Arcades were created to lure people in with flashy lights and loud sounds, the hottest, cutting edge graphics, innovative control schemes and immersive experiences, all to con quarters out of the pockets of bored kids and pinball wizards.
Games were made short and difficult on purpose.
Ronnie being asked about his plan for American healthcare.
Not to mention the industry itself being dangerous and predatory even before the cabinet reached the rainbow galaxy squiggled carpets of the local Chuck E Cheese. Underpaid programmers giving their bodies and minds to budding industry giants. Cheap parts and labor outsourced to countries, scarred and traumatized by colonialism. Fabricated beasts loaded onto semis and hauled across the states to whoever felt lucky enough to make their money back with pocket change. Arcades were just another capitalist dream. Now they're dying. Which... kinda sucks.
Like many bubbles before it, the arcade industry is in decline. Some new games and cabinets are being made and distributed, but the age of quarter-sucking machines in peoples living rooms and pockets has proven far more lucrative.
Is it a better value to simply own the game you want to play? Of course (if you even CAN fully own it anymore, but that's another discussion).
Is it easier to access a game in the home rather than go outside, especially in this pandemic-stricken world? Absolutely, especially in terms of accessibility (though then we ought to discuss WHY going out is so difficult, but that's another discussion).
Is it less wasteful to use One machine that can play anything, rather than walking between tens or hundreds of unique machines? It is. No parenthetical here.
Something's missing.
As a game-obsessed 10 year old, every time an arcade entered my field of view, be it fully-staffed rows of flashing screens or a single random cabinet at a Red Robin, I'd be asking for quarters. Even though I had Videos Game at home, I still wanted the chance to play something I'd never seen, and might never see again. In those spaces, without fail, I would find like-minded jingling pockets to talk to, to play with, to bond with, even if it was only for half an hour. My hometown is very spread out. Not empty, but everything is separated by long stretches of road. Garbage public transit means surviving here necessitates owning a car. I ended up a very isolated kid, spending very little time in public spaces outside of school. It always bugged me that any game would cost more than a quarter. It meant if I wanted to play a "nicer" game, my time spent with my new friends would be cut shorter, unless they were willing to share of course.
Arcades were a public space for me to make friends and be independent - as long as I had quarters.
Now I'm old and a communist. Public spaces in general are flirting with extinction in the wake of late-stage capitalism and a global pandemic that has trapped me and my loved ones inside. Obviously, I had better things to worry about than "how are arcades doing", but my love for them kept them in my head all throughout.
I wish so badly that arcades didn't need to be profitable to survive. Imagine a comfortable indoor place, free to enter, free to stay, where the machines are maintained by all who care to see this place open, by everyone who wants somewhere to meet and socialize, to compete and co-operate - to play. Freely.
