How often did you go to the arcade? What were your main games? What year did your local arcade stop being popular? Was your arcade dangerous? Any other memories you'd like to share? Thank you to anyone who replies.
>>12213938All the time.Things like Twin Cobra, Operation Wolf, Star Wars (Atari 1983), Rampage, Roadblasters, Captain America and the Avengers. All the best ones.I'd say they all stopped being popular in 1993. It was if a switch had been pulled.And none of the arcades were dangerous until the last several years, the few that remain anyway.>>12213938>Any other memories you'd like to share?I saw a black teenager beat the hell out of a video game just because the game had apes in it. Later on I bought the same kind of game and it might be the same one since it has damage. Who knows.Arcades were magical places back then.My favorite one (that is pretty much closed except for a small portion) was 30,000 square feet. It's the one that had Ivan the Gorilla in another part of the mall.It was fun times you can hardly imagine. And it was DARK. They kept arcades DARK back then and the only lights were from the marquees, as God intended.Oh and my dad took me to that arcade when I was 2 years old and that was my introduction to video games.
it was fairly expensive so i didn't go very often. Like I could rent a super nintendo game for the weekend for $5, or I could play for 15 minutes at the arcade, so I usually chose the snes game.
Shut the fuck up bot.
>>12213938I went to arcades a lot, and I'll be brutally honest: unless it's a fighting game, you're not really losing a lot just playing the game at home. When you're playing an arcade game you're just thinking about playing the game. And if you're playing the game at home you're...thinking about playing the game. Outside of fighting games you're not going to do much socializing in an arcade unless you have met up with friends for the occasion. Playing consoles at home with friends is way more fun than arcade gaming.
>>12214125No. Disagree. People made friends in arcades all the time.
>>12213938That hologram one used to be fun to watch
>>12213938Is picrel true? Is this how people used to play arcade games?
>>12213938I'm 45 and I never experienced any seedy local arcades like what you sometimes read about or see depicted in movies. I went to shopping mall arcades and ShowBiz Pizza. They were always family-friendly and my parents were often with me. I also played in the mini arcades that chain restaurants (Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, McDonald's, etc.), movie theaters, and other businesses would sometimes have set up on their premises. I liked arcades a lot and played lots of games; I was never hardcore about any of them though, and I didn't play against other humans. My favorite arcade game by far ended up being Dance Dance Revolution. I eventually spent $600 on good dance pads that'd let me play outside the arcade; only then could I practice often enough to become a really skilled player of that game. I don't remember what year it was when arcades around me died.
>>12213938>How often did you go to the arcade?i only lived a block away from my local pizza place arcade so i was able to go there more often than most kids. didnt have much money obviously so there were plenty of times i went without any and just tried to find quarters in coin slots. that actually worked a surprising amount.>What were your main games?there was usually some combination of racing, fighting, lightgun, shmup, pinball. cruisn' usa, mortal kombat, point blank, raiden, medieval madness. those are the standouts.>What year did your local arcade stop being popular?late 90s i guess you could tell the writing was on the wall that arcades were dying. >Was your arcade dangerous?it was a family pizza place, so not really but especially when playing fighting games people could be dickheads. if someone came up to the machine i would ask if they would wait to join in until the cpu was gonna kill me. usually they would oblige but some people just wanted to knock you off.>Any other memories you'd like to share?i was one of those small kids who had to stand on a milk crate to play games
>>12213938>How often did you go to the arcade?1-2 times a week>What were your main games? Big Buck Hunter and Skiball >What year did your local arcade stop being popular? It didn't>Was your arcade dangerous?no>Any other memories you'd like to share?yes
>>12213938The only arcade I saw were in this bakery in the town centerI went there all the time cus it was a bakery but I only played about 5-10 times totalI think they had Metal Slug X, Soul Blade and some KoFI only played Metal Slug, the tokens seemed expensive to me so using them for fighting games would be a wasteI was already used to gamepads from consoles too and sucked at arcade sticksI even had Metal Slug X on the PS1 at home too, so the only reason to play on the arcade was for the novelty of it or maybe to show off (there was this guy who could 1cc it and I'm 99% sure he had the game at home too)I think arcades really died when Lan Houses became popular and you paid by the hour, that's much more time for your money compared to paying for 1 continue and if you die you just wasted itI'm from a small br town if that makes anything clearer
>>12213938>How often did you go to the arcade? Very often in the early 2000s>What were your main games? house of the dead 2 and MvC2>What year did your local arcade stop being popular? no idea, it closed down afew years after I moved, so I never got to see its declineWas your arcade dangerous? not really but the area it was in sure was>Any other memories you'd like to share?Hangout there with my baseball teammates for batting cage practice, eat pizza and collect yugioh cards they had in the place.
