The Forgotten Video Game Arcade

It is hard to believe that the gaming industry as we know it is only a few decades old. The Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System have made home consoles a mainstay throughout the world from the 1980′s.

As time has passed, we’re entering the first generation of gamers who are south of their quarter-life crisis that have grown up with video games from a very young age, and continue to actively game. Having first played Combat with a friend on the same small black and white TV, those same gamers can be found playing Battlefield 2 on their PCs with 63 other players worldwide over the new-fangled Internet.

The transformation has been so fast, we’ve scarcely noticed.

However, there is also new generation of gamers out there who never knew what it was like to walk into the Mecca of gaming with a roll of quarters in their pocket. And in reflection, only now am I realizing just how special that time was.

Yes, there was a time when no home console or computer could hold a candle to the video game arcade. There was a time when you might have gone to grab the newest issue of GamePro to find out what was new at the arcade, rather than your game machine at home. There was a time when it was an accepted “fact” that the performance and visual/audio quality of arcade machines would always be leaps and bounds beyond anything you could find on a home console. There was a time when playing Bad Dudes on the NES just didn’t scratch the itch.

As a child, there was nothing quite like being at the mall or the boardwalk and strolling by the arcade. It was like everything else in the world blurred and all other sounds dulled. A myriad of beeps, bells, gunshots, punches and kicks came pouring out of the entrance. It was one of those environments that could easily illicit a tantrum from a child who was rendered unable to enter (at least until your parents put the fear of God into you… then you just had the tantrum very quietly in your own head).

But for many of us, the draw didn’t wear off as we aged. I will never forget experiencing the inception of so many now-legendary franchises in the arcade: Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dragon’s Lair, Punch Out, NBA Jam, Space Harrier, Afterburner, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Karate Champ, Paperboy… The list really could go on forever.

I can remember watching over the shoulder of another person playing Mortal Kombat and, for the first time, seeing Sub-Zero rip out his opponent’s spine, or the first time I’d ever laid my eyes on M. Bison as a particularly skilled player reached the end of Street Fighter II. Sitting at home and playing these games on the SNES or Genesis just didn’t fill the void. On the contrary, it just served as more effective practice for the next time I'd be hitting the arcade.

Interestingly enough, I can put my finger on almost the exact moment that I stopped finding it necessary to go to the arcade to get the premium gaming experience. As huge Mortal Kombat fans, a friend of mine and I had been itching for the arcade release of Mortal Kombat 3 in April of ’95. I can still remember the day that he told me that he saw someone playing it in the arcade for the first time, and explaining the concept of Liu Kang’s combo to me. Combo?? What’s a combo?! High punch - high punch - block - low kick - low kick - high kick - low kick... What?!

The strategy was different back then. We wanted to be good at the game, but we weren’t rich. Each play costs money in the arcade, of course. Playing over and over until we got the hang of it wasn’t as viable an option from the get-go. So, we went out to the store and bought a strategy guide for the game. I can’t think about how much time we spent studying it, but it all paid off (literally) when we were able to go to the arcades and get a lot of free plays as opponents walked up to challenge us; we managed to win most of those games.

But my friend eventually purchased a Playstation, and he picked up Mortal Kombat 3 for the home system as soon as it came out in October of the same year. We were both astounded as to how similar this version was to the arcade version we had just spent months playing. They were scarcely discernible. We continued to master the game but, for the first time, felt no need to spend our hard-earned quarters on it anymore. We were getting the genuine experience at home already.

Thus ended our die-hard tenure at the arcade. That was the last time that I can remember feeling like I had to get to the arcade, and the last time that I can remember looking forward to the arrival of that new cabinet at the mall. When the Playstation and Nintendo 64 generation hit, the playing field had been leveled, and the arcades no longer had that ludicrous power advantage over the home consoles. Attention shifted from arcade games that couldn’t be pulled off on consoles and over to console games that couldn’t be pulled off in the arcade.

With Internet connectivity and personal profiles being such an important part of modern gaming, and with consoles and PCs now easily capable of replicating any graphic and audio experience of an arcade game, it seems that the heyday of the video game arcade has indeed passed. There is a good side to this, as less time in front of a coin or token machine is definitely a positive change. But that old feeling of walking into an arcade can’t be easily replicated. Nowadays, it takes very little effort to power up your Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. In the past, it was an event to get in the car and make your way to the arcade, and the scarcity of the occasion gave it an undeniable allure. What was once the objective, the ultimate goal at the conclusion of an arduous journey, is now simply a pastime of occasional convenience.

Truly, gaming is bigger and better in every way than it was fifteen years ago. But there will always be a part of me that misses the feeling of a handful of quarters in the pocket of my jeans. Nostalgia permeates memories of traipsing the carpet, attempting to determine which game was worthy of my last 50 cents. New technology has brought much of the raw game experience home, but there is no replacement for the former prestige of the video game arcade.