I searched and found an old thread about this topic, but it has been a couple of years so I thought I might start it anew.

I stumbled across this site while looking for evidence of any continued existence of the Electronic Gaming Fandom that flourished in the 1990s. My name is Mike Ciletti and I was a faned of the long forgotten first wave. I see a lot of evidence that many of the second (much bigger) wave guys are still around and have even made careers out of this...I'm impressed. Chris Johnston and I lived near each other, I remember Ed Finkler and I driving out to meet him at his house...and he was a couple of years younger than we were. My horrible 'zine Video Wars was reviewed by Arnie Katz in the first fandom column in VG&CE in I think 1990. I was 16 years old. Then I joined with the other first generation people like Edward Finkler and Richard and Ed Karpp to create cyberBeat, which had ambitions of mega distribution, but didn't last very long.

I was just wondering who might get in touch with me if I posted this. I have a lot of great memories of that short, but fun, era. Especially of CES trips with Ed Finkler, Aaron Buckner, and another kid Justin (Jeez, I can't even remember his last name) crashing on my floor, drinking all night and then going to McCormick Place in the morning looking like homeless kids. I remember how stoked I was when Arnie Katz bought us lunch and seemed to validate all the effort we were putting into these little publications that were read by maybe 100 people.

What ended my run? The same as everyone else I guess. Not too long after cyberBeat started I got my first serious girlfriend, I got heavily into the Chicago Punk scene, and I got a job. I never stopped gaming. (still have not)

The total ending was the fiasco known as NAEGE. Ed Finkler and I wanted to start what was called an APA (Amatuer Press Association) which was a very common thing in Sci-Fi fandom, that enabled new prospective faneds to tap into an existing subscriber base instead of having tiny readership. Someone talked us into that horrible name NAEGE (National Assiciation of Electronic Gaming Enthusiasts) and I think that made it sound like something it was not.

But, people were so territorial, they had to have their own publication, 5 or 7 pages of a big APA did not go over with the 14-16 year olds who made up the "second wave" of fandom...so response was small. Next thing we knew, there were 2 or 3 other "organizations" formed with big acronyms that were founded by younger faneds, doing things like issuing membership cards, trying to get Babbages to offer discounts, or lobbying politicians to lower the tariffs on games...but the main thing they did was attack Ed and I, and we just sort of gave up.

I have been thinking a lot lately about starting a new gaming website...but i am not sure. That sort of thing was lacking in the pre-net era. We were all so desperate for contact with other gamers. Now there are a million places, including great places like this.

Anyway, sorry about the long post. If anyone reads this who was a part of the whole thing back then...I would love to hear from you. Drop me a line at:

appaws@gmail.com