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'Old School' Arcade Still Popular In NYC
pickens writes "In 2005, there were 44 licensed video game arcades in New York, according to the Department of Consumer Affairs; today, 23 survive. With the expansion of interactive online gaming, video game action has largely shifted to the home. 'Arcades are an anachronism now,' says Danny Frank, a spokesman for the Amusement and Music Owners Association of New York. 'They exist only in shopping malls.' But Chinatown Fair has become a center for all the outcasts in the city to bond over their shared love for a good 20-punch combo and 'old school' games that more popular arcades don't stock anymore — the classic Street Fighter II from 1991 and King of Fighters 1996, for example, as well as Ms Pac-Man and Time Crisis. 'Now, you can play a million people from all around the world,' says one player. 'For me, it's not the same as playing face-to-face. The young'uns may not care, but I do.'"
Also Barcade in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn has an astounding number of working, old-school arcade games (Joust, Gauntlet, Dig Dug, that generation), so it's worth visiting if you're into that stuff and can put up with the PBR-drinking, ironic-t-shirt and black-rimmed-glasses crowd.
Fun Spot NH has a ton of them.
http://www.funspotnh.com/gms-classic.htm
Too bad it's in the lakes region where no one wants to go.
What about Dave & Buster's/Gameworks? Although straight-up arcades are rare, these places are somewhat common.
The photo at the top was obviously staged. No girl would kiss any guy who hangs out in an arcade all day.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Twenty in a city of twenty million, and half as many as five years ago. How is this "still popular"?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Joystix in Houston is pretty damn popular as well. Every first and last Friday of the month, the bar next door sells $15 wristbands that get you in to the showroom, where everything working is on free play aaaaallllll niiiiight (well, until last call...). They've got an arcade machine that pre-dates pong (they don't turn that one on...) all the way to up games that are almost kinect-like (seriously, they had a rail-shooter that, instead of stepping on a pedal, it watched which way you dodged out of the way and did that). It's freakin' awesome. And because it's a repair/resell shop, the stock is constantly rotating, so there's always something new. It's an arcade gamer's paradise. Except when some stupid singles group sets up an outing.
Sorry if that sounds like an advertisement... I'm there every chance I get, and I think I've dragged every one of my friends along at some point. I needed somewhere new to proselytize.
I've lived in New York City for years, a few years back, and I determinedly Googled trying to find arcades. I found about two. Now I've moved back, and would really like to find these 23 arcades, wherever they are.
How do you find the arcades? Do Slashdotters know of any other good NYC arcades?
I can't stand playing Counterstrike on the Internet, but on a LAN it's a different story.
If you want really "old school", check out the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, CA (near Oakland) - http://pacificpinball.org/. They have pinball machines from the 1930's to 2000's, with a big collection of "woodrail" and "wedgehead" games. No video games. Only pinball (and an odd electromechanical rifle game here and there).
The Only place for Pinball. Over three hundred games on site, over a thousand in the worlds largest collection. The proprietor has been in the biz for almost 40 years and can tell you anything you want to know about any game you can name. http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ And for you youngsters he has twenty or so classic videos.
. . . in NINETEEN SEVENTY SEVEN.
It was a Junior high school field trip to Chinatown. Other than seeing a bum sleeping on the street, and picking up a copy of ANALOG with a Joe Haldeman story, I don't remember anything else BUT this arcade.
A tough kid offered to sell us switchblades.
We played the "chicken" games.
If there were video games, I don't remember them specifically. But they'd certainly be old school stuff that make the "classics" mentioned above seem science fictional.
A museum of video games would try and buy up every game ever made. Then people could pay admission to visit for the day and play every video game the museum collected. The goal of the museum is to own every video game ever made.
God spoke to me.
It is surprising that in a city of 19,000,000 people you can find enough like minded individuals to populate an arcade.
- WAIT -
ACTION!
Man, I love this arcade shooter, even more fun with a 2nd player, and the music is great too.
Damn Wild Dog, won't he ever die?
Flyn's still exists!
Not likely this post will reach through the "wall" however.
