

Forget Tokyo, Seattle and Austin.

The real video game capital of the world can be found in America's heartland: Ottumwa, Iowa. At least, that's what Ottumwa officials believe. The Des Moines Register reports that the small city also hopes to build a video game hall of fame.

Ottumwa's primary (only?) claim to video game notoriety dates back to 1982 when Billy Mitchell registered a world record on Donkey Kong at a local arcade. Mitchell, who appeared in the 2007 documentary The King of Kong, told the Register that a hall of fame could do wonders for Ottumwa:

It had to seem like a silly idea to most anybody who heard about it, but [the Baseball Hall of Fame] was something that absolutely memorialized Cooperstown. Ottumwa is on the edge of that.

The far edge, maybe. Walter Day, who owned the arcade in which Mitchell set the record, has apparently also sipped from the Ottumwa Kool-Aid:

You would be able to go for world records. This will become a very, very big vacation destination.

In the pic at left, Mitchell is sporting the mullet while Day is wearing the referee jersey.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).