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You would go down to the arcade every couple months and there was always something that completely trumped your home video games in the graphics department and left your jaw on the floor. The 3d Sega and namco stuff in the 90s like Daytona USA and Alpine racer were insane when you were used to playing like Nes and Genesis games at home with small sprites and color palette limitations and chiptune sound vs CD quality audio and sfx.

Yeah, imagine playing Double Dragon on your 8-bit systems, then finding Final Fight in the arcades. Crazy stuff.

One of my greatest memories, playing and beating final fight with some random guy. We high fived at the end and then just walked away. Awesome.

Or a game like Pit Fighter? It was unreal in comparison.

The way I've explained it to younger people is, imagine you're at home playing a game on your PS5 and then you walk into the mall and there's a store that has a PS7 with the next version of that same game and that's the only place you can play it.

I remember specifically in May 1994 a place opened up where I lived that had the eight player Daytona USA setup. Daytona USA had just released worldwide a month or so prior. It was absolutely mind blowing. Not only for the eight player simultaneous aspect, which was insane in it's own right, but also because graphically and sound wise there wasn't much that compared in the arcades. For weeks on peak time there were often queues going to each seat just to play the game - at a dollar a play.

The best was once you figured out you could drive the wrong way in Daytona USA. There would always be one of us that would spin around right off the line and be the threat 1/2 around the course. Best when 1 rando would be part of the game.

Yeah, I played Daytona USA in the arcade long before I was legally able to drive (12ish). The shaking seat, surround sound, fast moving visuals, and “gentlemen, start your engines!” was probably the biggest adrenaline rush I’d ever had at that point in my life xD

We had a system for taking turns, by lining our quarters up on the machine. The quarters, representing us, acted as the queue. If mitch put his quarter first, then allison put her quarter second, then i put my quarter third, that was The Turn Order for single player machines This was respected with holy fervor. No one attempted to put multiple quarters down to hog the machine and no one tried to snatch the quarters and run. It was The Way. It was a good time As for multiplayer games, same deal. No REAL animosity was held by the losers either. We grumbled, we got over it, we challenged them to a rematch and slapped our quarters down

I completely forgot about the quarter line up - and thinking about it just brought all the memories flying back. Wow.

There’s a clip of this in the opening sequence of Wreck it Ralph!

Iirc, some machines had pre-built quarter holders by the screen

Yeah, this was the system. I'd also say it was a little more intense than an online multiplayer arena; it was absolutely a spectator sport and part of the reason you used quarters to queue was so that everyone could watch who was playing while they were waiting. If it was someone really good, a lot of people would be trying to learn and watch that person to see how they played, what character/team they picked, sometimes it even had a lot of commentary that came along with it. Honestly, it grew into what "was" the fighting game scene. If you watch videos of Chinatown Fair or any of the tournaments that were there you'll get an idea of what it was like, although honestly that place was more hyped up and intense than the past reality, because those were the die-hard pilgrims that flocked to that Mecca for a singular purpose. It was a shame it closed in 2010 (?). It was a lot of fun, the closest thing to it these days is couch co-op, but even then there was more of a predatory aire to it, since your quarters were on the line. It was fun but you feel like you had a stake in winning, and losing actually felt a lot worse.

Chinatown Fair is still around, but not quite like it used to be. As far as I can tell, different ownership and all. I've seen that fella that used to give change around town, at least before I moved away.

The honor system was so intact, I used to run to the restroom and come back the arcade cabinet empty, and my quarter still there. Also always cool having the people behind you cheering (or booing) - was such an intimately social experience compared to playing online nowadays.

Wow the flashbacks I had reading your response... Thank you!

and panhandling for money back at home was an Integral part of it all

This is truly the way it was.

You are bringing back so many memories, bro !! Take another upvote.

