A big THANK YOU to everyone who donated points! The results are in, and you can view them at Stride’s Save the Arcades 2 site!

From April 20th until 9:00am Tuesday, June 15, Ground Kontrol’s dedicated customers and fans racked up an amazing 624,871,000 points! At a maximum of 157,600 points per game, that’s at least 3,964 games of Cowbots 2010 played for GK! In the final week of the contest alone, our players rounded up a final stampede of 77,217,800 points to keep us at the top!

It wasn’t easy, though — and we have to thank Stride Gum for sponsoring this awesome contest, Arcade Infinity and Rocky’s Replay for participating with us, and our customers, fans, owners and staff for the incredible dedication they showed to Ground Kontrol throughout this contest.

Save the Arcades 2 has been one of the best things to happen for GK.  If you’re wondering what we’re going to do with the prize money, click here!

- Posted by The CEO

After years of cracking cans and popping bottles, we’ve earned enough XP to unlock the Draft upgrade! We’re offering six distinct brews on tap:

• Rogue Dead Guy Ale
• Lagunitas IPA
• Deschutes Twilight Summer Ale
• Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
• Blue Moon
• Woodchuck Draft Cider Amber (which is naturally gluten-free!)

If you’re 21+ years of age, set your quest markers to Ground Kontrol and enjoy a fresh brew. If you’d like to see a particular beer on tap, please, let us know!

- Posted by Art

Pre-registration is now open CLOSED! On-site registration for the remaining slots will take place Sunday, April 18 at 10:00am and is first-come, first-serve.

ATTENTION: Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade will be CLOSED TO MINORS all day Sunday, April 18 for the Portland Pinbrawl pinball tournament. Non-tournament participants are encouraged to come down some other day!

On Sunday, April 18th, the finest pinball players in the Pacific Northwest will once again gather in historic Old Town for Portland Pinbrawl 2010, Ground Kontrol’s second annual pinball tournament. Join your fellow Portland ‘ballers to battle the best of the Northwest for the grand prize: a full-sized Williams’ “Johnny Mnemonic” pinball machine. As an added perk, Ground Kontrol will extend its beer and wine serving hours to cover the entire day of the tournament.

Ground Kontrol’s inaugural Portland Pinbrawl tournament in April 2009 drew over 120 players, some traveling from as far as Canada to compete. A packed house is expected for Portland Pinbrawl 2010, and registration is capped at 128 players.

Portland Pinbrawl 2010 will also feature two “side  tournaments” with highly challenging rules including one-handed play, and “split flipper” play – where 2 players each control one side of the pinball playfield!

Competition signup fee is $20 per person; spectators get in for free. Doors open at 10:00am, Sunday April 18th. Admission is limited to 21 and over with valid ID for competitors and spectators alike.  Please note: Admission to the pinball mezzanine will be limited to tournament participants, and play on the pinball machines will be limited to tournament games only. This tournament is brought to you by Aaron Nelson, Eric Hill, Fred Franken and Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade.

Pre-registration for Portland Pinbrawl 2010 is highly recommended and will be available starting February 18th Pre-registration is now closed.

For more details and to pre-register, click here!

- Posted by Art

After four years of covering the explosive Chipmusic scene in New York City and producing the internationally acclaimed documentary, “Reformat the Planet,” filmmaking crew 2 Player Productions packed up shop and made for the Pacific Northwest to bring Portland its first monthly Chip show, dataPort.

Following in the footsteps of its wildly successful East coast counterparts, Pulsewave (NYC) and 8static (Philadelphia), dataPort presents a showcase of innovative, experimental, and lo-fi music with an emphasis on exploring the untapped potential that lies just beneath the plastic shell of vintage computing and gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy.

Head out to Ground Kontrol (511 NW Couch St.) on February 3rd to experience the first installment of this exciting addition to Portland’s electronic music scene and the ever-growing global Chipmusic community at large. The show kicks off with local act Spamtron followed by not one, but_two_veterans of the increasingly epic Blip Festival, Leeni and Trash80.