>>12214110>so I usually chose the snes gameAnd that's why you became gay.
>>1221393838 years old, my experiences with arcades as a kid were split between Chuck-E-Cheese type birthday parties, Jersey shore boardwalk arcades in the summer, and playing the games they had at the local sports complex when my older brother was there playing hockey. Also some occasional bowling alley, roller rink and movie theater games.Most memorable/played cabinets: Metal Slug 3, Bust-A-Move Again, Crusin' USA, Super Thunder Blade, Heavy Barrel, House of the Dead, Sega Airline Pilots, Area 51, Egg Venture, San Francisco RushBonus memory: Going to the local pizza hut to redeem Book-It coupons and there always being the same tiny space invaders cabinet in front
>>12213938thanks, datamining bot but i will answer.>How often did you go to the arcade? i mostly just watched cause i was pooru. when i did have some money to spend as an adult, i mostly played drivers. 1 time i spent 20 bucks just to try beating the Gundam Spirits/Zaku lightgun game. i didn't beat the Gundam final boss.>What were your main games?mostly shoot em ups since i was somehow good at them. sometimes the lightgun/rail shooter games. sometimes the driving games. sometimes Rot3K beat em ups.play the DnD one once or twice and sucked at it.> What year did your local arcade stop being popular? when LAN gaming became more popular i guess.>Was your arcade dangerous? nah. some of them were just ripoffs. they set the difficulty to the highest in some arcades.>Any other memories you'd like to share?nope. not the /vr/ games anyway.
>>12213938Even when I was a kid I thought arcades were gay. Too expensive and were literally made to keep you glued to them and pumping in quarters. Low iq activity
>>12214126>People made friends in arcades all the time.When they were playing fighting games, yes.Other genres not so much.
>>12214125Light gun games cannot be replicated at home. Nothing beats the brutal recoil of Time Crisis in an arcade.No recoil, no point.
>>12213938Born in 88. My father took me a lot between 1993-1997. Basically the golden age of Mortal Kombat. I was really young but man do I remember the sights and sounds. Especially at my local malt shop. It was a pizza place/malts and shit upstairs and down in the dungeon sweaty dudes huddles around cabinets swearing and smoking. Arcades started dying around 97-98. Malls would have them for a while after(some still do) so if I ever see an arcade in a mall you know I'm at least seeing if there's Time Crisis, Silent scope or at least Gauntlet. Come to think of it one of my downtown bars had an altered beast cabinet and I won some drinks besting dudes scores. havent been to one in years..
>>12215876Same with cruising USA or House of the Dead. These dudes under 28ish will never know what it was like.If I ever hit the lotto I'm opening one in my town. Even at a loss. I don't give a fuck.
>>12215876I could get a home arcade time crisis set-up going. Wouldn't be too hard.
>>12213938Went to arcades in two phases, early 80s seaside arcades on summer holidays, mid 80s after school. >>12213938>What were your main games?Phase 1 BattlezoneSpace InvadersStar WarsBezerkGalaxiansPac ManSea WolfPhase 21942Ghost and GoblinsDouble DragonCommandoOperation Wolf
Arcades fucking sucked. Games being designed around stealing the maximum amount of money from you by cheating you and using gambling mechanisms. Sure am glad the industry moved away from that type of manipulation.
>>12214875>Jersey shore boardwalk arcadesFellow Gateway26 Wildwood bro?