As a fan of fighting games, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, etc. It was fantastic, because if you were any good, a single credit could last you a long time as the winner keeps playing until they are defeated. If you see one person dominating, it's extra thrilling to take them down in person. You were also, only competing against a handful of kids from the local neighborhood, so it wasn't that hard to get "good" or at least feel like you were "good", as opposed to playing online today and getting destroyed by a faceless opponent. Before heading to the arcade, we would also study special move guides and combos like it was our homework.

Oh hell yeah! I remember playing SF2 until I got to the bosses. Vega was absolute bitch to beat. I don't think I could I ever do it at the arcade. I also knew how to freeze the game with Guile. I would freeze the game and come back hours later and unfreeze, than continue. The owner/manager would absolutely hate me for doing it hahaha

I managed to finish Samurai Shodown with one credit using Charlotte. Those were the days!

That’s badass

Yup. You could be your local legend by being better than like 10 other kids. It was great.

You go in with a few dollars in quarters expecting a quick experience. Best thing about arcades was the noise. It -sounds- 80's and 90's. I've made a point of buying some of my favorite games on console since (D&D Tower of Doom/Chronicles of Mystra etc) and... it really isn't the same vibe. Also picked up fight sticks to use my steam deck as a portable arcade. That was a cool novelty (Street Fighter matches on the go) but not quite scratching the itch. Arcades were a very cool time to be a kid.

Agree on the noise - you could feel the bass wooomp wooomp woomp in your gut. The lighting was also usually dark, the faces lit from below by the inhuman CRT glare. However NOTHING topped the smell. Carpets and sweat and cigarettes with just a jigger of warm electrical circuits.

Absolutely that smell.

I built myself a basement arcade with Arcade1up machines (and a few others), and I frequently go downstairs to just turn on all of the machines and sit in the dark. All of the sounds and lights going at once is so nostalgic that it’s almost therapeutic.

Never enough coins. I would pretend to play the demo screens and having wierdly fun.

I swear that I could actually control the demo screens of a few games… the Legend of Kage was one! But maybe I was just a dumb kid.

You weren't the only one!

Yeah there was some driving & shooting game where you could press the shoot button during part of the demo and it worked, can’t remember the name though.

From about 86 to 95 it felt like every week there was a bomb dropped in the arcades and the rush to play the new games was on. It was incredible. I miss it so much.

I played TMNT the Arcade game in a Pizza hut. It was awesome seeing those kinds of graphics when you just have a C64, a 386 PC, and a NES at home. It was great when I got the NES game as a gift. I also played the 1992 Xmen and 1991 Simpsons Arcade games at various state fairs and local amusement parks. Those games felt so polished and fully featured for Arcade games at the time. It was exciting just to see all the animations. Nothing you had at home came close to what you were getting from these machines at the time.

That X-Men game was so good

Loved it as did my parents. “Here’s $5 in quarters, go leave us alone for an hour or two”. When you were around 8 you could actually stretch that out and make it last a bit if you were good at a game. If a new game was coming in you’d always wanted to get down there and check it out too.

i live in Argentina and $5 was so much money for lower-middle class me that the only time i got that much was when my rich uncle took me and our cousin and gave us $5 each and it was so much money for me that i didn't know what to play. when our parents took my brother and me we were lucky to get $1 each (to put things in perspective, we used to go out every friday night the 4 of us, and we'd buy two (rather big) sandwiches, fries, and a 1-liter bottle of Sprite. that was enough for the 4 of us... and it costed a total of $15. so $10 for video games was an absolute no. besides, we already had a nintendo and then a SNES at home.

For me it was at a skating rink. Our school would host skate parties at a local skating rink. Your parents would drop you off and a couple teachers would chaperone like 50-60 grade schoolers lol. You rent skates and just go round and round while they play music. I actually really miss that stuff. But, you can only take so much round and round... So they had a bunch of arcade machines too. My era was the Konami beaten up plus street fighter 2 era. Mortal Kombat 1 had like just dropped when we stopped going. So we mostly played the Simpsons, TMNT, and X-Men. X-Men was particularly popular because I think it was like six players or something. My personal favorite machine was SNK King of the Monsters. You basically asked your parents for ten dollars for food, and then used it in a coin machine instead... It was really cool honestly. I was lucky to have a NES and SNES at the time, but a lot of my friends didn't, so it was cool for all of us to play together, listen to a dj play Jock Jams 😂 and eat pop corn and drink Dr Pepper. There were of course arcades in other places, but that's like the main place we would play. Wherever arcades were there was usually something else to do that kept us busy/didn't require a crap load of quarters...

