So I ask the people under Twenty Five, about arcades.

[RegalSin]

So I am over that age, you know like most of us. I was breifly engaged in a chat
about arcades. These people are like below 25, and probably are approaching the age
of twenty. You know they type who gives the over extra long hand shakes.

The topic was, why did the arcades stop being popular and what was an arcade like.

I said, the arcades had all kinds of games, including whomp ems, and stomp ems. People brought their pet snakes, and smoked inside the arcades. Many people who played hookey from school, would go to the arcades, primarly street gangs ( at the time ), also their was some fighting inside arcades.

What I described, was things that occured to me at arcades. They ask me where is this. I told them about Fairyland and ConeyIsland arcade. Then they replied with
"oh that is not a real Arcade".

...............

Then of course, they said their was fat people inside the arcades, along with wall to wall fighters, and they would hold tournoments inside them.

You see what they described, was basically a "White/blue/pink collared" arcade. You know the type that most of us in the room might go to, on our day off, kinda place.

.......................

Then I replied with, oh the arcades had people inside it, that looked like the fighters from Streetfighters ( which they did back in >1995 ). Then they replied with, "we wouldn't even set foot inside one of those places". Along with, oh "your talking about Chucky Cheezes". You see they think that I am 19 years old, but I am not

anyways, I told them the arcades, had picture booths, and pinball machines ( which I am sure you folks reading this are familar with. ). Once again they would not listen.
Basically I described an arcade from the 1950-1970's ( yes I skipped SuperFun time, Ms Pacman, Funcoland, and Sears ) 1990'-1995. They were describing arcades from 2000-2010.

.......................

From my conculsion, these people never really played in a real Arcade, asides an enthusiast place. They even wented on to talk about every single Marvel vs Capcom,
like if it was gold. I mean seriously. Long story short, like movie teathers, arcades are novelty.

[SignOfZeta]

It's true. If you can't get knifed there, it's not a real arcade.

When I was a kid I was watching this guy play Spy Hunter. He had dumped a lot of credits into the machine in anticipation of just sitting there in front of it and getting a huge score. Spy Hunter was a big deal in my area. So anyway, I accidentally kicked the plug out and he lost all his credits. I ran like the f*cking WIND.

I truely loved that arcade, which was also a bowling alley, shoe store, and comic/skate shop. I walked through it almost every day for 15 years...then they tore it down an built a Walgreens.

f*ck.

For what it's worth, I really loved the 90/00s fighting game scene as well. Redemption is the devil though. f*ck redemption

[roflmao]

I truely loved that arcade, which was also a bowling alley, shoe store, and comic/skate shop. I walked through it almost every day for 15 years...then they tore it down an built a Walgreens.

f*ck.

Yep.  Some of our local bowling alleys had some of the best games.  And no one played them.

I remember the arcades that you could smoke in (one had a huge area for pool tables) and fights breaking out were almost normal.  It's a good thing my parents never went in.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

We used to have this one bowling alley called Pike Lanes. It got used for testing on a couple of games at one time. Anyway, it had gotten a lot of games in way before even Namcos Aladdin's Castle chain would have them. Notable attractions I seem to remember at the time were Mechanized Attack, Narc, Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition, and Mortal Kombat, which were all there before anyone else here had them arcade wise in LR and NLR, so people would flock there to play them when those games were originally released. Anyway, late 90's saw the death of Pike Lanes, and it became a flea market.

[Black Tiger]

I am not under twenty five. The big arcade in my hometown was called "Hot Spot". Kids under twelve weren't technically allowed in. It was always full of smoke, everything had cigarette burns, it was open very late and most of my memories of it are at night. It is responsible for what will always be the sound of an arcade to me: a mixture of Ghosts 'N Goblins, Trojan, Side Arms and 1943 all at once. I was around eleven one night while playing Trojan and one gang of kids came by to encourage me to challenge a bully I was rivals with to a street fight in the back alley. He tried to act tough when he agreed to go out back as soon as he was finished his game of 1943, saying that he didn't want to waste his quarter. He began playing terribly and it was quickly game over. We each had a gang of kids cheering us on during the fight, which I won. I'm not proud of it or anything, but it did convince me that fighting wasn't cool and I haven't been in a fight since.

Arcades or locations featuring multiple arcade cabinets became family friendly with the 90's. The classic North American arcade will always be an 80's thing, back before video games became more for kids. The local bowling alley was also a good place for arcades when I was younger (I used to bike out there just to play Wonderboy), but they were mostly gone by the time I began working there, while the TurboGrafx-16 was still going strong.

Towards the end of the Hot Spot, new owners tried to turn it into a family friendly place. They painted everything inside (which was almost all wood) white, opened up a canteen, roped off a small square of the interior as a smoking section and operated within more family friendly hours. It didn't take long to die. I remember how uncomfortable it felt being in their at that point and everyone I knew stuck to clusters of cabinets at various businesses across town.