I grew up in arcades and absolutely loved them. They were a huge, huge part of my life and the next biggest social hub outside of school to meet people -- well, other geeky boys like yourself, other than the legendary Arcade Gamer Girl who existed but was rarely seen.
Sadly arcades are dead. Why? The technology. Arcades had games based on the absolute forefront of technology and every vendor was trying to beat each other with better sound, flashier graphics, and more interesting gameplay. Once games went to 3D the technology abruptly plateaued and nobody could do 'better' anymore, just 'the same'. Plus this technology brought arcade quality games home around the time of the PSX/Saturn, both of which had a huge number of arcade ports (and the PSX hardware went on to power many an arcade game).
Will the ever come back? No. There's no money to be made. Today's 3D games cost such an insane amount of money to develop that nobody wants to take risks. That's why they go with safe bets like Tiger Woods Golf or some dancing game and truly unique, original titles like Bayonetta are few and far in between.
OK, so what does an arcade fan do in light of this? Collect games! Arcade games are absolutely dirt cheap, most of them are easily interchangeable in one cabinet (1 cab, many PCBs), and there's nothing like owning your favorite games.
Frank Booth: What kind of beer do you like?
Jeffrey Beaumont: Heineken.
Frank Booth: [shouting] Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!
Occasionally you'd get lucky and they'd have a new machine in that you'd never seen before. All arcades seemed to have that new-electronics smell. Occasionally you'd find a broken control, but a lot of the guys who worked in those places could actually fix the machines, and they always seemed to have spare parts on hand.
They were on their decline with the 90s. I remember being horrified upon discovering an upscale mall in Florida that didn't have an arcade. Eventually this became the norm. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. I'm glad to have been growing up in that time.
If I ever get back to New York, I'll have to go looking for one of these places, if only for the chance of hearing those bugs falling one more time.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The Silverball Museum opened on the boardwalk in Asbury Park earlier this year. There are over 200 classic pinball machines and a smattering of early video games and other early games such as pitch & bats, shuffle alleys, and such. http://silverballmuseum.com/
We more places with pinball games and working ones.
To many places have games there are beat down and they don't get fixed.
pinball circus that is there is a real odd game! To bad it's costed to much to make as they there are only 2 of them.
Ground Kontrol http://www.groundkontrol.com/ in Portland, Oregon is an 'old school' arcade that's quite popular as well. It has a heck of a pinball collection too.
There is a great classic penny arcade in Manitou Springs, Colorado. They have old ski ball machines, and all sorts of old arcade games
i dig real arcades myself however i get disappointed when i feel or can obviously tell that the games are
not cared for or aged.
i want to go to one where the games and the game stations are at least within an average of 2yrs
at the most give or take for the age of the machines and is well lit or creatively styled
with a decent food stuffs area with not only junk food but real foods and so on
with lan rooms and mmorpg sections a fantasy one would include a gym or real sports areas that earn credits for game play
or something
is that unlike most computer games where at most your "ranking" is the only thing up for grabs, the people involved in an arcade match actually have something tangible, ie their money, at stake. If you win you get to keep playing and force the other guy to pony up more cash if he wants to keep playing, if you lose then you gotta put up the cash. Humans seem to respond better when they perceive there are real consequences to losing and prizes for winning.
Monstar L
But Chinatown Fair has become a center for all the outcasts in the city to bond over their shared love for a good 20-punch combo and "old school" games that more popular arcades don't stock anymore — the classic Street Fighter II from 1991 and King of Fighters 1996,
Games from 1991-1996 are considered "old school" now? A person born in those years would be described as very young.
... and then they built the supercollider.
From the summary, emphasis mine: "In 2005, there were 44 licensed video game arcades in New York"
Somebody please tell me that a gubmint license is not necessary to operate an arcade in New York.
