A realer experience would make it more gooder.

The only 2 arcade games I've ever played were: ghost and ghouls, & drum mania.. that's it.

There are some games that really can only be experienced in the arcade. There's also a great social aspect. It's sad seeing the scant few places close up because they can't make money. News of Japan's sagging arcade market is also disheartening.

Whenever I come across a pac-man, ms. pac-man, or tetris machine, I typically always at least give it one coin's amount of a whirl. Sometimes pole position is a weakness as well. But I totally agree Ash, it'd be awesome if more places had arcades out here. I'd be a fan of installing them into doctor's waiting rooms. I'm sure they'd be a hit! If I'm going to be waiting around for hours, I'd much rather do it while playing an arcade game.

My dentists office has a shell shaped like an arcade machine with a tv and an xbox in it. Thats the closest you'll get to an arcade besides chuckie cheese around here.

Arcades make even the most terrible of games a blast. Let's hope this revival sticks.

*sighs* I'll never have that kind of money to waste. But it would be glorious.

Like many of us, I grew up playing games mostly in the pizza parlor and arcades, even though I had an Atari 2600 and a Vic 20. At some point, arcades turned from someplace accessible to all into a niche. For me, I cut back when games started costing more than a quarter. I miss playing a variety of arcade games and pinball games, but I don't miss the little kids with their sticky hands on the games, the vandalized and broken machines, all of the Street Fighter II clones, and all of the sketchy types. There are a few good independent arcades out there, but they are very rare; you are lucky if there is one within a couple of hundred miles.

Someday, I would like to have a MAME set up with some decent controls (Tapper without a tap is not the same, nor is Crystal Castles without the trackball), but for now I will stick with consoles only.

@Hrist:

I'm sure you have a few hundred dollars for them. The issue is space, and most of us don't really have the space. I'm happy with the revisions we're seeing nowadays anyway.

I mostly played Street Fighter II in the arcades when I was younger. So awesome

How about Barcade in Los Angeles?

This is good for the retro collectors but you won't see arcades popping up like Chuck-E-Cheeses in the 80's. Its easier to hop on your PC, Xbox Live, or PS Network and get your headshot on.

I really miss the arcade. The games, the blaring music, the whole social scene. Every time I see Flynn's in Tron, it reminds me of my beloved Wizard's Castle. It's sad that a whole generation has grown up without the experience of hangin' out at the arcade.

What killed the Arcades was a combination of a glut of fighting games; the outrageous cost of new games (Virtua Fighter 3 cost 15-grand back when I worked at an arcade in 1997), and the fact that arcade owners found out that the 20-year old ski-ball machines were bringing in more money than any machine not named Tekken or Mortal Kombat.

@DoesNotEqual:
Hm... well put.

I don't share that nostalgic feeling that a lot of you probably have. I wasn't a gamer when I was a kid, and I never really cared for arcades. Still, I'll admit that when I go into one today, it is pretty cool.

I love arcades. I'm really hoping to be able to invest in a DK machine one day. When King of Kong came to the theaters, a local theater where I lived had a DK machine set up. They ended up letting you have as many free goes as you wanted as long as there wasn't a line behind you. It was great having that experience again.

I've gone to the arcade at least once a week for the past several months. I play Street Fighter III fairly competitively, so I'm there a lot.

I hope the arcade never dies, as I love the atmosphere, and the feeling of taking on a random stranger head-to-head, face-to-face. Some people say online gaming has replaced arcade gaming, but I disagree entirely. It's an entirely different feeling, and it's a feeling I enjoy immensely.

Long live the arcade!

I miss the old days with real arcades and it seemed no matter which arcade I went to they always played Crazy Train :)
Back in the mid 80's I had an Asteroids and Boot Hill. Both were in excellent condition but my parents made me get rid of them :( I guess I was ahead of the game back then. Now I still want to own many of the games again but they are getting harder and harder to find in any kind of servicable condition. The thing that really bums me out is seeing great games and then having the cabinet damaged by cigarette burns.
I agree, you can have MAME but nothing beats the original. There is just something special about the full cabinets. I could not imagine playing games like TNK III or cabal on anything less than the real thing.

Arcades are the best. Nothing beats the feeling you get when you're kicking ass in a game and a crowd is cheering you on.

Ooops, I menat to say at least here in Central Florida we have Disney Quest which does have a section for old games. Other than that places like The Fun Machine have gone the way of the DoDo.

I love Barcade. It's one of the best spots in Williamsburg.

@KPrecise: don't you wanna go where everybody knows your name!

Maybe it's because I'm getting older now but I don't see the need for arcades. Now places like Dave & Busters are full of great times but that's because they serve beer and other adult beverages! I haven't been in an actual arcade in almost a decade due to my love for consoles. Now when I have my own house with a basement, it will be filled with Time Crisis, Pinball and other legends of lost quarters but until then I'll just stick to my console.

BTW would you call Dave and Busters an arcade? Or a bar with a shit-ton of video games?

@mind in rewind:
Awesome, too!

@Balance_In_Life (PSN): Bah, forgot to read the end of the thread. Curse my ADHD.

The title of this article is funny to me, cause today at my mall they were moving out all the arcade equipment into a truck, cuz they were closing down yet again lol.

Arcades are rather fighting their Waterloo.

Maybe Sega should simply produce classic arcade games and sell them for home use? that might be a solution to their financial problems...

