Fantasy renovation: Manhattan gamer turns his apartment into a video game arcade

A 37 year old Manhattan resident has converted his apartment into a gamer’s paradise.

Chris Kooluris told The New York Daily News that he decided to indulge his nostalgia after reading Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, a novel about 1980s gamer culture. He’s spent US $26,000 on his interiors renovation, including a number of vintage arcade games and a leather fold out bed (complete with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bed linen).

The senior vice president of a global public relations firm, Kooluris reportedly custom built a four-player arcade console, where he can play thousands of games, including Street Fighter II. Thousands of dollars have gone towards first-edition Transformers action figures.

But it seems that nurturing Kooluris’ inner child has come at a loss – he told The New York Daily News that in the process of building his arcade, his fiancée left him.

In truth, it seems that Kooluris’ extreme renovation makeover was inspired by more than just a book. After moving in with his fiancée, his apartment failed to sell and he reportedly began feeling uncomfortable in his new surroundings.

"This is the extreme reaction of someone who isn't surrounded by his own stuff," he told The New York Daily News. But while Koolouris and his friends reportedly love his arcade-apartment hybrid, it seems that Koolouris might have taken a tiger uppercut to the heart.

"Now that my fiancée and I are no longer together, it's hard to enjoy the room as much as I want to," he explained to The New York Daily News.  "I always end up thinking about her."