>>12216183>I could get a home arcade time crisis set-up going. Wouldn't be too hard.All you need is a PS1 or a PS2 and a CRT and a lightgun anon. The PS1 and PS2 ports and games are pretyty much perfectTime CrisisTime Crisis Project TitanPS2Time Crisis 2Time Crisis 3Crisis ZoneGet Vampire Hunter (PS2) and die hard trilogy PS1 and you are good. Bonus points for dino stalker, area 51, point blank 1 &2, gunfighter legend of jessie james, gunfighter II revenge of jessie games
>>12216197Why the fuck did you post that. You've never been in an arcade in your life. Here's a you faggot (you) for being a fucking faggot
>>12216189Forgot asteroids and pole position from phase 1 and outrun from phase 2
>>12216197Arcades were coolSeeing arcade machines in random stores was sovl
>>12216214I posted it because it's true. Arcades fucking sucked. Being able to play games at home without getting jewed for every quarter was revolutionary.
>>12216218Paying by the minute to play video games was anti-soul
>>12216207NTA but I’m your bro. Love that place. You fuck with Pokerino?
>>12216269i agree but only if you sucked at the game. incentivised us to get gud.
>>12216265this only proved antisemites are >>>/lgbt/. and probably poor too.
>>12216283I don't think I ever heard of Pokerino, I was born in the 80s and my parents used to take me to Wildwood boardwalk and beach every summer. We were mostly a Gateway26 and facination family. My dad was good friends with one of the guys that hosted facination. Guy used to always give us discounts because he was one of my dad's customers.
>>12216283>>12216376wait, so I looked up pokerino, this is the "Facination" I was talking about. Where you roll the ball into the slots to get a straight row and sometimes they do cover-all rounds. That shit was the bomb. I had a bit of technique to that game and I was able to win more then the average person as a kid.
>>12216343>antisemites??? getting jewed is a common expression
i only went a few times since i'm a zoomer and didn't appreciate old games growing upit burned downhttps://www.ctvnews.ca/regina/article/wonderland-arcade-shutting-down-months-after-fire/
One of the coolest things I remember as a kid is going to a carnival and finding out they had an arcade set up in a tent. I spent my money on greasy ass Godfather's pizza and the Ninja Turtles arcade game.
>>12213971>I'd say they all stopped being popular in 1993. It was if a switch had been pulled.That's interesting, I was under the impression the Mortal Kombat craze and fighters like Street Fighter/Tekken kept it booming longer.
>>12216543It was probably a joke. Antisemitism is a meme. Modern jews aren't even semites. Arabs are more semite than jews. Israelis mostly come from Poland and New York. Nothing semitic about them. They keep genociding the semites actually. Total joke. The only people crying about antisemitism are the ones trying to hide israels skeletons in the closet-verification is taking longer than usual-lmao
>>12216207We mostly went to Point Pleasant
>>12216695it was barely holding on and we didn't realize it was about to disappear. you saw the new mortal kombat arcade machine at the pizza place, you played it a few times, and then you went home and played your SNES, genesis, and waited for it to be released on console. you never thought that your local arcade might close down forever because it had always been there.
>>12216754>then you went home and played your SNES, genesis, and waited for it to be released on console. you never thought that your local arcade might close down foreversounds like a "VHS tapes killed cinemas" moment. as in a bunch of lies. arcades are still alive but different now. it's not our fault that they stopped making cutting edge fun games that cheap home consoles cannot imitate.
>>12216695It was what:>>12216754said, but there's more you need to understand, it was like a switch. Many arcades in 1993 just ceased operating. Case in point, the gigantic county fair (that has now been taken over by the state namewise because it's so big) that I've always gone to had arcade games in at least five or six large mostly yellow and multi-colored circus tents spread throughout the grounds.I didn't think much when the tents got down to just three, then just two, but in 1993, none. And all the games that were grocery stores and 7-11s all went away too leaving just a couple of dedicated arcades. (and now those are gone)So in 1993, that was a sad trip to the fair. No more Bally Midway. No more Atari. No more SEGA. No more strange games I'd never seen before. All gone like a tap had been turned off.
