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A Wal*Mart location in Ottumwa, IA has become the first off-the-rack retailer of shirts for Twin Galaxies, the famed organization that started there nearly three decades ago.
Seeing a huge public interest surrounding Ottumwa's efforts to open the first International Video Game Hall of Fame, shirts for both the IGVOF and Twin Galaxies went on sale at the store on August 13, the same day as a local launch party attended by thousands took place in the small city.
In the first 6 days, almost 20% of the Twin Galaxies shirts stocked by the store have been sold to the public and over 50% of the IGVOF have sold as well. Twin Galaxies Founder Walter Day stated that he expects the strong showing to result in expansion of sales of the Twin Galaxies apparel in that Wal*Mart district, which covers 12 stores, and possibly beyond that if the strong numbers follow the expansion.
Twin Galaxies is recognized as the only official scorekeeping organization for video gaming by entities such as Guinness World Records and G4tv. It began in a small Ottumwa, IA arcade in 1981 and has continued to serve the entire world as it continues to track scores and rankings on the original classics as well as today's games on the Nintendo Wii, XBox 360, and PlayStation 3, and has been featured in numerous documentary movies and television programs in the past couple of years. Twin Galaxies International has staff located all over the world.
The International Video Game Hall of Fame project is a seperate entity from Twin Galaxies but very intertwined history-wise. The City of Ottumwa was proclaimed the Video Game Capital of the World in the early 1980s after Twin Galaxies efforts gained international attention via features in LIFE Magazine and work with then-popular television show "That's Incredible!" A recent documentary movie entitled "Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade" covered the history of Twin Galaxies and it's beginnings in Ottumwa, IA, prompting the small town to take on the project of reclaiming it's status as the Video Game Capital of the World.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
