A couple of years ago, The Baltimore Sun did a great piece looking back on 30 years of Photon, putting a lot of the focus on the avid collectors who keep their interest alive by hunting down vintage game kits.
“We collected the equipment from everywhere,” said Marc Mueller, general manager of XP LaserSport. “We found it on eBay, and I’ve collected them from places that had closed down in Dallas, Chicago, and Tulsa.”
Mueller refurbished the vintage equipment for use this weekend. All the players agreed the modern equipment is very cool and very slick, but it can’t hold a candle to the old stuff.
“It’s very nostalgic for us,” said Tracy Snow of Louisville, Ky. She works in the insurance industry there.
“This is the stuff I learned to play on.” She gave herself the name Thunder when she started playing at 15. That was 27 years ago, she calls herself Artemus now, “Greek goddess of the hunt.”
The piece also talks about how the players, as well as myself, were inspired by Star Wars. The original Star Wars, when it came out, it was 1977. I was sitting at a theater in Las Vegas and watching, I started thinking that it looked like a lot of fun. Turns out, even 30 years later, there’s a lot of folks who agree!