CGEUK Rallies British Gamers to Challenge France to 'London vs Paris' video game championship in summer 2006

Event Described as a "Video Game Championship to Settle a 650-year-old Rivalry"

Croydon, London, U.K. - July 26, 2005 -Video game enthusiasts throughout Great Britain are gathering at the forthcoming 2005 Classic Gaming Expo-UK to sign a proclamation that challenges the gamers of France to a "London vs. Paris" gaming tournament planned for London during the summer of 2006. The event is described as a video game championship to "settle a 650-year-old rivalry."

On Friday, August 12th, at 1:00 PM, the 8-foot tall proclamation, printed on vinyl, will be unveiled during a CGEUK press conference in Fairfield Hall, in the London suburb of Croydon. The actual signing of the petition will take place in Fairfield Hall the next day, Saturday, August 13th, during the course of the 2005 Classic Gaming Expo-UK. Gamers attending the CGEUK will be invited to sign this proclamation.

"The 'London vs. Paris' event will be conducted in a spirit of fun and friendship," explains Chris & Christine Milliard, co-founders of the CGEUK. "The difficult years of past Anglo-Franco conflicts," Chris Milliard says, "are now long behind us and we can now use the fun and entertaining medium of the video game as a way to create positive cultural ties between our two nations."

The contest will be conducted on 10 different games representing all eras of video game history, including maze games from the coin-op arcade era to modern console and PC titles. The event will be organized by the editorial staff of Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records, the official record book for the worldwide electronic gaming industry (http://www.twingalaxies.com).

The Classic Gaming Expo-UK, now in its second year, was founded by Chris and Christine Milliard of London and is described as the UK's "foremost all-format retro gaming event." Attendees at the CGEUK will be able to play video game systems from all historical eras - from the oldest arcade coin-op classics, like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Frogger, to the greatest home systems, including the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. The event can be found on the internet at http://www.cgeuk.com.

Walter Day, editor of Twin Galaxies' book of world records will join CGEUK's Chris & Christine Milliard in leading a contingent of players over to France to issue the challenge. Day says: "The completed proclamation will be hand-delivered to Paris on August 15th - the Monday following the CGEUK - where it will be turned over to members of the French video game industry who will work on developing a French team to travel to next year's Classic Gaming Expo-UK (2006) where the 'London vs Paris' tournament will be conducted."

Also among the British entourage traveling to Paris will be Billy Mitchell, the American gamer who achieved history's first "perfect" game on Pac-Man and who was declared the "Player-of-the-Century" at the 1999 Tokyo Game Show. Mitchell, who is considered to be the world's most famous video game player, commissioned artists at his own expense to create the over-sized proclamation and the logo artwork used for the challenge. Mitchell says: "I congratulate Chris and Christine Milliard for their bold creativity in using the CGEUK as a platform for initiating this positive interaction between France and England."

Twin Galaxies' Walter Day, based in Fairfield, Iowa, USA, notes: "Its only fitting that we are delivering this proclamation on August 15th, Napoleon Bonaparte's 236th birthday. He liked challenges like this and he would have liked to have been here for this."