[Tatsujin]

I visited all our local arcades (had about 5 within 1km radius) since 1987 (@12yo), even the rated age for entering such a place at that time was set to 18 yo by law (only because the few slot machines, they alsways added in a small niche), but most of the operators gave a shit about. sure we also had a lot of mini arcades in restaurants, malls and stuff which was accessible at any age, so my memories of arcade games going back to end of the 70s. and yeah there were also the holidays (french italy etc.), which always consisted of haunting down any arcade and cabs in scope.

regarding the ultimate fun, arcades were the best place to be at that time.

it all dropped out when more and more games vanished and were replaced by slot machines and boring multiple game touch screen stuff. at the end our last standing local arcade was nothing more than a warm asylum for our east european friends. only few games left, but a lot of a$$holes around. a place you normally would avoid at any price.
that all happened within about 10 to 12 years.

[Digi.k]

last great arcade game for me when I was putting money in them was Sega's Spikeout and Virtua Fighter 4 and they were getting more expensive to play.  a credit at that time was coming up to £1 which today is about $1.55

[soop]

Me and my dad always used to go on holiday camping in Minehead, and the highlight of any day (every day if I could help it) was heading to town, and recieving a handful of 10p coins to play in the arcades.  And what arcades.  I didn't have a whole bunch of money, so I had to be very picky about what to play; a lot of time was spent watching other people and learning how to play games I didn't know.

We had stuff like Afterburner II, TMNT, Hit the Ice, and Street Fighter II, with half-hour queues to play.

On a school trip to France, it took me 3 minutes straight off the coach to head away from everyone else and find a small arcade with Snow Bros.

Then later, where I live, we had a few arcade games in Laserquest where I used to hang out, things like Virtua Fighter, some Megalo 50 cabinet with SNK games (and Samurai Shodown II!), Mad Dog McRae, XeXeX, and my personal favorite, Winding Heat (not all at the same time mind, this is over the years).  I still have my battered StreetFighter II arcade board I saved from there.

Then it moved on to the out of town Cinema/Bowling combos, where it would cost a full £ a go for the flashy cabs, like Silent Scope, or that great Tank game.  Or Crazy Taxi.

Last time I went to London, I found a small arcade and played a friend at Outrun something or other, but it wasn't the same.

[Gogan]

When I was 11-12 urs old we went to a place called cj barrymores. Still there, tho really different. They had an arcade, go karts, mini golf, batting cages, and softball fields.

 My dad umped a lot of games there, and knew the owner. So he'd take us with him, and the owner would give me and my brother a large stack of free passes for everything. Then we'd go into the arcade and they'd give us a big 64 oz. Plastic cup FILLED with tokens. Good times running around that place back then.

[soop]

It's like that place from the Karate Kid.  Wish I'd had a place like that as a kid.

I kind of did, but it was really just a few trampolines, Golden Axe and Wonderboy.

[_joshuaTurbo]

Growing up in a small town we had 2 actual arcades and some arcade machines at a bowling alley.  We even had arcade machines in the 'porch' area of Wal-Mart when it moved to town.  It was about a 2 mile hike out there, but I remember going out there as it was the only place in town that had Golden Axe and Super Off Road.

I cannot remember the name of the first arcade in town, it shut down sometime around when I was 10 (1989).  I do have fond memories of playing Double Dragon and Bad Dudes tho.    Now that place is a bar.

The second Arcade to come to town was actually ran by a church and was called StarCade.  The place was kind of like a teen center.  They had a pretty excellent selection of games with a wall of fighters.  They did the Neo cabs, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, they even had Sega's Holographic fighter.  The also had pool tables and other token/ticket type games.  As the years went by the get tickets win prizes games started to really take over.  It finally closed down in 1999 a few months after the church decided to change the name to St. Arcade and for some odd reason the popularity bottomed out.  It also became legend that the place attracted violence and lots of parents wouldn't allow kids to go there.  Now that place is a hair stylist.

There were also some nice arcades in malls in cities surrounding us (20 mile trips), but I only was able to go to those places when my parents would drive me.  Aladdin's Castle and a roller skating rink.  good times....*breaks out Mame cab.*

[Tatsujin]

It's like that place from the Karate Kid.  Wish I'd had a place like that as a kid.

I kind of did, but it was really just a few trampolines, Golden Axe and Wonderboy.

lol here I still have those places with lots of free play arcades. going there with the lil a lot.
you pay like 200 yens an hour and use everything you like.

trampolins, slides 'n' arcade cabs.

one even has some cave shooties.

[DragonmasterDan]

I had a lot of fun in arcades as a young lad. The arcade I spent the most time in as a youth closed down recently (within the past 4 or so months) after having been dying for years. It's now an empty lot with a White Castle at the edge of the parking lot. It's really too bad.

[Samurai Ghost]

Japan still has some great arcades in any town or city. There are tons of crane game /photo booth places but you can easily find a place that has all the latest games and a few classics mixed in. Some arcades also focus on only older games, usually for a lower price point (50 yen a play vs 100 yen).

The players are insanely skilled though. Do not challenge someone in a fighting game unless you want to lose. Even if you think you're good. You're not. It's fun watching people who have completely and utterly mastered a game though.

[Terminarcade]

I used to skip school so that I could play arcade games. I remember when Double Dragon first came out, it was a really big deal back then... I sometimes had to go downtown (Montreal) on this shaddy street full of arcade/peepshow... damn those places where filthy and scary as hell with lots of weird characters, whores, pimps, drugdealers, perverts... name it ( I was like 12 when I hung around those places). Now when I think back... glad I survived those times.