Yeah, Chinatown Fair is a great place. I remember that they were probably the first arcade in NYC to get Street Fighter IV a couple of years ago. Keep in mind that the game wasn't even officially available to U.S. arcade operators. And they shelled out for four Japanese style sit down cabinets (you needed two cabinets to play two-player versus games), which no doubt cost them thousands of dollars. They still had some of the older games though, including Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Chinatown Fair does cater to one-on-one fighting fans - I don't know any other arcade around that has Blazblue and Arcana Heart cabinets.
It's too bad they're so out of the way though, they're almost hidden in a corner of Chinatown and blocks away from the subway station. So unless you're in Southern Manhattan or Western Brooklyn, it's a tough place to get to.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
The arcade industry here in Japan is still thriving - I myself go to one in the middle of Shinjuku most days after school to play Border Break or goof off on other games. It's one thing I'm really going to miss once I head back to the States in a week and a half(among other things). Living in a suburb in central Jersey doesn't help in that regard too much after having lived in Tokyo.
I suppose it's easier for arcades to survive in cities, where people commuting to and from work/school can stop by there and play a few rounds of Street Fighter or something, but the difference in gamers' tastes and preferences between America and Japan is like night and day. A lot of gamers my age and older(mid-to-upper 20s) seem to prefer older games almost as a result of the rise of stay-at-home Internet-connected game systems, whereas here in Japan people of all ages are always psyched about the next Gundam vs Gundam or Street Fighter or whatever the new big deal is. Maybe if we had up-to-date brand-new arcade games in the US, people would be more into it, but the difficulties in localizing arcade games from a country halfway around the world seem rather obvious.
I'm just rambling, so don't mind this anonymous coward who can't remember if he has a /. account or not.
Looks like a terrible place to go.
Non-news, not even compelling advertising... For shame.
I arrived in '75 for my freshman year at NYU, and I was one of a group of students who hung around the pinball machines at the dorm. Steve was a fellow student, known as a wheeler-dealer and an elite scalper who could get you front row at Madison Square Garden for anything, the Who, the Stones, sections A and R, front orchestra. We would serve as his ticket-buying crew, often lining up all night behind the metal barricades of the MSG box office. Anyway, Steve somehow wrested the dorm pinball concession away from the existing operator. I got the job of pinball repairman. The pinball machines of '75 were strictly electromechanical Gottliebs and Willamses which, of course, used lots of relays, solenoids and stepping motors. In '76 the first solid state (TTL) machine came out, Spirit of '76. No more relays and stepping motors, only the solenoids and contact sensors (e.g. rollovers and bumpers) remained. What an interesting challenge to go from troubleshooting electromechanical logic to TTL! We had a Pong, but the first real arcade vidgame was Atari Starship One followed by some submarine-hunt game with a periscope. Next came Breakout, Clean Sweep, and Lunar Lander, followed closely by Asteroids, Pac-Man and Galaxians. These last were huge moneymakers; Steve decided to expand. He set himself up as vidgame and pin purveyor to various candy stores and bodegas. One of these was out in Flushing, Queens, it was called Space Age Amusements. One day I get a service call that all of the machines have gone haywire. I observe that it is a hot summer day. I remember the National Semiconductor TTL Handbook and that the operating temperature range for commercial grade TTL ICs is 0-100 degrees F. I tell Steve I have to go and get some boxer fans from one of the (former) electronics surplus stores on Canal Street. He thinks I'm nuts, but after I put the fans in the back of the machines they suddenly started working again (and the game OEMs started building fans into their products). Now Steve thinks I'm a genius. He calls me "the fan man." The mob owned the machine distributors, probably still do, and occasionally we would go out to Jersey or Pennsylvania to buy the equipment. One time I'm driving this van Steve borrowed from this mob guy. I stop for some cannoli on 11th street and park the van on the street. Unfortunately the wiseguy never paid his NYC parking tickets and the van got towed. Steve and I had to go and explain to the mob guy what happened to his van. That was an experience I won't soon forget.
We've got places like this back west in good ol' Portland, Oregon. There's a Barcade downtown that's all ages by day that rocks it just like this, and a pizza place nearby with some classics including an original Pac-Mac cabinet. The Wunderland is pretty solid too, especially since everything there costs 25 cents or less, but it's mostly ticket games these days.
