Donkey Kong Forum
Other Classic Arcade Games => Classic Arcade Game Discussion => Topic started by: TheSunshineFund on September 24, 2018, 04:51:57 am
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For the benefit of those not logged into the shoutbox, a sad piece of news to pass along. Noted East Coast arcade player Mark "ZAP" Michaels passed away recently. He was a member of our East Coast BOTA team for nearly all of the tournaments and we would often meet up to have some drinks and play games at Barcade for friendly score attempts as well. In addition to being an awesome player (could play a bunch of Williams games indefinitely, Defender, Robotron, Joust, etc, 1m point Centipede player, etc), he was really just an awesome guy, lots of fun and always smiling and laughing. I attached a pic of me messing with one of his games during a BOTA practice I believe, he had a great sense of humor and always enjoyed helping others on games more than increasing his own scores.
I will truly miss our times at Barcade and at BOTA and cannot express what a massive loss this is for a community for those that never met him. Sometimes this hobby tends to focus primarily on what is negative about it, but Mark was always positive. When a few of us were getting down on ourselves one year for being behind in the tourney, Mark was always quick to add "At least we're having the most fun though" and that was him, literally never a negative word about anyone or any situation at least when I was competing with him.
Truly a good guy and he will be sorely missed.
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I learned of this on Saturday afternoon, via an Instagram post from Barcade. He was a regular there and they had posted a tribute to him. Here is a link to his obituary - https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenorthwestern/obituary.aspx?n=mark-g-michaels&pid=190219846&fhid=15464
Mark was a super nice guy, great player at MANY games and someone who kept me on my Millipede toes, as he was a close competitor. He often stopped by my streams and we met up many times at local arcades for tournaments or just for fun. He came to several of our BBQs and always had a good time, a positive word. A few of us met yesterday at Barcade for a little while to reminisce.
RIP ZAP :'(
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Sounds like a great guy. 50 is way too damn young to die.
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Hey Steve and Tim,
Thanks for sharing about ZAP! Mark was an upbeat guy, and I only ever had one conversation with him, and that was over the phone, via Tim connecting us. Back then, I reached out to him in support improving on the game of Centipede. He was getting up there, and I know breaking the 800k barrier was tough for both of us. I got to it rather late, in 2016, and by then, he may have already done a million, I can't recall. At any rate, we had a pleasant discussion about the various aspects of Centipede, and he was very encouraging. After that, we connected on Twitch whenever myself or Tim were streaming, all great times.
I know this post is ridiculously late, but I wanted to do at least one Twitch stream in memory of ZAP, to close out the year. Throughout the stream, I talked of bits and pieces about him. I even linked folks to Brooklyn Barcade's Facebook post of him, and his YouTube channel. Here're the relevant links:
My Twitch archive (for about two weeks)-https://www.twitch.tv/videos/350229731 (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/350229731) - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/350266013 (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/350266013) (I ended up doing a 208k game at the very end that Allen just missed, heh)
Facebook post on ZAP: https://www.facebook.com/barcade/photos/a.268656379979775/1067719713406767/?type=3&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARBdYq5nVK7ANFlDx3sTtretyVujMa3Pm4Lp89VWgUvjCUmlG-ZsLYBdczHvUn3BtVU5kfJlVbWXATHo56h6EGWzEbflm_r3r7YKrAwtsMDahkmxgTp8t1IF35DSC4xKe8q1eFOsguE8-prYpeSiVN3OD9Xp3btOXzSxkKT4CfWkFO-pGKFl73g71c8TDlaoMF83LF_bQaJxiU3S0FYPQGHTIVxygXGKXcTrMQS16E7YWs9-ZiAgvEHiwCCQfTYEMpcu5VnCzt1HumRm45kqJSb8bJXlqslMVY6ih9TwzumXv3pKTsR0Iy4THNzUXn-lFwt45xiqLZhqGWfkUyz4NslFfQ&__tn__=-R
ZAP's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/msquarednet1/videos
If time permits, I may do some time stamps for the Twitch archive (for some reason the broadcast was split in to two videos). He was gone too soon, as were some other gamers I never even connected, from this year, including the late Kayla Rose. May they rest in peace!
Đức
Chicago, IL
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Nice thoughts Duc, thanks for sharing