Vintage arcade games being auctioned off in Tampa

TAMPA, Fla. - Remember when you first saw Donkey Kong? The classic video game of the 80s marked the debut of Mario, who went from getting smashed by a gorilla to an iconic gaming character, familiar even today.

Pac-Man, Asteroids and many other games of that era stir memories in people like John Russo, who turned a love of vintage games into a chain of stores called Elite Home Gamerooms.

He said the games take us back to memorable times in our lives.

"I can't tell you how many times I hear that this game was in my college dorm or the army base which was a great place for games," shared Russo.

"It's nice to introduce him to the legacy games I played," said Soren Sventsen, while playing one of the games in the store with his 11-year-old son.

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"Kids come up to these pinball machines. I have to show them how to do it," said Russo.

Games change and so does the world. Russo's store in Westshore Mall is near Downtown Tampa, where game rooms just won't fit into the smaller urban condos being built here.

This Saturday starting at 11 a.m., the contents of the Westshore Mall store will be auctioned; all the vintage games, pinball machines, posters, and gaming tables. The other Elite Home Gameroom locations in the area will remain open.

Russo said even though video games have advanced into virtual reality, the vintage games still capture our attention, especially those who remember arcades in shopping malls and placing quarters on the machines to claim the next game.

For more information on the auction, click here. For Russo's stores and vintage game inventory, click here.

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