I'm still holding out hope for an arcade 'revival' of sorts. The idea of video games as a communal pastime has a lot of merit, all it'll take is a bright spark of an idea, the lure of something you can't do with a home console to incite the gamers from their living rooms, dungeons, and desktops and back into the epileptic glow of the arcade.
If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention.
Back home they always tried to shutdown the dedicated arcades for 'Attracting an undesirable element'. ie more than 5 kids in one place at a time. Admittedly one of them was a dank dark hole of a joint and I wasn't sad to see that one go, but the other was a lovely bright affair with great games and not a single bad element in site, well not counting the kids, and there was never any trouble there.
The only place we could rely on was the bowling alley and its rather good selection of games both arcade and pinball. Good luck trying to shut that place down, it was far too popular.
Thats if they're still in business at all. You won't find a video game anywhere on the premises. The only arcade I can think of that still has them is The Trocadero in london. How thats still in business is anyones guess since the few times I've been there in recent years its got fewer people than a ham sandwich festival in tel aviv.
every motorwary service station has a video game room though. Plus most seaside towns have a few traditional arcades.
It seems like all throughout the 20th century, whatever the young people found popular and entertaining at any given point was campaigned against by the older generations, especially in the US.
It happened with pool/snooker/billiard halls. It happened with pinball. It happened with Comic Books. It happened with amusement arcades. It happened and continues to happen with all kinds of music including Rock & Roll, Punk, Metal, Rap, Hip-Hop etc. And its happening today with Internet Cafes. Many local and state authorities are trying to shut down or control Internet Cafes (especially Internet Cafes that offer gaming) with restrictions on opening hours, requirements for security guards and requirements to log everyone who comes into the cafe to use it.
You might have a point about the seaside towns , but every service station I've been to recently is just fruit machines :(
a pinball game inside a arcade cabinet, that alone makes it odd.
http://www.marvin3m.com/arcade/pincir.htm
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I've been trying to find an arcade in the Sacramento area for a long time, and nobody seems to know where one even is.
Why is it that Ms. Pac Man always makes it into retro games arcades, but hardly ever the original Pac Man? Back in their respective heydays, wasn't Pac Man way more popular than Ms. Pac Man? Is it a licensing issue? What gives?
think of something else other than a "place where video games and pinball machines" when they hear the word "Arcade"? And what would constitute a "new school Arcade"? Trying to determine if and how far out of touch I am...
Admittedly one of them was a dank dark hole of a joint and I wasn't sad to see that one go
Those are the best arcades.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think one of the things that turned me off from arcades was the archaic controls. There was rarely an attempt to deviate from the standard joystick and button configuration. Granted - this was a setup that could withstand a lot of abuse - it by no means is friendly on the wrists.
Additionally, something I noticed was deviating from games that encouraged you to play with friends. TMNT was a four player side scroller - how awesome was that? Even Daytona had the option to link at least 8 units together (probably more) which was a blast. And cheaper than the 5-dollar-per-ride go-karts.
I think the root of it is that the owners/decision-makers in the arcade industry just got out of tune with reality. My favorite games in the arcade to this day are Ballistics (Grin/Xicat) and Hyperdrive (Midway). Particularly hyperdrive because it provided an experience you simply couldn't find at home, whereas all the typical fighting games were exactly the same except for the joystick vs. a handheld controller like we've all gotten used to.
... they they wondered why kinds were hanging out on the streets and in front of the 7-11.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I've always wondered why arcades haven't gotten the same treatment as, say, radio parts. It's pretty rare to find a store for radio parts (or just electronic parts in general), but there are lots of stores that have a section for them (Radioshack (for now), for instance).
To me, arcades would seem to go hand-in-hand with a video game store. Stick a few arcade machines in the back with one or two out front to lure people in. Those who come to play the arcades will likely browse the store and make a purchase or two. Those who come to buy video games will probably put in a quarter or two to play Centipede or Street Fighter II (or Monster Jam).
