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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.'"
DisneyQuest in Orlando has a five floors full of original old-school arcade games
Sounds very similar to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas...http://www.pinballmuseum.org/
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.
Really old school is the arcade museum in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco.
Just so everyone doesn't get the completely wrong idea... this place also has a VERY NICE beer selection. Everyone else may be drinking PBR, but you certainly don't have to. I absolutely love this place and I'm not even from New York (yet)!
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
Arcadelocations.net has a listing of arcades with classic games in New York State. So does AURCADE. One location not mentioned is Peter Pan Games in Queens. Depending on where you live, it might be easier to get to than Chinatown Fair, which is blocks away from the nearest subway station.
Otherwise, there's some good looking places in New Jersey (*shudder*) like Richie Knucklez and 8 on the Break.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
In addition to the efforts going on in Ottumwa, there is the already-existing American Classic Arcade Museum, located inside Funspot in New Hampshire. This arcade was prominently featured in the cult-favorite documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. I don't think their mission is to collect every single game ever (that would be a lot of them) but they sure have a huge collection of both popular and obscure games.
The museum is really just one floor of the arcade (there are three) featuring many, many classic arcade games in excellent working order. I imagine the maintenance is a perpetual nightmare, but they do what they can. There is no admission fee, just ordinary tokens to play the games. Most still cost one token (each token costs a quarter, or less if you buy in bulk), and let me tell you $20 goes a long, long way there. For maximum childhood regression, they keep the lights down and play awesome 80s tunes over the sound system. I was there a couple months ago and got to play some games that I had not laid hands on for a long time: Elevator Action (last played at Fuddrucker's), Missile Command (pediatric dentist's office), Sinistar (Lamppost Pizza), Dragon's Lair (Chuck-E-Cheese), Star Wars (basement of the local Sears), Tapper (local bowling alley), Crystal Castles (by the front door of the local Alpha Beta supermarket) and so on. A few machines I had never seen before in person (a stand-up Pong machine, Satan's Hollow). They even have a friggin' Computer Space, but alas it was broken when I visited. The fact that you're even allowed to touch it is amazing.
I also got to play the infamous Donkey Kong machine, where I was proud to hold the high score (a piddly 18,000) for probably five minutes, and the same Pac Man machine where Billy Mitchell played the world's first perfect game of Pac Man (I think I cleared about 3 boards).
It's a real experience - if you're in the area I highly recommend stopping in.