The adventure of writing about the adventure is over, so I’d like to take one last chance to go back and reflect upon the journey. Before that, there are a few things I needed to get out of the way. First of all, there’s the matter of a particular “play til you win” claw machine I found back in Atlantic City. The answer is Dragonite. I accidentally grabbed Dragonite while trying to get Torchic. Unfortunately, it’s the only thing I acquired over those two weeks that felt worthy of sitting on my trophy shelf. At least I finally had something to replace the Mario amiibo with. Also, the pressed penny I got back on the first day, but I have no idea where that is right now. I could have sworn it was on my shelf…
EDIT: For those who don’t know, I keep a small shelf of things I acquire along my travels. I had written a blog post about it at one point but decided to private it. Someday I’ll do another.
Next is a souvenir I was going to send to a friend in Omaha when I finished writing these blog posts. It just took much, much longer than anticipated. I need to clean it before sending it out since it’s been sitting under my bed for the last year.
UPDATE: As of 2023, I still have it.
Nearly all of the arcades during my trip ran on generic tokens, so I only got a handful of these. I usually end up with a lot more. Going horizontally from the the top-left:
- Nesica card UPDATE: Whose purpose I would figure out a few months later
- Chinatown Fair
- Funfuzion
- The Wangan Midnight 2 and 3 magnetic cards from FunWorld
- The Initial D v8 card
- D&B NYC, which shouldn’t really be in this photo
- Round 1
- The modern pass for Konami’s e-amuse network
- Tokens from Barcade, Funworld, and Game Underground
- Some tickets from that arcade in Bethany, because I thought they looked cool
As you can tell, almost all of these came from Round 1. I’m still salty that I didn’t get a BanaPass.
The Las Vegas magnet is colorful and gaudy, while the Funland ticket magnet looks rough and worn. They sum up the two trips quite well.
There is one other thing I’d like to do before signing off. I said during the first post that we’d be visiting nearly every type of arcade at some point or another. As someone who’s been to loads of arcades, here’s what I believe to be a list of the types of arcades that are still scattered around America. With examples.
UPDATE: I don’t know if I still agree with these thoughts, but I’ll leave them here for archival’s sake. Looking back, I can tell I was really starting to take this hobby seriously when I wrote this.
The Game Room
A quick diversion set up to entertain bored guests. Most people wouldn’t even count this as an arcade. The most generic setup is a racing game, a shooting game, and something like Ms. Pac-man or a multi-cade. Sometimes that’s the entire game room, while other times, they’ll pad out the machine count with claw machines.
The bar variation usually has Big Buck Hunter and PGA Golf or a bowling game in place of the driving and shooting games and Pinball in place of the claw machines. I consider them both to be the same thing.
Midway Arcade
Not to be confused with Midway. This is a variation of ticket arcades that’s usually half-heartedly stuffed onto a boardwalk, theme parks, fairs, or any other central tourist spot with a lot of kids around. They tend to have many more claw machines than regular ticket arcades and feel like they’re constantly falling apart. Expect them to be far more expensive than typical ticket arcades. If you’re fortunate, you might find the rare version that doesn’t need to rely on tickets.
The Side Business
You know, the type of arcade you find at bowling alleys, skating rinks, more prominent pizza places, mini-golf places, and casinos. There’s no telling what the hell you’ll find until you enter. They may be as small as a Game Room or gigantic enough to stand independently. They might be ticket focused, have loads of rare games, or anything in between. The only way to find out what’s inside is to enter. Maybe Schrodinger’s Arcade would have been a better name.
Mall Arcade
The few. The proud. The survivors. The type of arcade you’d find at every mall in the late 80s and early 90s. Expect these to be relatively small and have a bunch of old games lying around unless some poor sap tries to start a new one. Most of these have survived due to their proximity to theaters. Note that not every arcade in a mall is a Mall Arcade. Can exist in both strip malls and regular malls.
Community Arcade
For the arcade lovers, by the arcade lovers. An arcade that knows its audience. If there are ticket games here, they’re not the main attraction by any stretch. Nowadays, most of these are pay by the hour-type arcades. Some of them heavily target rhythm or fighting game players. Some of them turn their sights toward retro games seeking to set a high score. Others know that the locals want an arcade, so it’s willing to give them one. Expect these places to have regular meet-ups and events.
Barcade
Targeting nostalgia-driven 20 and 30-somethings, these venues are half bar and half arcade. Less adventurous places will have a handful of classic 80s games, while larger ones will go completely balls-to-the-wall with its machines. More and more of these seem to be popping up every year. I’d go as far as to call these the arcades of the ’10s.
Entertainment Center
When a sports bar or bowling alley isn’t happy being just a sports bar or bowling alley. Dave & Busters, Round 1, Main Event, Gameworks, and the like. Expect them to be filled with the most modern games they could find. These places sell themselves on their flash and floor space.
Family Fun Center
Chuck E Cheese would have been a better example, but this is the only one I visited on my journey. Please forgive me for lumping Fun World in with the others. These are best thought of as a younger-skewing version of the Entertainment Center. These aren’t just an arcade. They also tend to have rides, play areas, mini golf, batting cages, laser tag, birthday rooms, or anything else they could fit in the building. They’re not a Family Fun Center if they don’t sell pizza.
Arcade Museum
When you’re less concerned about turning a profit and more fixated on showing off your rare arcade games. Check out Pinball Hall of Fame if you want an example that I was actually allowed to take pictures in. These places to have some weird, weird shit.
S-class
The rarest of all arcades. An arcade whose size and years of history have accumulated to the point of transcending its original classification. I wonder how many of these exist?
Pinball Arcade
When the name of the game is pinball. Any other games that might be around don’t matter because there are five times more pinball machines. Viva La Pinball!
Closing thoughts:
Over two weeks, I sampled every type of arcade imaginable. Writing about countless forgettable boardwalk arcades is tiring. The next time I travel, I’m going for quality over quantity. Maybe I’ll try to find someplace with 10 really interesting arcades instead of 45 that average out to mediocre? But with all of the arcades I’ve visited, is there really any place in America I can go with 10 arcades that can get me excited?
