What is an arcade? - Starship Rift Arcade Podcast Ep. 1

[@majorpayne608]

In the early 80s, I worked in an arcade that had the usual token operated games, but also had slot cars, pool tables and an outdoor mini golf course. It was really a family meeting place.

[@guyguy467]

Thanks Dave Mikes and Roman for bringing us arcade content

[@gavinthomas214]

Lots of interesting conversation. What a great time :)

[@MasterChef12109]

I would love to see modern arcades. Where kids can go and play modern games but while socializing in person. I am old enough to have been in arcades, but young enough to be still a very active gamer. I can tell you we need both gaming from home and arcades. Especially arcades where you could also dance, have dinner with friends, drink. We used to have those around here. It was fun.

[@wedgethx]

We’ve been to the starship a couple of times and looking forward to checking out time rift

[@ScreaminJoeBlade]

The first Arcade I visited was in 1976 at the old Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Fort Erie. I think there was a few Pong Machines there but I remember all sorts of mechanical games - most memorably a "draw" game against a mechanical cowboy and two submarine shooters Periscope & SeaWolf.

[@watcherzero5256]

Its interesting how different it is to the UK. In the UK we never had those kind of Chucky Cheese style animatronic restaurant places or large redemption oriented family centres. Here arcades primarily originated at seaside resorts which had Piers (like your boardwalks but going out into the ocean) at the turn of the 20th century, they would usually have a pavilion the end of the pier with either some small rollercoasters, a theatre with stand up comedians performing, pantomimes, or other light theatre, or they would have an amusement centre full of penny arcade machines. By the 60's at these seaside holiday towns they would normally have several arcades as we know them today along the waterfront. In 1960 low stakes gambling machines were legalised leading to both kiddie machines like mechanical horse betting and fruit machines for adults which didn't require restricted access like a casino. These would then gain the video games after they developed but still retain a lot of mechanical games. This was the primary location of large arcades in the UK right up until the demise of the arcade in the 21st century. The secondary location in the 80's and 90's was bowling alleys and multiplex cinemas right across the country which would normally have 30 or so arcade cabinets, a couple of air hockey tables and 3 or 4 pinball machines, though like with the seaside places in the 21st century which might have gone from 6-10 arcades to only 1 or 2, this has died out now such that its rare to find arcades at all at them. Finally you have tertiary locations like Pubs some of which would often have a couple of arcade machines (up until around 2005 or so by which time they disappeared) a couple of fruit machines and a couple of pinball machines alongside a trivia game and coin operated pool tables (still). Finally you have adult 'arcades' which only allow adults but are still going strong but consist entirely of maybe 50-100 fruit machines much like a Japanese Pachinko parlour. There is also a side story in that around 1990 Sega and NAMCO invested heavily in Britain acquiring 2 of the 4 distributors of arcade cabinets and purchasing the largest UK amusement arcade chain. They then set up manufacturing to offset shipping costs from Japan and act as a springboard to Europe as well as to try and counter the flow out of Europe of cloned machines. They also invested large amounts in setting up massive mega arcades in London similar to Japanese arcades with machines across six floor but also kiddie rides and other amusements, but three things conspired against it. Firstly these mega arcades all being in relative close proximity in London cannibalised each others sales, secondly in the mid 90's an annual tax of £250 on each video arcade machines was introduced charged per player (so a four player cabinet would be £1000) to match the tax on fruit machines, after a lot of complaining by the Japanese companies they got this limited to only machines which cost more than 35p per play but it still resulted in killing off the market for the latest machines as well as multiplayer cabinets and a reliance on older classics. Finally in the late 90's the Japanese companies themselves experiencing financial distress at home retreated from investments in arcades and as the primary owners of arcades in the UK the investment dried up (NAMCO being the exception which stuck around right up to today with a few large amusement centres around the country).

[@myheart4apen]

The first arcade I remember was around 1976, and it was a combo indoor miniature golf and an arcade, called The Village Green in Louisville, Kentucky. To give you an idea of how few video games they had, my brothers and I called it “the pinball place” - there were certainly more pinball machines than video games. That ratio started to flip when they got a Space Invaders in ‘78.

[@slamtilt01]

At the arcades I worked at we mostly had Bally, Williams, Midway pinballs. Each arcade would have 5 or 6 pinball machines each. But we would rotate each game around the arcades every 6 weeks so it made customers feel we had new games all the time. This was in the mid 90's before pinball 2000. So pretty much titles like Adams Family Gold, Theatre of Magic, Star Trek the next generation, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Twilight Zone, Junkyard, Invasion from Mars, NBA Jam, Getaway, Congo, Demolition Man and Medieval Madness.

