by Zach White
LAWRENCE, Kan.--
From the time that Jo Shmo’s, 724 Massachusetts Street, opened it has taken pride in its unusual entertainment options with its slogan “Burgers Beer Bocce.” Yet it offers another diversion that remains stranger still among local bars. The restaurant and bar allows its patrons to play a Nintendo Wii, on which customers have to option to play a simple bowling game or the recent musical gaming sensation, Guitar Hero. And other businesses are beginning to offer similar options.
Yet the growing interest in bringing what have traditionally been personal gaming experiences to the public should not be chalked up to some kind of foresight or marketing skill on the part of Jo Shmo’s. Rather the phenomenon is more the product of generational shifts.
Video games became a tremendous cultural force, primarily for youth, more than 20 years ago. As such, the people raised being entertained by this industry has now reached the drinking age, or more technically, become a very important customer base for businesses like Jo Shmo’s, businesses like the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire Street.
The Bottleneck has recently begun holding a regular video gaming night on Monday nights. They have multiple video game consoles set up in different parts of the bar, and invite patrons to engage in computerized competition with each other, while they have a DJ play music for the whole event.
For the past month that DJ has been Sean Wilson, a radio DJ for student radio station KJHK and video game enthusiast. Wilson believes that this idea is a most interesting one.
“It actually caught my attention, and I talked to the curators of this event about how neat it was. And then I got involved and became a DJ and then started bringing in video games myself. “ Wilson explained, “I think its neat because it’s something you don’t really see everywhere, but at the same time its nostalgic, because people remember going to arcades, playing games in an arena, where other people get to see how good you are at video games.”
Bert McCormack, general manager of Jo Shmo’s, has made similar observations in his gaming bar.
“Sometimes people will come in to play Guitar Hero and you’ll hear the same song a couple of times, because they’ll compete with each other to see who can do it the best,” McCormack said, “Sometimes they’ll make a game out of it. Like, the loser has to buy the next round of beers or something. And sometimes when we have a lot of people out here at night, one group will be playing, and then people will start asking if they can play, and it ends up in a sort of round robin tournament.”
He also mentioned that Jo Shmo’s was planning on purchasing a copy of the more ambitious musical game Rock Band, which has multiple guitars, drums and a microphone for a singer, all combining into one extremely glorified karaoke machine.
Where they considered, other bars across the country have purchased the game. In fact commercial interest in the game has been so great that the manufacturers of Rock Band have released a multi-thousand dollar expansion set that adds amplifiers, lasers and smoke machines to the setup.
The entertainment seekers of Lawrence seem to be content with just the one guitar, as multiple businesses have attempted to use the game to draw people. The Applebee’s restaurant on Iowa Street has held at least one Guitar Hero tournament.
The University of Kansas has held numerous tournaments for Guitar Hero and other popular games in both the Kansas Union and the dormitories. Some of which actually yield cash prizes.
Although the University’s objective is to deter drinking the opposite is mostly true of the others.
As Sean Wilson put it:
“People love playing games when their drunk, and video games kind of the top factor as far as nostalgia goes.”