Retro arcades springing up in 2021

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neorichieb1971
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Retro arcades springing up in 2021

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I live in the UK and it seems I have 2 arcades near me, one is in Milton Keynes - https://www.thepixelbunker.com/

And another closer to home in Bedford which hasn't opened yet - https://www.facebook.com/RewindRetroArcade/


These are obviously small fry operations ran by enthusiasts, but they are seemingly becoming more popular. Does your area have anything like this?

Bedford had 3 arcades back in the day and seemingly ignored gambling laws prohibiting under 18's from attending so it has quite a few 50 year old folks walking around that have memories of these places.

I am quite interested in attending my local one (Rewind) and i'm interested if using original parts and boards if part of the course. You cannot have a chain of arcades if your using original parts as there simply isn't enough to go around. If it becomes popular enough perhaps there is room for a kind of burger/pinball/arcade/coffee shop/internet cafe chain.

I'm really interested to learn if your neighbourhood has something like this.

Thanks for reading.
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orange808
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Re: Retro arcades springing up in 2021

Post by orange808 »

They're everywhere in America, but the experience is usually not great. They are filled with Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat , Ms Pac Man, Space Invaders, Galaga, and Burgertime machines. Usually, there's a Sega gun game that's okay I guess. (Yawn.) The worst offenders are running some kind of emulated multicades that aren't even worth money or time, because most users could get an equal or better experience at home. Then, there's the poor maintenance issues and broken machines. For instance, my local retrocade is lucky enough to have a Track and Field machine (fun with mates), but they don't understand that it's required to open the cabinet and replace the button switches every few weeks. It's pointless to have broken cabs on the floor (and you're supposed to pound the buttons). Forget about finding anything truly interesting. COVID killed the only arcade around me that had "deep cut" cabs outside of the boring status quo--and good shooters are mostly absent. I haven't seen a Lifeforce cab in years.... Yes, you have Robotron, but where's Smash TV and Total Carnage?

For me, the real draw of retrocades right now is the resurgence of silverball. There's a line of fresh pinball tables and even the older ones are getting regular maintenance. Unlike the derivative selection of arcade cabs I find at retrocades, the pinball crop seems to have more "deep cuts". It's not always a boring line of common Pinbot and Gorgar machines. The problem with that is, they charge a cover to play their boring "golden age" cabs and they charge a dollar a game for silverball. It's too expensive.

Although, I've recently revisited a small retrocade bar chain on vacation that wisely changed to tokens and there's no cover; so, I only had to pay for pinball.
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neorichieb1971
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Re: Retro arcades springing up in 2021

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I suppose most good cabinets that fit the description of what you're after are now in collectors hands.

I would'nt mind playing an arcade Paperboy, Ikari Warriors, Rygar, Amidar, Powerdrift, Sega Rally etc. All these were awesome experiences. I've never played on a full Space harrier. I have done a few full outrun and Afterburners though. Star Wars is another good one.

But like you say spare parts are hard to get and with freeplay being set on these, it will only take a few muppets to break the controls.

The arcade near me hasn't even opened yet, so it will be interesting to see what state of repair these units are in and if retro Pi boxes are the order of the day. I guess anything using a flat screen will be a Pi.
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Vexorg
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Re: Retro arcades springing up in 2021

Post by Vexorg »

The "Barcade" trend has been around here for a while now, although in this area I'd say a lot of them are focused more on pinball than arcade games. About 15 miles from where I live there's an arcade that's been around for quite a while now (Let's Play Cafe) which is attached to a tabletop games store. For the most part their stuff is in decent shape, although once again they seem to be more focused on pinball than video games. I get the impression that they barely survived the COVID lockdowns, but were eventually able to reopen, switching to a pay-by-the-hour model to avoid the need to handle tokens or quarters. We also had a new Dave and Buster's recently open here which had originally been scheduled to open sometime in Summer 2020, but those places seem to be almost entirely ticket games now.
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cj iwakura
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Re: Retro arcades springing up in 2021

Post by cj iwakura »

There's a couple neat ones in South Florida; Arcade Odyssey, Flynn's, etc. I think it'll be more common as people who grew up in the golden age of arcades start having the clout to start businesses. The trick is having the savvy to keep the business afloat and keep all these old machines operational...

I despise barcades on general principle, though I've been to a few nice ones.
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