Tokyo Gaming Discussion Club (TGDC): Session 3 RSVP's Open

TGDC RETURNS IN JUNE FOR SESSION 3!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: LOCATION CHANGED TO VAULT COFFEE AKIBA! See map for details.

Hello TGDC Crew and Welcome Jump-Ins,

TGDC, aka Tokyo Gaming Discussion Club (or TogaDisco), returns in the bright and early start of June for the club’s third session, TGDC:003, meeting at Vault Coffee Akiba on Sunday, from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm ☕️ .

The way the club works is pretty straight down Broadway. We’re Meetup Tokyo’s ONLY (for now) dedicated video game discussion club open to all (players, devs, academia, journalists, those into gaming theory/criticism, or anyone with any opinion about games), and we all just meet to talk about gaming, going wherever the winds of conversation take us. Or more succinctly, we’re a book club where everyone’s reading/playing a different book (that’s electric-powered and may or may not contain ludonarrative dissonance), but wanting to discuss the whole concept of books in general in videogaming’s still relatively short 40-ish years or so of mainstream existence. Ok, so maybe it's straight down Broadway with a few cerebral hairpin turns but its good times!

To give a sense of how the conversations go, here’s a smorgasbord of past topics discussed across the last two sessions:

TGDC:001 + 002 Topics Covered:

1. When are we a gamer (existentially)? Is it only while actively playing video games, or does it carry over even during long breaks from gaming?
2. The games that shaped us: What were our “watershed” gaming moments and experiences?
3. The ethics of “save scumming” and playing a game “correctly.” Is the goal of a game to reach the end as quickly as possible, or is it worth sinking an extra 100 hours into it, taking your time to “stop and smell the flowers”?
4. In the year 2025, does the concept of a “Japanese” style game (i.e., a JRPG) still take root as a game with origins from Japan, or does it apply to a gaming concept purely through the cross-pollination of game ideas and influences across the world?
5. Kentucky Caves and the impact of shaping Metroidvania. We explored how the origins of Will Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure provided early building blocks for the upside-down castles we’ve come to love today.
6. The ethics of GACHA gaming: Is it all bad (or good? both?)
7. And of course, good ol’ icebreakers where we introduce our relationship, preserved in precious amber into adulthood, with gaming and what we’re playing.

If all that sounds good, come on down (or up, left, right, AO1 🚆 BO1 🚇 2:30/14:30 START) and join us!

Feel free to DM for any questions too. Attendance is 🆓 ✨

Thanks!

TOKYO GAMING DISCUSSION CLUB — aka TGDC, aka TogaDisco, Togadachi (a portmanteau of Tokyo + gaming + friends), or THIS-IS-NOT-TOKYO Game Developer Conference.