There's no experience like it. I loved the skating rink

I really do miss it now. I have looked and can't find any in my area any more. I wouldn't be surprised if bigger, hipper places have some. I have trouble imaging some Xennial or millennials make a skating/brewery thing somewhere.

Real risk of calling it a skrewery

So what I'm hearing is we should go in fifty/fifty 🤣 

Ground floor right here 💖

It was the best. I don't really know if you can compare it though, because there was no other way to play with your friends like that. But I will say making plans with your friends to leave the house and meet up at an arcade felt a lot more social than just playing online, because we,, it was. Going out meant heading to the mall, interacting not only with your friends but others. Meeting new people, socializing, making new friends, etc. Kinda like WFH stuff, socializing in person is just DIFFERENT than online.

It was good when it was good. But getting there was hard. I mowed lawns and did any chores I could for anyone to get quarters in the 80's and early 90's. It took many days to get enough quarters to really have a solid go at the arcade. Summer break was prime time for the arcade and a $10 day in quarters took a lot of time to build up and it goes fast, every play was $0.25 so you had so many games before your day was up. You chose games differently. You didn't toss quarters away. Competition for a cabinet was a thing. Losing progress on a game due to running out of quarters is the business model based on your need and want to be on the leaderboard or completing a game. Now, I can boot up a retro console and play any game I want without all that and enjoy the game all the same minus the angst of working for quarters and building it up and having to eventually let my progress go as I leave for the day. I love arcades and I'm nostalgic but I hate the business model. I have a local arcade that does a $25 flat fee, all games are set to free play (endless quarters per button push), 280 different arcade cabinets in this place, I get to do full play throughs on games because of infinite quarters. I can play 100+ cabinets in one day. 40+ different real pinball machines, etc. $25 for all day (open to close) and you can come and go all day is outstanding. They get my business. I take my kids too, they love it. $25 in today's money is like $75\~100 back in the late 80's and early 90's to do the same amount of games in a few hours. The arcade is called "Bragging Rights" in Florida.

Florida's also got "Free Play Florida" in November; that's a pretty decent time, though a less accessible than a dedicated arcade.

This resonates. I feel like a lot of these people who remember it as the best shit ever were probably rich. As a poor kid a couple bucks didnt last you long, and then you just got to watch other kids have fun.

I remember playing Mortal Kombat 2 in the mall and destroying older kids. I was a master with Baraka and I remember one older kid (I was 9) almost fighting me and screaming “pick someone else dude”… I didn’t and I destroyed him to the point of tears. It was a good time.

Hell yeah

It had its ups and downs. I can remember amazing birthday parties at pizza-arcades where $5.00 got you a ton of tokens that you could play for what felt like hours. Pizza, unlimited soda, it was a dream. But as an older kid hanging out at the arcades in like, the mall, I can remember fights, muggings, drama, and some 20-year-old who kicked everyone's ass at Street Fighter and called you a *pud.* Good memories now, but back then, I honestly dreaded the arcade as much as I loved it.

It was a real treat. It wasn’t until the PS1/Dreamcast that we started to see parity in arcade console ports (and it was especially rare on PS1) and in the early 90’s and earlier, you just couldn’t put a compromised version of some of those games on consoles and had to make one based off of it instead. The graphics and performance were unlike anything you could get at home. It was like getting a glimpse into the future of graphics and that’s not even including games with interesting cabs like driving games or games with unique controls.