So, when yours truly discovered MAME in 2005....and it slowly dawned on me that with few exceptions (Raiden II took forever) I could get another chance to play ALL of those AWESOMELY radical 1980s arcade games it was like a mind orgasm. Way better than sex.All those games that were "taken away from me" are now mine again.Emulationists are based and I salute them for their service.
>>12213938I met the legendary Billy Mitchell and we played a competitive game of pac man the prize was a blow job. I barely lost and fingered him in the ass.
>>12217806>Emulationists are based and I salute them for their service.nah. MAME devs are foolish furries and kept making it worse.and there was the Byuu/Near sudoku scandal.(he's also a dirty furry and tranz)
>>12218017>MAME devs are foolish furries and kept making it worse.There is that. But you gotta know when to quit. I stayed with an old build for a decade until I saw real improvements.>and there was the Byuu/Near sudoku scandal.Don't know who that is or why they'd want to an hero.
>>12217848why come you still got a prize when you lost?
>>12217848and then everyone made it clap
>>12217848>I barely lost and fingered him in the assNever wash that finger that on it smell is his soul
>>12216269>paying by the minuteWhat arcade game is that, Nintendo's Playchoice-10?Plenty of games didn't let you credit feed to the end (pic related has a factory default setting of 10 continues max)
>>12218914It's every arcade game since arcades were gambling scams meant to manipulate you into dumping maximum quarters. Boomer GACHA
>>12213938>How often did you go to the arcade?all the time>>12214252>youtubeah wonderful. the site where you have colossal losers claiming "world records" while using MAME cheats. no thanks.
>>12219704it's fucking amazing at times on this board watching fucking retards that have no idea about the arcade industry, thinking that arcade games are built to be fair and beatable on one coin. - by anyone. because all these retards have ever used is MAME and savestates. it's also fucking amazing how this industry wasn't regulated at all unless it came to the actual content. staggering amount of arcade games were just built to vacuum coins out of the pockets of children and retarded adults. and then you have arcade operators that would go around setting machine difficulties from normal to hard.
>>12216829>home consoles cannot imitate.I think it's very telling that a lot of remaining arcades I've been to have lots of vr games, light gun games, and racing games. Not everyone can afford that kinda stuff. I mean I guess you had more accessible light gun with the wii but the ones at my arcade are those turret light gun games so that's a bit different. Racing rigs can be expensive. And vr can also be pricey for what's just a gimmick.
>>12219901You say that but you could win by button mashing with Eddy Gordo on Tekken 3.
>>12219921yeah, i'm well aware of some exceptions to the rule, and sometimes oversights/bugs, but the general position for most of these machines being released wasn't to make it easy for a player to complete. the make or break of a game's success back then was how many coins were pumped through the coin slot.
>>12219901Being able to pay for infinite play by the hour makes arcades a much better experience. Too bad the whole industry refused to stop jewing you for quarters during the golden era.
>>12213971you talking about the B&I in lakewood? i saw a recent video of the arcade place, it's tragic man. shit games and they cut off half the room going towards the back past the merry go round. i remember final fight being placed into the back corner where there's hardly any lights. also I would go to every machine and hit the coin reject button and hope i get lucky for free quarters.
>>12219917>Racing rigs can be expensive.they should bring back Mechwarrior pods. but that cool shit only ever existed in USA.
>>12218020>or why they'd want to an hero.the tranz devs can't help themselves...
>>12219984>you talking about the B&I in lakewood?Yes, but it's Tacoma, not Lakewood. It technically has a Lakewood address, but it's in Tacoma. Why? Because anything good can't be owned by Tacoma because Seattleites are jealous and have always hated us.When they broke off and became their own city they very obnoxioiulsy "claimed" the B&I, where just a year or two ago a bunch of scholars shot up the place and shot an innocent bystander.I have no been back there in a few years. Last time I was there, I bought a 13" CRT from from Vietnamese guys for 25 bucks. That was a good day.>shit games and they cut off half the room going towards the back past the merry go round.Yeah. They planned a grocery store for the part that they cut off, but the Canadian company that owns the B&I would rather things rots than lower their rent. It is tragic. That place used to be 30,000 square feet of arcade games. Now it's maybe 1000ft and yes, most of the games are terrible. Worse, they fitted Galaga and the remaining classics with the new debit/credit card reader so people can go INTO DEBT playing arcade cabs. Lame. I have never done that and I refuse to do so.>i remember final fight being placed into the back corner where there's hardly any lightsLike I told another anon, arcades were dark as fuck back then. Good times that are now gone.We need another place.