@Balance_In_Life (PSN):
...So you don't like arcades, and don't see the need for them, but want to have a bunch of arcade machines in your basement at some point?

Sense was not made.

When I had my first apartment (on the 3rd floor, no elevator) I got up off the couch from playing Playstation because of a curious bump bump bump coming from the stairwell. I opened my front door to see two large men pushing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade machine up the stairs. If you're not familiar with it, it's not a small machine. It has four sets of controls for four player simultaneous play and so it has to be somewhat wider than the average Mrs. Pac-man machine. The guy across the breezeway had apparently purchased the machine and was having it delivered... to the third floor. When they finally got the machine to the top of the stairs, I had to open my front door so they could turn it and the hand truck to aim it at my neighbor's door. They got it in, reattached the control panel (which had to be taken off to get the machine up the narrow stairs and through the door) and plugged it in. Nothing happened. My neighbor squeezed in behind the machine, fiddled with some wires, and the screen came on. For the next two hours, I, my neighbor, and the two delivery men played TMNT.

My best friend and I used to spend all day at the mall going back and forth between Aladdin's Castle and the pizza place. There's no telling how many tokens I put into Mrs. Pac-man, Centipede, Xybots, Vindicators, Punch-Out!, Zaxxon, AfterBurner, Hard Drivin, Pole Position, Moon Patrol, Galaga, and Golden Axe. Then a change started. It seemed all the new machines that came in were either shooting games (like Virtua-Cop or Area-51) or fighting games (Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat). Neither of which I particularly enjoyed. The games I did enjoy got became fewer and farther back in the arcade while the glut of fighting and shooting games took over the more prominent and visible-from-the-main-aisle positions. Then something happened that spelled doom for our arcade playing days. We got girlfriends.

BTW, one day I will own Disks of Tron: Evironmental Version. Mark my words.

"Environmental"

I work at a somewhat-small arcade in a mall. I think we do pretty good business. We usually pull in about $2,000 every Saturday (and a bit less than that on Sundays and Fridays, but Mon-Thu are pretty slow).

I've also considered buying the Garou: Mark of the Wolves we have... It's only $200, and I would finally have a Neo-Geo to call my own! Mwahaha!

Most of the dentist offices in my area have arcade machines in an attempt to try to prevent small kids from throwing a fit,

@Heartwork: I never said i didn't like them, i loved them as a kid. Just with all the console games out there I don't see why arcades in the mall are business savvy. I used to love it when I went to the mall and dropped an entire 2 weeks worth of allowance at the arcades and if I see one I pop in from time to time. That being said though, I won't go out of my way to go to one. But there will be nothing better then having a nice game room or something set up in the basement, you know along with a pool table and a nice big screen.

This man [kotaku.com] had it perfect. This would be a dream room of mine if I could ever afford it. Just with a few newer games.

I thought child molesters, like the ones in the above picture, are the reason why parents stop letting their kids goto arcades in the first place.

I'm surprised someone hasn't revealed an all-in-one arcade machine (the Neo-Yog-Sothoth?) that sports a joystick, six buttons, a dial, and a trackball, all to control the hundred-plus game ROMs stored in the machine.

Hell, give it a memory card slot and a can holder and you'd have a retro gamer's dream machine.

@DoesNotEqual: Google is a powerful tool my friend. [www.arcadeinabox.com]

Looks like it has the roms included and you can even buy a case for it. Not bad.

@Balance_In_Life (PSN): Maybe I shoulda specified that I was surprised that Kotaku hadn't mentioned it. I guess I shoulda known that somebody would have one somewhere.

Of course, I know the first step to creating one.

1: Cut a hole in a box...

I love arcades, but I usually only play The House of the Dead [if they have it]. If I had the money, I would buy myself the first HOTD game. Oh, I've had some good times with that game.

one of my dreams is to own an arcade machine.
not that big of a dream.
a dream that could fully come true.
Ebay will help me make this dream come true.
:-)
I won a $1,000 savings bond for a video I made on Nathanial Bacon...
I might as well thank Nathanial Bacon for making a dream of mine come true.
hahaahahahaahhaa
ok..but seriously.
i have no idea what machine i'd buy
*grins*

@TheMysteriousStranger: Especially since Sega seems to have abandoned it when they do home ports. HotD3 had HotD2 hidden, but not the first one, and the impending Wii redux also omits it. Where's the original game when you need it?

bring arcade back now. any Japanese arcade games. guitar freaks. I just recently played jp Lupin the 3rd arcade game, i used both guncons at the same time but hard also. it was a fun game.

Man that is some crazy shit!!wtf??
1st, American games are really starting to shine.

2nd, arcades are picking up in the US.

2 things japan is loosing the grasp of. O_O
I think the Japanese are burnt out on games on a wide basis???

@DoesNotEqual: Ahhh oops. My bad.

I saw last night some arcade company has 30 Neo Geo MVS boards/harnesses on sale for $1700...would that I had that cash in pocket and the other funds to start my dream arcade ;)

@DaiMacculate: You missed adding "on Ebay" to that comment ;)

@burningranger01: I think the Japanese are burnt out on games on a wide basis???

You mean outside of the Nintendo DS, I assume :)

Had I the funds, I'd totally recreate an arcade room for me and the hubby. Minus the gum stains on the carpet and the dim lighting.