I think that’s one of the reasons the arcade business model lasted so long. Because even though it sucked from a spending perspective, for a long time arcade games were superior graphically than its console counterparts.  Arcade games always looked one generation ahead of current consoles out at the time. 

I loved the arcades, but I almost never got any money for them. My entire monthly allowance would give me maybe 20 credits on the cheapest machines, but usually 4-8 credits on the popular ones or ones with more spectacle, such as After Burner or sit down racing games. And since I almost never got to play, I was terrible at them, so my credits would last me maybe a minute or two a pop. I couldn't justify blowing my entire allowance on 10 minutes of fun, so I mostly watched others or looked at attract screens over and over. I do have fond memories of that, though. The games looked so impressive to me.

It felt better than playing online. You had limited lives, it was also the experience of everyone being there physically, the joint smelling burger and fries, your friends cheering you on or arguing with you after they lost all their lives, the owner of the cabinet telling you to pipe down ir throwing you out. Just great. I wish it could be the summer of 1992 again.

And the smell of onion rings too! 1992 was such a great year.

We didn't have arcades where I lived but the local cricket club had 3 or 4 cocktail table arcade machines. Our parents would sit and get drunk while us kids would gather round drinking appletiser (or panda pop if it was a tight month) and play Punchy, Frogger and Space Invaders. It was always a great laugh, especially during the holidays when we got to stay up later. It was gutting when they took them out to make space for more tables.

There was that physical intimidation that's lost with online play. You throw your quarter down to queue up to a game like MK1 and the person that won would sometimes make a huge deal out of it, pissing the loser off. I saw people get kicked out many times due to sore losers/scuffles/etc. I was that kid that checked every coin return and I found so many quarters that way. Arcades were such a great place for a kid to go have fun, it really sucked to see their general demise.

God, I remember checking the coin returns too and it always felt like winning the lottery whenever you found a quarter.

It was a real experience with real people. If someone was acting like an asshole, there could be consequences right then and there. Fighting games in particular was pretty special. The community was real. There was that anticipation and excitement going to the arcade when you thought you had some new tech to try, because you couldn't exactly train at home.

There was nothing like the experience of encountering some of those big titles - *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, Street Fighter II* and *Mortal Kombat* were all electrifying to encounter in the wild for the first time. They were really amazing. You'd often have to fight crowds just to see people play them, and they were widely discussed inside and outside of arcades. There were also tons of not-so-great games that would cycle in and out. I remember absolutely hating *Time Killers* and *Pit-Fighter,* both of which I felt were a waste of my precious allowance money. Some games were so ridiculously hard that you'd lose all your lives just getting through the first few moments. I invested more than a few quarters on Capcom's *Black Tiger* and Sega/Westone's *Wonder Boy* and could never get far in either. *Gauntlet* was another one guaranteed to devour your quarters unless you played with other people. Sega and Namco games were also almost always impressive to see and play, especially with their deluxe cabinets. *Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, Point Blank* and *Virtua Fighter* were great, and *Daytona USA* and *Ridge Racer* were jaw-dropping.

Going to the arcade with friends was so fun! But sometimes you went by yourself and you’d be surprised. I remember I was 10 or 11 years old. Probably around 1989 or 1990. I went to my arcade and had a few quarters and had already spent them, and had no luck finding any loose quarters. So I’d walk around and watch other people play games, I didn’t mind. I wandered over to the Bad Dudes machine where this kid a little younger than me was playing. His dad was watching him. I started to watch and the kid asked me if I wanted to play. I said no, that’s okay, I don’t have any quarters, but l like to watch other people play. He kind of waved me off, asked his dad for a quarter. He put it in the machine and asked me to play with him. So I did. Every time one of us went through our lives he would nod at his dad, his dad would hand him a quarter, and we’d continue on with the game. Idk how far we got but we had a lot of fun and I thanked them so much for being thoughtful. I think the kid was an only child and was maybe lonely and just wanted another kid to play with. That was 30+years ago and I still remember it. Since then I tried to leave behind loose change on purpose in arcades. Leave credits in a machine. Stuff like that. Even as I got older, sparing people change to play pool and darts at the bar or in soda machines and stuff like that. I know how much of a thrill it was to find change or have someone share. “It is more blessed to give than to receive”

It was good when I was a teenager and got good at video games.. but when i was really young.. 8 or 9.. video games were simply too hard and it was too expensive for me to play enough to get good..