>>12213938I spent around 5 dollars everyweekend.Time Crisis 1 and 2 were my favs.Most popular machine (and still is) is Daytona USA.Arcades died down here in 2001. Economy crashed in my country.
>>12213938>How often did you go to the arcade? A few times a year max for an actual arcade, individual cabs were common at any place a kid might be though.>What were your main games?The best game that was there to play. This was usually a konami game like X-men, Turtles in Time, Simpsons, or a light gun game like Area 51, House of the Dead, or Time Crisis.>What year did your local arcade stop being popular?I remember most classic games disappearing around Y2K. >Was your arcade dangerous? No, always went to arcades in party centers, Six Flags, etc.>Any other memories you'd like to share?Was at Six Flags around 1999 with a bunch of friends and we found a Tower of Doom arcade and wasted all our change on it as well as a ton of time, annoying our parents. Everyone thought it was one of the coolest games they'd ever played.
>>12220258i miss the swapmeet that used to be across the street
>>12213938>I missed out on arcades.Sucks to suck.>What was it likeFuck off, you missed it.Go engage with your own culture and stop trying to live vicariously through other people's experiences.
>>12220507Same. They tore it all down. Star Lite Drive-In..., man, I saw Return of the Jedi there....uncut! It's never been shown uncut since and Lucasfilm refuses to release all footage.
>>12213938When I was really young in the '80s it was just a series of spectacles. You'd be excited to see new games with gimmicks or mechanics you'd never seen before, etc. Nobody I ever knew got that into any particular game. In the '90s they basically just became fighting game hangouts + kids being ripped off in ticket games.
>>12219921You win out arcade mode with Tekken characters in like ten minutes. The purpose of those machines was winner stays on MP, whatever single player quarter munching by letting you practice on AI punching bags they got was a bonus.
>>12220614dorky in downtown the only local place i know of that still has old school arcade cabs but i haven't been there in years. did you ever go to Narrows Plaza bowling especially when they had the arcade section in a U shape? that was the main spot my brothers would always take me to. we rarely ever bowled tho.
>>12221307It's a "no one will ever believe me" story, but a high school friend of mine was "the best Tekken player in town", and when Tekken Tag Tournament came out he would set up camp with a pilfered stool on front of the cabinet and play for hours, all comers, or just running through the game. He said there was at least once when the manager unlocked the coin collector and let him play for free.
>>12214854Stop hitting on people
>>12221675>dorky in downtown the only local place i know of that still has old school arcade cabs but i haven't been there in yearsFuck that guy. He's insane. There's a video of him calling people racial slurs for no reason--and that's his endearing side. To me that place doesn't exist. And parking sucks downtown. They expect you to move your vehicle every 45 minutes and to park it elsewhere and pay again or else a ticket.Yeah, if you feed the meters, you get a ticket. Never saw machines in front of Leslie Bond's place,(that's his name) but it's still too tight to back up and just trust that people coming down Pacific will all mind the law perfectly. >did you ever go to Narrows Plaza bowling especially when they had the arcade section in a U shape? that was the main spot my brothers would always take me to. we rarely ever bowled tho.Oh yeah! And very samey, anon. We probably crossed paths even if we're decades apart. ..One day I decided to go there..and why not...the owners just paid 2 million dollars to remodel it...and to my horror I see a pile of rubble. One of those times your soul cries. I'd been there hundreds of times.>Mercs>Defender>Twin Cobra>Truxton>Robocop (cheap, yet fun)>that weird insect exterminator game with hand that you make smash them>the basketball games>skee-ball>so many more*sigh*
>>12221307>kids being ripped off in ticket games.This is what killed arcades, not consoles.>mid 90s the ages in the arcades rnaged from 15-25>fighting games and variety of other games>almost overnight the revenue model shifted>half the games removed for low tier carnival games liem whacka mole, skeeball, and games of chance>coin pushers and "win a gameboy" gambling machines>eventually only sit-down cabinet rail shooters and driving games remained>a piano floor from the movie "BIG" gets installed>every survivmg arcade turns into chuck-e-cheese clone>average age drops to 9 and you feel dirty playing MvC2 in such a place>they ended up relying exclusively on birthday party bookings to remain open>then they all went out of buisness
>>12213938We'd only go at most about twice per year and I would bring $5 which wouldn't last that long.2000, Dreamcast was around and ps2 was around the corner, wondering why Daytona was still the main game when all this new stuff was about to come outI was so cheap I tried to drill a hole in a coin and put some string on it, it didn't work, when I tried to pull it out it was just stuckI'd often just put in $1 and leave, one time I played Virtua On and it was awesome. I found a Scud Race in test mode so I could play for free, someone did come and fix it after I finished.>>12222784They had a claw game with watches in it, a bunch of people got suckered. I placed the claw perfect and the watches were glued down. I never trusted them after that.
