Exactly when did arcades die in the USA?

[Keatah]

One or two fighting games is alright. It's just another genre. But when a whole wall is full of them, forget it. I got bored.

 

And also note in the CGI rendering above, all the open space to walk around in? Places like galloping ghost or underground retrocade just pack you in to the point of fatigue.

 

D&B is better, and L257 even more better. Room to waddle my fat-ass around with abandon.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Keatah

[dgdgagdae]

All this is why I say that the last time I was in a great arcade type atmosphere was at the Video Game Museum in Frisco Texas. I do look forward to trying out some of the "barcades" that they have out now, and there are a couple in the Dallas area I think. So maybe those will spark some kind of arcade resurgence... but it seems like they are more of a trendy gimmick or something so far... will have to try them and see.

If you live in the Dallas area, then you have to try Free Play in Richardson or Arlington. Great atmosphere, awesome selection of very well maintained games. Highly recommended.

[zzip]

 

Combine that all that with lots of neon and you have the most 80s thing ever.

 

 

I always loved the sounds of walking into a classic arcade too. Everybody talks about how much better the graphics were, but home systems usually couldn't get the sounds right either.

The buzzing of the Defender & Robotron machines, the music and jumping of Frogger, Q*Bert swearing like a sailor, and "Dragon's Lair! A fantasy adventure where you become blah blah.."

[zzip]

 

 

That said, unless you lived in a major metropolitan city that had MASSIVE arcades that truly spoke to the culture of the time, you didn't really see the impact in all its glory: the rise, nor the demise. I'm included in this, by the way. Most of my gaming memories were not of arcades (although we had a few) but of arcade cabinets scattered about the city at corner stores, pizzerias, anywhere really. So when THOSE games went away, that was when I felt that arcade games (not arcades, as such) had seen their moment pass.

 

Some of my best arcade memories come from those games outside the arcade!

 

The hot dog shop we'd go to after Saturday basketball games is where I discovered Pac Man. The laundromat down the street had Frogger, Vanguard and Asteroids Deluxe. The convenience store a little beyond that had Defender, The pizza shop had Pole Position and Pengo, and they eventually made a whole game room. The supermarket had Wizard of Wor & Ms Pac Man. So too this day, I may play Pengo and be reminded of the smell of Pizza, or Vanguard and swear I catch a wiff of Tide or Bounce

[Zonie]

Yeah, the pizza parlor combined with Galaxian is my favorite sound-smell arcade combo. We had a round table with Galaxian and some bootleg cocktail Space Invaders...

 

The Grocery store had an Asteroids Deluxe, then replaced it with a Defender, then a Polaris...Nobody played the Polaris. I think the other two drew too large of a crowd in the breezeway between the grocery and the drugstore and bothered shoppers.

 

Now, if you do see a solitary machine in the wild, it is usually a Galaga/MsPacMan.

 

The 7-11 by my high school built out a little niche for two games. I think that was pretty common, was posted earlier in this thread by someone else...

[Gentlegamer]

One or two fighting games is alright. It's just another genre. But when a whole wall is full of them, forget it. I got bored.

 

I like fighting games. I even liked watching fighting games. Problem is fighting games created a competitive scene that ruined the ability of a casual player to enjoy, and by the mid 90s the new fighting games were 3D which I didn't like and was never good at.

 

So when the whole place turned into a fighting game joint, my interest waned. And as seedy as an authentic arcade was, it got seedier when the "fighting game crowd" took over.

[Professor Gull]

Well i had a good time this last weekend blowing through quarters like crazy. I know arcades are relatively dead but what about the niche resurgence?

 

[Nebulon]

 

You can say that arcades died when fighting games took over, but the arcades themselves didn't change, the video games did.

 

Coming from an early 1980s perspective, arcades in general definitely did change. The dark labyrinth of games disappeared for the most part. It's been mentioned numerous time -- including in this thread.

 

Of course, the quality of games is a major factor. Still though, the layout, look, and 'feel' of arcades deserves consideration.

[Keatah]

The ColecoVision ate into my "1st generation stint" with the arcades.

[Tanooki]

The NES did to me too, or at least complimented it.

 

I had stuff like Ghosts n Goblins, Ikari Warriors, Mario Bros, DK Classics (DK+Jr), SMB1, 1942, VS Castlevania, Gradius, and a few others that were really just arcade conversions or tweaked titles(like how SMB was placed different in stage on challenges.)

[NE146]

lol I absolutely gorged myself on home games during the NES era, but you couldn't tear me away from a good arcade when I was out and about.

 

In the early 90's there was a huge arcade I remember underneath Valco Mall in Sunnyvale, CA (down the street from Golfland, home to many good Street Fighter players). To me that was pretty much the last hurrah before they started petering out. I left California (college) shortly after Mortal Kombat hit, but yeah it wasn't but a few years until there weren't much around. Definitely the mid-90's once the PSX hit, I didn't see much arcades around until the Dave & Busters / redemption eras.

[777ismyname]

<- another old timer that was around during the hey day of arcades. In my small hometown, the last arcade closed early 86, though there were 3 or 4 places that kept a few machines for several years - notably the local bowling alley which still keeps some machines around.

 

Within an hour's drive, the last one closed around 2001.

 

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

[Acill]

Arcades.... Ah how I miss them! I was in the Navy back in the early 90's through 2012. I lived in Japan when the playstation released. It didnt do a lot to harm arcades at the time while I lived there. I did see them all but gone when I got home to the US in late 2007 though.

 

Well turn ahead the clock and I am in Japan again off and on, here right now actually as i type this. Arcades are still here, but nothing like they were. I couldnt walk more than a few blocks in 1994 and run into at least one, now they are only in special places and nothing to be amazed over. Very Sad.