[@Gappasaurus]

Only 20 minutes in so not sure if you guys bring this up, but the dividing line that I recall between the mechanical/electro-mechanical era of the “penny arcade” and the modern equivalent was the emergence of the term “video arcade”. I don’t think this moniker gets much use these days as it’s rather redundant, but in the late ‘70s/early ’80s when you were just as likely to still find skeeball, dome hockey, and pinball in your local amusements venue, a spot earning the reputation of a new-fangled _”video_ arcade” was sure to attract the kids and their quarters 😁

[@TimeRiftArcade]

Indeed. And we will also have some of those in our venue! Thanks for the comment!

[@gergalurg]

The first arcade machine for me was in about 1979 or 1980, when I was about 4. I was hardly tall enough to see it properly. This was a lone cabaret cabinet at the grocery store. While my mom was in line, I wandered a few feet away to watch an older kid, probably early teens, playing Space Invaders. To me, he was playing like a god, but I'm sure it could just be my young impression there. This was my first experience of any video game and the idea of controlling what was on a "tv" just blew my little mind 😂🎉

[@MaisieSqueak]

Do kids really try inserting pepperoni into the coin slot?

[@garygagnon8048]

Yes, to having hotdogs & Nachos! I grew up in the early 80s with a local game room with 6-7 pinball machines, probably 20 video games, pool tables, air hockey, a jukebox, and a couple of foosball tables. they later put in a put-put course in the parking lot. The place was always packed, and I can't imagine the amount of money I spent there over 4 years; I was spoiled because I grew up about an hour from Funspot arcade in Laconia, NH, which had the Guinness World record as the largest arcade in the world at one point. Had bowling, skeeball, put-put, go-carts, a restaurant, and over 600 games, plus they added a ropes course outside later.

[@TaterRogers]

Funspot is like a megacade! Also ya need digdug and the kiss pinball or haunted house pinball with the reverse table.

[@cybernoid001]

funny that pinball in many states is gabling, when you don't get any material worth back from your quarters/tokens. But claw machines, quite literally is a gamble if you're going to get a prize from playing unless you have them set to let you keep playing until you get a prize. lol

[@Ace_of_DiscaL]

Here through The 8-Bit Guy. Please talk about the NEO-GEO memory card era that enabled moving save games between homes & the arcades!

[@espowari]

Pizza Hut used to have a few games. Also Sub Station II in NC... they all had 1 sit-down game. To me those are not arcades. :> Great episode y'all!

[@myheart4apen]

The biggest arcade I’ve been to was Malibu Grand Prix in San Antonio, Texas in the early ‘80s. Sundays, we could get 40 tokens for $5, and that was heaven for an 11 year-old me.

[@AwesomeWoodThings]

👾👾🛸👾👾

[@SuperSmashDolls]

Ok, I'm going to be *that guy* and say "Round1 is my favorite arcade". That being said, my local R1 is kind of an exception. The arcade techs and staff that work there are also part of the rhythm game community, and they run a Discord server for all the regulars there. 58:10 Round1 calls this store format the MEGA Crane Zone. At least in the US - the Japanese stores get Giga Crane Zones, which makes sense given how fucking huge their Japanese stores are. My local R1 got converted to MEGA Crane Zone but it didn't actually wind up removing a whole lot of machines in the process. I think about half of what got removed was redemption games, and then every other section lost a cab here and there. I usually play rhythm games there so the only things we lost were our Crossbeats cabs (which NOBODY played lol), and our IIDX legacy cab that was going to get bricked anyway because EPOLIS doesn't support it. 1:05:11 Uh... what if the thing you want to talk about is arcade game politics? :P There's shockingly a lot of that in rhythm games (because of the whole data thing).

[@gfabasic32]

Super!

[@joshkaye5303]

The local bowling alley was our arcade

[@PresidentCamacho24]

Safeways and Albertson in my hometown had 2-3 machines in each store.

[@flashrocket9158]

I've been to quite a few bars and pubs, and many have a Big Buck Hunter of some form, as well as one of those Fast & Furious cabinets.

