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Saturday, February 3, 2007
It's difficult to write a eulogy for the arcade, that once ubiquitous quarter-eating staple of malls, bowling alleys and college campuses everywhere. Like Saturday morning cartoons and the NHL, it still exists, but has been slowly fading from the American consciousness since its 1980s heyday.
But it's hard not to wax poetic about one of the last of the old neighborhood arcades -- the kind of place Norman Rockwell would have painted had he been a Gen-X-er who felt romantic notions about Double Dragon.
For many teens in the late '70s and '80s (before the advent of Xbox, cellphones and MySpace), arcades were actually prime destinations. It wasn't just that my generation was dying to guide a yellow anthropomorphic hockey puck through a maze or help a mustachioed plumber rescue his girlfriend from a barrel-tossing ape, but because arcades were one of the few shared spaces we could hang out that felt decidedly adult-unfriendly. For some of us, going to the arcade was a small act of anti-authoritarian rebellion.
Ah, the atmosphere ...
The arcades I grew up in were dark, sweaty, dungeon-like rooms filled with loud obnoxious lights and sounds with even louder and more obnoxious people. I remember the plethora of mohawked misfits, D&D-obsessed geeky types and various other mallrats. Even the typical arcade employee embodied the aesthetic -- the longhaired burnout or the twentysomething underachiever celebrated in virtually every Kevin Smith movie.
Ironically, though arcades were viewed by the older generation as seedy dens of teen corruption, the games themselves were often simplistic and childish affairs, especially compared with today's popular over-complex and over-stimulating console games. Back then, video games didn't revolve around fighting virtual lifelike recreations of World War II battles or murdering gang members; rather, we were innocently helping a pixelated frog across a street or saving a princess from a dragon.
And despite all the unblinking eyes staring at video screens, arcades also often bred a sense of community -- we'd chat with strangers about how to get past the Nth wave of aliens in Galaga, look on in awe for the guy who got past Act V in Ms. Pac-Man without losing a life, or bicker over who got the turkey leg in Gauntlet.
But by the late '80s and early '90s, fewer people were dropping dollars into arcades. The first big blow of competition arrived with the home systems -- first the Atari 2600 and then the Nintendo Entertainment System -- when technology began to allow kids to play arcade games in the safe space of home (as Mom and Dad sighed in relief).
A losing battle
Game makers tried to adapt somewhat by focusing on games with steering wheels, jet fighter sticks, dual screens, trackballs and other gadgets not possible at home, but the market erosion continued.
The number of arcade game units nationwide dropped from 860,000 in 1994 to 333,000 in 2004, according to statistics from Vending Times. Revenue from the games sank from $2.3 billion to $866 million in that same timeframe.
The small arcades that survive tend to feed off the spare change of tourists and theme park goers. Most of the ones that thrive are the multipurpose "entertainment centers" like Chuck E. Cheese for kids and Dave & Buster's for adults, with both continually adding new locations.
For those of us who miss the old days, home consoles offer "arcade favorites" compilations and collections, but they never feel satisfying because the sum of the unique arcade experience was more than simply standing up in a room while playing Elevator Action or Burgertime.
