Dave Fade and Nicky Biscuit became friends on the road. Fade played in a number of bands through his 20s, touring the world with Me My Head and signing a publishing deal for The Moths, while Biscuit played in the Subliminal Girls, the first band to perform in Selfridges, London. "The music industry has taken a bit of a battering over the past few years and changed a hell of a lot," explains Fade. "The band I was with at the time just sort of petered out, and I found myself in a self-imposed doldrums. Nicky was in a similar mental space at the time, as his band had come to an end also, and we found ourselves hanging out a lot more, drinking and playing video games."

It was one afternoon while playing X-Men vs Streetfighter on the Sega Saturn that the pair hit on the idea of combining their love of video games with their combined experience in music. "Why isn't there a club night where you can play games in a watching-football-down-the-pub-style with great music in the background? we asked ourselves," says Fade. "So we started to plan the concept of the night and Nicky came up with the name Nintendisco not long after."

Knowing that grand schemes birthed in the haze of beery nights playing games can all too often come to nothing, Fade and Biscuit headed the next day to Camden, north London, to speak to some of the promoters and venues they knew and to gauge interest. "We were quite surprised how receptive the venues were," says Biscuit. "They were really keen to embrace something different. In the end, we picked the Lock Tavern on Chalk Farm Road due to its location and vibe. We set up Facebook and Twitter pages, made a few flyers and did some mailouts to our extensive mailing lists we'd picked up through being in bands."

As the launch night approached, the pair had misgivings over the sort of crowd the event would attract. "We thought there'd just be a few people we knew [attending because they felt obliged] and a few gamers who wanted to play games on a big screen in a tournament setting," says Fade. "In reality, it was packed. Friends had come but it was mainly people we didn't know, and not just gamers, people from all sorts of scenes – girls, boys, musos and much more. It was great to see, first hand, the cross-section of people that gaming appeals to, it was eye opening. The reception was amazing."

For the first night the pair played Super Nintendo music direct through the soundsystem in the venue. "The sound of a buzzing go-kart against a back drop of intense 16-bit Mario music definitely grates after a short while. Plus, the primitive SNES soundchip was not necessarily designed to sound particularly good through a powerful PA system," explains Biscuit. "So we quickly realised that we would need a bigger venue and that playing the old SNES music through the PA doesn't work for very long.

"Now, we break it up a bit more with lots of different music. At recent events we have started to use a sampler loaded to the brim with 8-bit/16-bit gaming sounds to really brand the night. It's great to see how well some tunes work with some Mario power up and Sonic ring collecting sounds."

The club night swelled in popularity, catching the attention of the press and public and forcing a move to a larger venue: 93 Feet East, in east London's Brick Lane. Then the email from Nintendo arrived and, when Fade and Biscuit saw the sender address, they presumed the game was up. "We felt certain they were contacting us to shut us down," says Fade, "but they loved the idea and wanted to work with us." Working with Nintendo resulted in the team being asked to host the UK launch for the 3DS console. From there, the event's popularity exploded, with a UK tour of universities and appearances at the summer festivals, including Reading.

"After being in bands for so many years, it was amazing to be asked by Nintendo to appear at some of the biggest summer festivals," says Fade. Reading, in particular, a festival that I first attended when I was 16 years old, was something I've always wanted to play at. I never thought I'd get to do that by playing video games.

"Gaming in general, and especially in recent times, has a very broad appeal: all ages, classes and genders are involved, so mixing gaming into a night on the tiles continues this appeal," says Fade, explaining the event's popularity. "It's also a fairly unique concept outside of a game launch party. We wanted to bring that kind of press event to the masses."

While it's true that video games appeal to a broad audience, selecting games that work in a live environment can be tricky. "The games that work best tend to be either the ones you can pick up and play with no experience of the game, or those with a nostalgic value – Super Mario Kart and Street Fighter 2 excel on both those fronts. BomberMan is great as it's a true four-player party game and when we've had Tetris on a standalone screen, that has also worked well. Most people remember themselves being much better at it than they are now, ourselves included."

Looking ahead, Fade and Biscuit have more plans for the night. "The long-term goal is to be more involved with the industry, whether that's by expanding our current nights across the country, which we've already started doing, or by getting more involved with organising game launches and the like. We have a really unique demographic that attend our nights: gamers who like to drink and party as well as play games, so we feel that GamerDisco could be a great platform for developers to play-test their wares on the audience. It's a side of things we are really keen to push."

• The next Nintendisco is on 26 January at 93 Feet East, London