was out with my little toddler at the weekend and she was attracted to all the flashing lights as we walked past the arcade so thought i’d pop in and see what the latest games were…. now it must be over 20 years since i was last in one so i was a bit surprised to see they had NO arcade games as such just a few of the lucky grab machines, an air hockey table and some kind of basketball hoop game. The rest of the machines were just fruit machines, roulette / poker or quiz games.

Has the traditional arcade game died off now, or was this just a pretty poor arcade? It was in a popular spot so thought it would get quite a bit of traffic in the summer. I guess Xbox’s and playstations may have killed off the games machines?

I guess Xbox’s and playstations may have killed off the games machines?

This. There are a lot more games where you can win stuff. Often you get tickets then reclaim a low value prize. You still get a few arcade machines but on my old seafront they are the same games I was playing 20+ years ago.

Theres not really anything an arcade games machine can offer that you can’t do better at home – but more partularly games just have a much longer and immersive gameplay now – more about whiling away hours at home rather than a few minutes when you’re out.

Arcade psychology is all about short games, small stakes and frequent small rewards

You tend to see more old skool arcade machines in trendy bars these days. Turns out donkey kong is hard after a few beers.

I think modern arcade games need to add something extra that you don’t get at home to be remotely successful. Typically this is either prizes or some kind of physical interface.

So you’ll still find lots of games where you sit in the car/motorbike/plane, or you pick up the gun, dance on the mat, bang on the drumset, etc

But your old style 3 buttons and a joystick upright arcade cabinets are pretty much dead.

The 2p and 10p balancing machines are still there 8)

The 2p and 10p balancing machines are still there

love ’em!

But your old style 3 buttons and a joystick upright arcade cabinets are pretty much dead.

thinks back with rose tinted specs to the good times, playing outrun or with 3 mates crowded round all playing gauntlet!

I wish a bar near me would put an Asteroids machine in, I’d be in there all the time.

I love the 2p and 10p falls. I once spent about 5 hours in the trocadero center as a student and came out £50 up, I kept expecting the security to throw me out for 10p Falls Sharping.

In the local arcade and the games bit at the bowling there’s still a bunch of machines that do something different to home gaming- gun games, sit on/in driving games, that sort of thing. But very little in the old stick-and-screen format.

3 mates crowded round all playing gauntlet!

“Red Elf needs food baaaadly”

Heady days 😀

Even then though I mostly played it on my Atari ST.

I wish a bar near me would put an Asteroids machine in, I’d be in there all the time.

One of these?

oh oh oh I’ve never seen a coin balancing game with BAGS OF MONEY. Want a shot, i can see how to win

I prefer the stand up model BigButSlimmerBloke, but that would do the job 😀

Time was, arcades were “next-gen” gaming. The games were years ahead of anything you could play at home. Consoles / PCs these days are so advanced that it’s pretty much killed that market.

If you want to create the old arcade experience, look out for retro cons. There’s the Play Expo in Manchester which is ace, row upon row of old-school arcade cabs all on free play, every home console / computer you can remember (and a bunch you can’t) and more pinball tables than you can shake a shiny silver ball at. I was in geek paradise. http://www.playexpo.net/

I wish a bar near me would put an Asteroids machine in, I’d be in there all the time.

One of the pubs in Kirkcudbright had one still going, not been there in 10 years so not sure if it is still…

“Red Elf needs food baaaadly”

usually followed by the favoured teenage abuse phrase at the time as you / your mate accidentally shot the food your character desperately needed and you had to dig around for more 20p’s to put in!

Fab Cafe in Manchester has an original one of the in

Use the force Luke….

From what I remember the PS2 era of home machines killed the games arcades – they seem to just be full of low-end gambling addicts nowadays.

I can confirm that the seafront arcades are still asking £1 for you to play the slightly broken racing games from the late 90’s. It’s not a terribly appealing prospect.

FAB cafe is ace. I’ve not been there in a while though.

Theres not really anything an arcade games machine can offer that you can’t do better at home

Pinball

Luckily these machines seem to be going into hipster pubs now – I can’t think of anywhere more bleak than an arcade full of fruit machines (why the hell do they need so many anyway?)

Pinball

… is the right answer. But finding a well-maintained one is another matter.

Actually, do we need a pinball thread?

Our local leisure center had an Asteroids machine where you could spin a 10p coin in the slot and it thought it was a 50p. We spent hours on that thing. Simple pleasures.

Sit down Star Wars was my addiction. Proper vector graphics CRT stuff.

And used to make a fair bit out of the fall machines, some of which went up to 10p, and I never put any money in myself. Just hang around and grab natural falls. Then checking for change in the reject slots of machines. Eventually would get chased out by security, and then head for another arcade where they had gambling machines and double up the money. Kicked out of that and there’d be another to try. Beauty of growing up by the seaside 😀

In later years though, Gauntlet was king of the arcade.

Most annoying game was Dragons Lair, again a later game, based on a laserdisc. Cost a fortune and you’d last about 10 seconds.