MEET
The Midwest Gaming Classic hosts lots of industry professionals each year! Here are many of the guests we hosted in 2022! In late Summer / early Fall we’ll start adding our 2023 guests!
List subject to change.

Philo Barnhart

Philo Barnhart
Philo was an animator for games Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace, but is perhaps best known for other projects he helped animate – The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Rescuers Down Under, The Secret of NIMH, Happily Ever After, An American Tail, and special effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture!

Norman Caruso

Norman Caruso
Norman Caruso is the creator of “The Gaming Historian”, a YouTube documentary series that explores the history of video games. Want to learn about the landmark lawsuits that changed the industry? Or why the Power Glove wasn’t “so bad” after all? The Gaming Historian has you covered. The show has more than 100 million views and 800,000 subscribers, and has been featured on Destructoid, Polygon, Nintendo Life, and even Playboy.com. Norman earned his history degree from Elizabeth City State University and is currently working on his master’s degree.

Brian Colin

Brian Colin
Creator of such video game classics as Rampage, Xenophobe and General Chaos, Brian F Colin is a vastly experienced Game Designer, Artist, Animator and CEO with over 80 video game titles to his credit…. including the creation of some of the most-popular, highest-earning & best-selling titles in video game history!
Recently inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame, Brian is well-known for sharing enthusiastic, first-hand, anecdotal insights into over three decades of game design and development; from creating Arcade classics in the early 80’s right up to stories straight from the sets and locations of the recent Rampage Movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Warren Davis

Warren Davis
Warren Davis, is an International Video Game Hall of Fame inductee. As a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he discovered Pong, and later created his first game, a simulated gin rummy that was done via punch cards. After graduating, Davis landed his first programming job in 1982 at the arcade game company Gottlieb, where he helped create Q*bert—one of the most popular video arcade games of the ’80s—an accomplishment that led him to later achieve breakthroughs in automating the digitizing of graphics used in such games as Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam.

Larry Demar

Larry Demar
Larry Demar worked with Eugene Jarvis to design games like Defender and Robotron 2084 before moving into pinball where he is credited on the design and / or software team for many of the most successful pinball machines ever including the Addams Family, Twilight Zone, Fun House, High Speed, Space Shuttle, Black Knight and World Cup Soccer!

Richard Divizio

Richard Divizio
Richard Divizio is best known for portraying Kano in Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. He also portrayed Quan Chi and Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, Baraka in Mortal Kombat II, Kabal and Noob Saibot in Mortal Kombat 3 and provided some of the motion capture for Mortal Kombat 4.

Tim Kitzrow

Tim Kitzrow
TIM KITZROW is the iconic voice of your favorite sports franchises — NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz and MLB Slugfest — and over a dozen classic pinball games. With NBA JAM, which grossed over $2 BILLION to date, Kitzrow introduced BOOMSHAKALAKA to the NBA lexicon and earned pop culture immortality. For 25 years, Kitzrow has enjoyed a legendary run as the signature voice of classic games like NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz and Wayne Gretzky Hockey, MLB Slugfest and Big Hurt Baseball, and NCAA College Slam.

Tim Lapetino

Tim Lapetino
Tim Lapetino is a writer and award-winning creative director, mining geek culture for compelling stories. He is the author of the best-selling book, /Art of Atari/, and co-author of /Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon/. He is also an editor of /Sky Captain and the Art of Tomorrow/ and /Undisputed Street Fighter/. He also co-authored the design inspiration book Damn Good: Top Designers Discuss Their All-Time Favorite Projects. His design work has been featured in more than a dozen other books and magazines, and his books have been published in five languages. Tim is dedicated to writing and working at the intersection of design and geek culture. He resides in Chicago with his wife and two kids.

Jason (Metal Jesus) Lindsey

Jason (Metal Jesus) Lindsey
The Metal Jesus is a long-haired rocker dude who runs a popular YouTube channel dedicated to Retro Gaming with a Heavy Metal soundtrack. With the help of the Seattle gaming community he covers Hidden Gems, Buying Guides as well as the popular I HATE U series, Gamer Eats and much more. He was also an employee at mega publisher Sierra On-Line in the 90s and he brings his love of big box PC gaming to his channel as well. New videos released every Friday!

Paul E. Niemeyer

Paul E. Niemeyer
Paul E. Niemeyer’s game art career began at Bally/Midway in 1982, where he did art on games including Tapper, PacMan Plus, Super PacMan, Professor PacMan, TRON, Satan’s Hollow, Spy Hunter, WACKO, and Midnight Marauders, as well as dozens of prototype games. In 1984, he went freelance and worked on games like Time Killers, Aeroboto, Star Guards, Demolition Man pinball, and Mortal Kombat! Paul has also worked on movie properties like Little Mermaid, Jurassic Park II, Men in Black, Star Trek 5, Star Wars: Phantom Menace, and Pirates of the Caribbean. More recently, Paul sculpted parts for American Pinball’s Legends of Valhalla!

Nadia Oxford

Nadia Oxford
A lifelong game-lover, Nadia Eisner Oxford learned how to warp in Super Mario Bros. long before she learned how to do long division. She’s worked in the games media since 2003, and she currently co-hosts the Axe of the Blood God RPG podcast. Incidentally, she still doesn’t know how to do long division.

Aaron Schmitt

Aaron Schmitt
Aaron is the new Owner of Victory Glass Restoration parts. He has been a long time jukebox and arcade collector. Oversees all new products and operation of victory glass. Grew up around jukeboxes in the living room as his family has a history with operating and collecting Coinop machines.

Dwight Sullivan

Dwight Sullivan
Williams Electronics, Stern Pinball*
Senior game developer
Dwight is currently a senior game designer with Stern Pinball, and has worked on lots of different games for Stern, including being the team leader for games like Pirates of the Caribbean and more! Before that, he worked for Williams Electronics.
Alumni
Below are some of our guests from past shows

Eugene Jarvis

Eugene Jarvis
Atari Pinball, Williams Electronics, Vid Kidz, Midway, Raw Thrills*, Play Mechanix*
Video Game Programmer, Pinball Programmer, Co-Founder of Vid-Kidz, Owner of Raw Thrillz
Eugene designed many landmark arcade video games including Defender, Robotron 2084, Narc, Smash TV, and the Cruis’n series. He also worked in pinball, helping to bring designs like Firepower, Pinbot, Space Shuttle, High Speed, and F-14 Tomcat to life. If that isn’t enough, he owns Raw Thrills and Play Mechanix, the premier modern arcade developer with hits such as the Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, Injustice Arcade, the Big Buck Hunter series, and more!