In the town where i live there used to be afew small videogame arcades where i spent many hours in the early 90's throwing 20p coins in streetfighter/final fight etc...when they closed i had to got to the nearest city (sheffield) to keep up with the latest release's but one by one they closed despite being full with kids most of the time, Eventually the only arcade within miles and miles was in the MeadowHall shopping centre (also in sheffield) and everytime i had some spare change and some time to burn i would take my kids (im all growed up now :110 to play afew rounds of tekken and then after go watch a movie,so imagine my surprise and dismay when i went last week to discover the arcade is gone to be replaced with a f**King SEATING AREA WTF!!!!. Are arcades officially dead in the uk?
I fear you are a few years to late in this discussion. There has not been an arcade within 40 miles of my home town for about 2 years now. It was a sad day when I stopped by the local arcade after work to play a few games and found it to be permanently closed with no warning. I had just been there the friday before and no one mentioned a damned thing about closing it down.
What i cant understand is the arcade in the shopping centre i mentioned was booming...some cabinet's printed little tickets if you made the hi-score board and you could exchange them for prizes, it was a very popular place with the newest machine's having quite long lines to play them, all in all it must have been making good money so why close?
Same here though. I would stop in nearly every day after work and burn off a couple dollars before heading home. Hell on occasion I would put a few dollars into the House Of The Dead and let the local kids play a few games with me. The place always had a decent sized crowd of people spending money.
Bowling allleys, big motorway service stations and cinemas are about the only places left across the country that have any arcade cabs. Even then you're only going to find big popular games like HotD, Time Crisis, random dancing games and the odd driving game. Don't go expecting to randomly find ESPgaluda or Street Fighter IV! I have stopped at a couple of service stations recently though and all the video games had been replaced by Bandits
The more that I think about it, the more I realize that most of the places that i can remember closed either right before or right after the shopping center/ mall they were located in was remodeled. Perhaps increased real estate prices drove alot of them under. It's not always enough to be at capacity and raking in money when your overhead expenses rise drastically.
I think i might move to skegness or blackpool (popular uk holiday resorts) for some allyear round arcade goodness cos 2 weeks a year is not enough lol....either that or move to japan :110: EDIT: my wife told me to hurry and pack rofl....anyone in japan got a spare room? lmfao
There's loads of arcades near me, although mostly in bowling centres. The problem is, what there is runs for £1 a pop, Mario Kart for example, you can get 1st place and have to still put in another £1 to play the next track, the days of "20p complete the game" are long gone. About the only arcade game I will consider putting money in these days is Dinosaur King for my nipper who loves it, or Love & Berry for me (because I love it) and get a card for each game (although I can buy a pack of 200 cards for a lot less off eBay)
Don't know of any gaming arcades here in Glasgow. Used to go into Booth's in Renfield St, but last time I went in, they'd been replaced with fruit machines. They rake in more cash than games machines do. There's loads of fruit machine places near where I stay. And pound shops. And greeting card shops.
Go down to the 10 Pin Bowling at the Quay and you'll find an assortment of arcade machines, but as previously stated they tend to be the 'popular' titles, which sadly doesn't necessarily mean the best games. However, I am currently talking to 2 different businesses about arcade rental in Glasgow, so watch this space! The day of the arcade is sadly numbered. The day of the arcade machines being hauled around by "The Fair" (The Shows) has also long gone. That said, I think there might be a small niche market for some classic titles hence me talking to a couple of businesses. Nothing has been decided yet, however one recently bought a cabinet from me as a toe in the water so to speak. It is felt that a few machines actually within another business is possibly the way forward.
Must take a gander down the Quay sometime. :icon_bigg A business venture - sounds exciting! Good luck and keep us posted.
Someone over at NTSC-UK tried to set up an arcade and he had good modern to classic titles but unfortunately it failed That could be because the arcade was in the back of another shop though. Anyway, good luck Paris :thumbsup:
Down here in Bournemouth we have some good seaside arcades still going. The Sega world was still open last time I checked too but rumor has it it's about to be swallowed up by the casino next door. Might pop in tomorrow see what's in there.
Well, I would only be purchasing a few cabs to then hire out, so less risk than it might appear. There's nothing concrete yet, still really just discussing it with a couple of different businesses in the city centre. They are keen, but like everyone else in this recession, they are nervous and space needs to be utilised as best they can. I'm not brave enough to actually open my own arcade... that would currently be financial suicide I feel. It's got to be part of another business and the income from arcades has to be seen as an extra revenue source. We shall see - my wealth, health & future happiness doesn't depend upon it and if I don't hire I'll just enjoy the cabs lol. It's a good excuse to go and purchase Sega Rally on a twin cabinet!!!
Not completely dead. In one of the piers? in black pool theres one place. and its got some sega machines mostly house of the dead.
It used to be I'd go to arcades to play games I could not at home. Aside from the crazy novelty ones, there is not much separating arcade hardware with home consoles. And now you have things like rockband, guitar hero and the Wii taking interest away from the novelty stuff. It's a shame.
I remember going to portobello beach where there was a good few arcades in the funpark. Don't actually know if there is still arcades there and i can't remember much of what they had but there was a few of the usual stuff like Virtua stiker and some other less known/seen games. Nowadays most of the arcades you'll see are in bolwing alleys and they usually are your comon shooters and racers. I actually can't remember ever seeing any kind of fighters in the bolwing alleys and the only time i've seen a fighter that wasn't in a proper arcade was amongst a bunch of cabs in a cinema about 9+ years but i can't remember what game it was although it may have been tekken 3 or VF 3
Arcades around here are mostly filled up with skill machines like Skiball, basketball, claw games, or the like where you can win ipods and such. Actual video games tend to be large multiplayer units like sitdown racers where you can play your friends. There are still a few places in the city where you can play classic arcade games but they're getting hard to find. It's a long way from a decade ago where every corner 7-11 had a Mortal Kombat machine.