===Trash80 (Los Angeles, CA)===
http://trash80.net/music
Video: Trash80 “Missing You” @ Pulsewave
=================
An evocative and tuneful blend of chip and classic electronic instrumentation that will have fans and neophytes alike shaking their asses (or any functional equivalent) on the dancefloor.

===Leeni (Seattle, WA)===
http://leeni.us/
Audio: Leeni “Awake”
=================
Sometimes sweet, other times sultry New Romantic- and Synthpop- tinged tunes that you can either make out or break up to. If your Facebook Relationship Status is listed as, “It’s Complicated,” attendance is a must.

===Spamtron (Portland, OR)===
http://www.myspace.com/spamtron
==================
A delicate balancing act of fast-paced fist-pumpers and moody, spacey soundscapes that combine to conjure images of robotic combat, interstellar exploration, and other various epic adventures in between.

WHAT: dataPort, a live chiptune showcase featuring Trash80, Leeni, Spamtron
WHEN: Wednesday, February 3rd, 9pm
COVER: $5, 21+ only

Presented by 2 Player Productions

- Posted by Art

We’re looking for some friendly faces to represent Ground Kontrol’s awesome customers in a short photo shoot for an upcoming ad campaign!

Interested? First of all, you must be 21+ years of age (with valid I.D.) and be available from 3pm – 6pm on Wednesday, January 27. You must also be willing to sign a photo release, and supply your own logo-free attire. If you can answer yes to all of those questions, submit the following to models@groundkontrol.com by Sunday, January 24:

• 3 photos of yourself in casual, “weekend night out” attire: headshot, profile, standing
• your age and height
• your favorite game!
• your contact phone number

We’ll respond to our selected candidates ASAP on Sunday/Monday with further details. In exchange for your participation, you’ll get free entry to the Free Play Party starting after the shoot, and a Ground Kontrol t-shirt!

Thanks in advance to everyone who is interested!

- Posted by Art

Ground Kontrol customers, thank you for another great year! We’re going to give our games (and our employees) a rest over the Christmas holiday.

We’ll be CLOSED all day Christmas Eve (Thursday 12/24) and Christmas Day (Friday 12/25.) Normal hours resume Saturday, 12/26 at Noon.

Have a very Mario Christmas and may all your Galagas be bright!

- Posted by Art

We’ve launched our official page on Facebook! Keep up with Ground Kontrol events, discuss your favorite games, share photos and meet fellow fans of classic arcade gaming. Become a fan today!

And by the way, did you know we’re also on Twitter? Send comments, professions of love, or questions to @GroundKontrol and be sure to follow us, too!

- Posted by Art

Oscillator X Flyer

Oscillator X is a band whose members have had songs featured in several video games including the In The Groove series, the Pump It Up series, iDance, and Snake 360.

Unlike many of today’s dance acts, Oscillator X is a bona fide band, with members Kyle A. Ward and John Mendenhall writing and performing all of the music, both in the studio and at their dynamic live shows.

Oscillator X‘s track Dynamo is currently blowing up on Seattle’s C89.5 radio station, being the #1 song for over a month!

On First Thursday, March 5, Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade is pleased to host Oscillator X on the first stop on their West Coast tour. The music will start around 7PM, when expert DJ Strategy starts spinning an amazing juxtaposition of musical genres, making you groove to records you never would have thought to play together. Os X will go on after Strategy wraps up. 21+, no cover.

- Posted by The CEO

Saturday, February 28, get ready for a SLUGFEST!

Slugfest is Ground Kontrol’s semi-regular fighting game tournament, and we’re dedicating the third installment to Street Fighter! Put your quarters up and perfect your Dragon Punch, ’cause we’re taking the battle to four different Street Fighter games: Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Arcade), Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (Arcade), Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Playstation 3), and the brand-new Street Fighter IV (Playstation 3)!

Enter as many or as few tournaments as you’d like! The event will be sponsored by Bawls Energy drink, and we’ll be providing pizza and drinks to paid participants while supplies last. Cash prizes will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in each tournament!

What: Slugfest 3 Fighting Game Tournament

Who: All ages welcome!

Cost: $5 cover fee, $3 per game tournament entered. Tournament games will be set to free-play, no quarters required for tournament matches.