Granted, your small Gamestops and what not in malls won't have the room, but I've seen many fairly spacious game stores (especially for their stock), so it would be a nice side revenue/attraction.
New York, NY, population 8,391,881 has 23 arcades. That's one for every 36,4864 people.
San Rafael, CA, population 55,649 has 2 arcades. That's one for every 27,824 people. That's not counting Pinky's Pizza which has about 20 games in the back.
Starbase Arcade has some really cool old school games. I've been drooling over the table version of Tempest that he has for years. He almost never turns it on because the color vector screen is impossible to replace. http://www.starbasearcade.com/locations.php
-- QED
I have a pretty good friend who used to own a retro game arcade on State Street just off the UW Madison campus.
Rising rent forced him to close down a few years ago, which has deprived me of playing the classic Star Wars arcade game circa 1983
Occasionally the Wisconsin Historical Museum will fill their first floor exhibit space with his games.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
ArcadeControls.
Maybe there were more Ms. Pac-Man machines made? I'm sure some of the members of ArcadeControls.com have the answer to your question, if it's not already been answered a few dozen times in the forums.
Old school arcade games really means mechanical pinball machines, with real balls, not video monitors with recorded sounds.
We always take the PATH over from Hoboken, NJ, then hit the D up to Chinatown. Really not that bad at all. Seems like everyone on here makes it sound like its really far out of the way in Chinatown. Not too hard to walk a few blocks to play some MVC2!
Ground Kontrol in downtown Portland, Oregon is pretty cool. Draft beer, 80s video games/pinball machines. Good stuff.
It was always my understanding (worked in the industry more than 10 years), that the players just enjoyed playing Ms. Pac Man more than the original Pac Man. Simply a more popular game, and many of the units have the speed bumped up for a faster-paced experience. I'm unsure about production numbers, but something tells me they did produce more Ms. Pac machines.
My brother and I were chatting the other day and reminiscing about arcades back in the 80s, when we were kids. Now that we're older, we were wondering what a machine cost back in the day, whether they were leased or all paid-for upfront, and what a decently-patronized game might expect to collect in $$$/week.
Anybody ever run a mid-sized arcade back then and remember if it was a profitable operation?
Pretty much every seaside resort town I've been to in the past 15 years in NY, CT, RI, NJ, VA has a fairly decent arcade with pinball, classic video games and a bunch of hokey ball throwing, claw manoeuvring games. If you like that sort of thing. Every New England ferry I've been on has either Galaga/Galaxian or PacMan - or maybe Space Invaders (boring!) Personally I'll forego the questionable atmosphere and the insane cost and relive the happy memories with MAME. It is definitely a real guilty pleasure to waste all of those quarters especially these days when you can play all of these games for free. The one thing that you can't replicate is pinball. For that alone I'm in favour of the continued existence of ye olde Arcade. Can anyone direct me to a working version of Defender in NY? I was psyched to see a Defender machine on holiday last year - only to find that it was out of order. So close and yet so far...
http://www.acetonestudio.com
www.museemechanique.org/
great place to get the feel of turn of (last) century arcade
right next to the WW2 submarine Snark and Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'brien
I saw it as part of the Mechanicrawl about 2 years ago: http://www.longnow.org/events/02008/jul/12/mechanicrawl-02008/
I'm just sayin'
Lakes region, hundreds of games, always a good crowd there in the summer, lots of tourists.
I remember hearing that a lot of the original Pac Man cabinets were revamped for Ms. Pac Man when it was released - the boards replaced and the cabinet reskinned - which is why it's very difficult to find a vintage Pac Man cabinet. But like BigSes said, Ms is simply more fun, which would explain why it's the only one you see now. (Except for Pac Man Championship Edition, which is insanely cool. Hope the new edition adds an infinite play mode.)
This guy [High Scores Interactive Arcade museum] was thinking long the same lines. Opened Thursday afternoon, and was surprised when he got a crowd in. Even though hours went till 9, we were there till midnight!.
Its a shame a city as big as Philadelphia can't manage this, and it has to happen across the river ;-( but way to go. Look forward to seeing this place grow.
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