Arcade Appreciation Post

[Dynaknights]

I decided to go on a little adventure to a local retro arcade after work today (because I need to get out of my house more...), which got me thinking: do other people still like arcades, or did I just reread Ernest Cline's Ready Player One too many times as a tween? I tend to hear about arcades in the same breath as liminal spaces, but do people still go to them?

So, what are your favorite (and/or weird) memories? Favorite games, food, prize (if your arcades have/had those), etc. Places with arcade machines (I typically see them housed at bowling alleys) also count. :)

[oro_junestar]

I really wanna go to a retro arcade! There was a local one near me and I really wanted to take my best friend there, but when we got there, it had been closed and turned into a trading card store

Every year, my family goes to Wildwood, New Jersey for vacation, and the boardwalk has a retro arcade in it. It has a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet, and I'm getting so good at it, I keep setting the top high score every time I play :P

[Horsey Chobunso]

I'm lucky to be near a city that has a lot of options for arcades. There are two paid arcades, one of them more general retro and one more rhythm game focused. There are also two completely free, community run arcades. Both of them are rhythm game focused, but one has a pretty wide variety at this point. In my lighter parts of the year I go about once a week, but right now I'm too busy to go very often.

[rnottelovesowls]

at a popular pizzeria/bar in the UP, where my family's vacation home is, there's an arcade game from midway called "Timber", and every time we go there, i think about playing it... and sometimes i do. i've gotten a hi score on it once or twice. it's amazing the machine is still maintained; it must have been there ever since i was a kid. maybe even ever since the place opened!

but for more "local" attractions, an arcade bar opened in downtown a few months ago, and it's got pac-man and the ghosts lining the siding. i really want to go there one night. not much of a drinker, though; i just want to play some games

[milo]

I actually happen to run a retro arcade. 

My partner and I started collecting retro arcade cabinets in 2018, just a few to start with, games we had grown up or that were especially cool. We started with an Outrun, a Neo Geo big red MVS, Altered Beast and a sit down Aero City candy cabinet. It was fun to be able to host parties and be "the house with the arcade machines".

Eventually, I started a side business repairing and modding retro consoles which led to needing a storefront to run it, so we decided to open up a gaming repair/retro arcade! It's been three and a half years now and we think we're kicking butt, there's lots of support for retro gaming in our community.

I hung out in the arcade in my local mall growing up a ton, and basically demanded quarters from any adult around me any time I had access to an arcade. My grandma used to take us kids to her bowling league matches and just give us a bag of quarters and let us run loose in the arcade at the bowling alley.

Favorite arcade memory: Discovering Metal Slug one year visiting my grandma and spending all my quarters on it. I fell in love with that game so hard. Went back the next year and they didn't have Metal Slug... I was disappointed until I rounded a corner and saw they had Metal Slug 2! A number 2?? Back before the Internet was so ubiquitous and you were just a dumb little kid, you could just wander upon a sequel to your most beloved game just like that and life was grand.

[hyperchromatic]

arcades are so fun!!

i'm really lucky to live somewhere with tons of great arcade options nearby, and i LOVE visiting them whenever i can. i had to convince myself to take a break at some point because i was spending so much money on them, lol. there are a couple of popular rhythm game focused arcades near me, and i have a lot of fun at those!! retro arcades are always super fun too, and i'm also always a sucker for a good barcade lmao. i really hope these spaces continue to exist for a long time because i love them!

[Roxie / Eight !]

Arcades will forever be one of my favourite things ever!!! I have one I go to often and I recently started going back to a larger one I vaguely remembered from when I was little (really nice place)

Not exactly a memory but a fact, I can not really talk about the games at either of those arcades without the threat of doxing myself because both locations have exceptionally rare cabinets or games in general so I can only share my scores with IRL friends or just VERY trusted people. I'm very lucky to be somewhere with some of my favourite things ever but I can't go too in depth with them in the form of a really bad essay online, and that's one of my favourite things to do I hope my IRL friends would like to hear me talk about [redacted game from there] for way too long..