Where: Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade, 511 NW Couch St., Portland / groundkontrol.com

Note: Bring your own Playstation 3-compatible controllers if you wish to play a PS3 tournament! Some controllers may be available for use.

Sponsored by Bawls!

- Posted by Art

Halloween may be our favorite holiday at Ground Kontrol, so we’ve got lots going on to celebrate the season! On Wednesday, October 29, we have a very special edition of our monthly free-play party. Hallowbleep will feature scary electronic music and movie themes mixed by DJs Cache, Megaphysics, and CEV, scary movies projected on our 10′ screen, and of course, all the games you can play for only $5!

On Halloween night, we’ll again have scary movies, with scary music by DJ Travis Wiggins and DJ Fish In The Sea, and as usual on Friday nights, no cover charge (no free games, though – that’s a once-a-month deal).

Speaking of games, we have a very special Halloween treat in our Neo Geo cabinet. Captain Tomaday is a bizarre vertical shooter featuring a bloody tomato fighting his way through piles of skulls and other scary stuff. Play it now, because it’ll be gone after Halloween!

Another Halloween-themed video game we have is Capcom’s classic Ghosts & Goblins. What could be scarier than battling wraiths while naked? Play it during Hallowbleep, and you might actually make it to the end!

We have scary pinball machines, too! Our old friend Haunted House is back on the floor, just in time for Halloween! There aren’t many pinball machines with three different playfields, and you won’t find this classic at any other pinball parlor in Portland.

We have another scary favorite, Elvira’s Scared Stiff. How high can you get on the Stiff-O-Meter? Drop a few quarters in and find out! Finally, every night for the rest of the month, at the bar we have the classic Castlevania on our NES and Zombies Ate My Neighbors on our SNES. These games are free for our drinking patrons.

We hope to see you haunting the arcade soon! If not, boo!

- Posted by The CEO

Ground Kontrol has decided to make some major changes to our Thursday and Friday night musical offerings:

• Beginning September 4 (First Thursday), we will no longer have weekly live bands on Thursdays. We’re sorry if you’re disappointed, but we felt that shows took too much time and energy to put on every week, and they were too distracting from the arcade.
• Beginning immediately, we will no longer have monthly live bands on Fridays, for the same reason. Also, we have decided it’s time to shake things up and have some new DJs on Fridays!

If you’ve come in on a Thursday or Friday and felt it was too loud, or didn’t want to pay a cover, we apologize. We’ve made these changes with you in mind, so we hope you’ll give us another chance!

For people who like it loud, we’ll still have metal shows on Sundays.

- Posted by The CEO

Starting today, the bar now opens at 5PM every day. If you’re 21 or older, stop in for a brew and some video game or pinball action on your way home from work!

Ground Kontrol is still family-friendly 11AM-5PM on Saturday and Noon-5PM every other day of the week, so you can show your kids what arcades were like when you were a kid!

We are also pleased to announce some major changes to our private rental policy: Private events may now include alcohol service at any time of day, and minors may attend private events where alcohol is being served if they are accompanied by an adult guardian or spouse. For more details, see our Rental Rates and Information.

- Posted by Anthony

We got bottles and cans of all your favorites!

Domestic:

• Pabst Blue Ribbon (16 oz. Can)
• Miller High Life (16 oz. Can)
• Miller Genuine Draft (12 oz. Bottle)
• Coors Light (12 oz. Bottle) <- NEW!

Import:

• Pacifico (12 oz. Bottle) <- NEW!

Microbrews:

• New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale (12 oz. Bottle)
• Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale (12 oz. Bottle)
• Deschutes Black Butte Porter (12 oz. Bottle)
• Pyramid Hefeweizen (12 oz. Bottle) <- NEW!
• Sessions Lager 11 oz. Stubby (12 oz. Bottle)

Malternatives:

• Mike’s Hard Lemonade (12 oz. Bottle)
• HardCore Cider (12 oz. Bottle) <- NEW!

Seasonal:

• Currently Rotating Weekly! This week: Alaskan Summer Ale

PS – We also have a fine selection of non-alcoholic beverages.

- Posted by m_ron