>>12222920I won a HUGE doggy in a foaming mug plush toy from one of my local favorite arcades for the first time in my life. All other times I only ever won small plushies, but that time I got the huge one. And then the owner sold the place weeks later and demolished it for Boomer condos.That's called bittersweet.
>>12213938When I was a kid, close to the school I went to there was an arcade place full of tough teenagers who were smoking cigarretes and maybe other stuff outside, I wanted to go there but my mom forbade me from going to that apparent dump of vice and gang members.The time I was the closest to enter, I rememeber seeing an SSF2 machine where Cammy was doing the spiral arrow.Around 5 years later, in the early 00's. when I was a teenager myself I finally got to enter, but by then there wasn't as much "arcade fever". You'd see more people playing in groups of four with the table football tables than with the arcade machines, That place closed around the mid 00's btw.
>>12213938-on and off-PacMan, Ghost's & Goblins, Dragon Ninja vs Bad Dudes, Galaxian, OutRun, Combat School, KungFu Master, etc.-Mid 90ies it was over - after that all relevance had faded-experiencing Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat 3 "live"(not a fan of these games but -whoa- they were really impressive)
>>12223047Ooops... forgot - Scud Race, which another anon has already mentioned, was quite the tease
>>12222920>I placed the claw perfect and the watches were glued down.first time i heard this. usually they just make the claws too weak to pick up anything. you really needed to "push" items into the hole.
>>12222784>carvinal gamescarvinals were always ripoffs and not new though.i remembered some carnivals even pitched up large tents to temporarily install arcade cabs in them. mostly fightans.>>they ended up relying exclusively on birthday party bookings to remain open>>then they all went out of buisnesscurrent arcade i know seems to be shilling corpo bookings now. weird. they also do birthday parties, but the restrictions and prices are stupid. "Timezone" arcades, a franchise from aussies IIRC.
>>12223267Carnival ticket games I meant, like "whack-a-mole" and the silly crab game, the ones that spit out tickets that were redeemed for prizes. Spend $20 and get enough tickets to redeem for a sticky hand, that kind of thing.
>>12213938I still have an arcade like this in my city (Brisbane) I don't appreciate it enough as a zillennial. But if any of you guys want to check it out it's called 1UP.
>>12213938There wasn't any where I live when I was a kid. I mean there sorta was, but it was like in a mall the same as on T2, but it was complete dogshit.There's a Namco Funscape™ now if that counts? Never been to it so I can't say how it is.
>>1222188290's narrows was truly the best spot in town. when they added the extension to the arcade section, it just wasn't the same anymore and they eventually went full gay after initial d wasn't making them money anymore.seatac mall was underwelming, only remember it for being spacious and had primal rage on the big cab.tacoma mall was okay. they had sf1 with the ball button cab thing and eventually the jurassic park game.once in awhile my bro would take me to fred meyers on 72nd when they still had some arcade machines.
I went to my local arcade a couple nights ago, played a few games of Godzilla and finished off playing a JJP Guns N Roses that needs some time in the shop (but still managed to pull off my best game ever despite the unreliable flippers and STDM kicking scoop)