[@TimeRiftArcade]

We have a Big Buck already! :-)

[@musclesmouse]

my original arcade was the original Fiesta in Houston Heights. I thInk HEB owns it now. One corner of the store had about 10 to 20 uprights and even cartoons. This was late 70s to early 80s

[@charlesdebarber2997]

I feel like redemption gaming led to a decline in arcade quality and innovation. We turned arcades into mini-casinos for kids - many without any real skill. Visiting Japan back in August, I was surprised how little redemption gaming there is outside of UFO catcher machines. Even those UFO Catchers don't seem to have the "game of chance" settings we do in the US with claw machines where the machine will only give the claw the strength needed every so many plays. As arcade gaming waned in the late 90s and 00s and become all but redemption games they still thrived and continued to innovate in Japan. Arcades declined for other reasons, but I'd argue cookie cutter redemption arcades helped kill it.

[@TheGeekPub]

That's awesome insight! Thank you!

[@125scratch2]

AGREED In The Game is one of the worst offenders of this I think

[@58jharris]

I don't think so. Once the fifth gen consoles came around video arcades were kind of obsolete. You could now get gaming experiences at home that were as good or better as the arcade. Arcades also became more expensive with prices of a dollar or more per game. They weren't a good value compared to buying a console game. Redemption games became more prominent because of the decline of video arcades not the other way around. They survived better in Japan for cultural reasons unique to the Japanese.

[@125scratch2]

@@58jharris yeah you're probably right, i still hate modern redemption focused "kiddie casinos" though

[@CRTechRetro]

Is McDonald's considered an arcade ? Accordance to Webster!😂

[@davidv2002]

think most people that say round 1 and dave and busters as their favourite arcades are fans of those japanese rhythm games. since round 1 and d&b are the only 2 arcades in america that can officially get those from konami, sega, and namco. although there are ways to get them in america if you know a guy

[@TimeRiftArcade]

We have them at the Electric Starship, and we plan to have them at some point at the Time Rift. ;-)

[@SuperSmashDolls]

D&B only runs dance games and they stopped buying upgrade kits two years ago (which left MDX White Cabs stuck on A20 Plus). Round1 has a shockingly strong ability to get Konami to let them run imported rhythm games (everything except IIDX, SDVX, and DDR) on official eAmusement, which is great, but AFAIK SEGA and Namco are completely absent from the US market. Namco did do a few location tests of Taiko no Tatsujin last year but despite Round1 corporate *really* wanting one in every store (Taiko brings people into arcades even more than DDR did in it's heyday), we've yet to hear of anyone getting cabs yet. Sega's US division head is said to *really hate* rhythm games. We did get a special offline-patched Chunithm build at R1 a few years back, but I suspect that was directly negotiated between R1 and Sega's HQ. (For what it's worth, R1 also mistakenly imported a bunch of Maimai that Sega absolutely did not want in the US.) For what it's worth there's also an arcade chain in Hawaii running US region DDR white cabs (the TDX White Cabs that let R1 upgrade to DDR A3). The main sticking point is revenue share: ever since Sound Voltex Booth, all the major Japanese manufacturers get paid every time you insert a credit (or, in Japan, use PASELI or Aime Pay) into one of their machines. That's why they're always online and won't work if they're not. Rhythm games disappeared from US arcades primarily because US arcades couldn't afford to run them. DDR SN2 notably pissed off a LOT of arcade operators because Betson wouldn't ship upgrade kits for SN1 cabs; you had to buy a whole new second cab and dance pad. Then Konami said "hey we want you to buy into this online service called eAmusement for $300/mo/cab" which pissed off operators even more, which is why we didn't get eAmuse until DDR A's US release. Any arcade that isn't R1, D&B, or Fun Factory Games is running hacked versions of the games that connect to shadow networks for saving. If that's what you have to play, that's fine (although I'm told Japanese players *despise* people who play on data, like to the point of doxing them).

[@58jharris]

I think another factor with pinball is there's no good way to emulate it. It's not like Pac-Man or Galaga which you can play on your computer on console and basically get the full game. With pinball you need to play an actual machine to get the real experience.

[@flamewave64]

if you only really have 1up arcade cabinets then you’re not an arcade those things are jokes If you don’t care about the quality of your experience, then there’s nothing wrong with having one in your house or whatever but it just does not make sense otherwise

[@TaterRogers]

Look into that virtual PINBALL machine with several games. It's hard to tell from the real thing.

[@Valentine82]

Where’s David?!?

[@greypatch8855]

Put Put sold off, also might be a rebranding idk

[@ForTheStyle]

Gameworks was really great until Sega sold it