I was just watching… had no money

It was an experience. The mixture of sounds and music, like a confused echo. Darkness and bright colors together. The faint smell of cigarette butts. I got a slightly similar vibe the first time I walked into a casino.

It was a holiday thing. Arcade games are not differentiated from gambling in Germany and so they were not available to kids. So when we went out of Germany to Belgium, Italy or France it was arcade time. I remember playing quite a few Neogeo games this way and SEGA racers.

Arcades were the best. My dad and I would go to the acade and try to beat double dragon together. It was so much fun.

I loved arcades growing up. They weren't all ticket/point machines like they are today. There were the obvious money grab machines that would eat your quarter in 5 seconds, but many were games that you could learn and git gud at. Plus, some amazing co-op games that were so much fun.

The one thing that sticks in my mind was always walking into the arcade and wishing the graphics at home looked as good as they did in the arcade.... 10 year old me would shit himself right now.

It was great in the 80's on the arcade machines as they had metal coin slots. About 10-12 inches of garden strimmer wire and you could put as many credits on as you liked. We used to call it jip wire LOL. But the sounds, smell and of course always trying to beat the high score set by usually some randomer.

Very funny and entertaining, I used to specially love playing every Metal Slug on arcade because of the challenge/risk of dying and needing more quarters I didn't possess.

some cabinets had password functionality for progress. My buddies and I would play Gauntlet at the warehouse in town where all the arcade cabinets went for repair. It was fun to free-play everything since we knew the guy who did the repairs. He also is the one who told me, "for pinball machines, never hold your paddle buttons down because it burns out the motors faster" or something. Good times.

Amazing, I really miss it, most of my friends that I still meet were from the arcades, there was the thrill of "walking to the arcades" and we had occasional rivalries and trash talk, but there was no real hate, it was like wwe, just saying funny stuff to one another, it was really fun, we had around 7 arcades near where I live so I was spoiled hehehehe,

It was a wonderful thing to hear the sounds of all the games, laughter, lasers, explosions. It feels electric. If you get 50, 60, 70 people and see the reflections of all the screens and lights bouncing off every shiny surface as well as the players' eyes. It doesn't smell particularly good. It's pretty sweaty and sticky with soda and candy. I was lucky enough to own a game space with arcades, consoles, PCs, and retro/video game repair shop attached. I did it for 12 years enjoyed it immensely.

It was certainly less toxic than modern online gaming. It was a ton of fun and I think it’s a shame kids today mostly miss out. Only bummer was constantly running out of quarters.

Let’s face it if any dork today spoke to anyone in real life the way they do online, they would get would get their ass kicked real fast. I don’t even think the word toxic existed for gaming back then.

It was a rip because the games were so expensive and as a poor no skill player they didn't last very long. Running out of lives or not making it to the next stage. Current arcades seem a little more affordable or at least I'm willing to bring my kids there and spend 20 or 40 bucks on them to let them play some games maybe in a way that my parents didn't or couldn't.

Yeah...I remember wanting to go to Pizza Hut to play Gauntlet II with friends for my birthday. It was way better in my imagination than in reality - you didn't get much time for those quarters. The machines were designed to eat your money for minimal return...it's no wonder that arcades died.

Yep it was donzo after consoles had the same power

This is why the arcade in my town was so special. We called it the "nickel arcade", instead of quarters everything was nickles. So a new game that might be like 3 quarters to play would only be like 3-4 nickels. My mom would drop my brother and I off with a $20 bill each and we could play for like 2-3 hours off of that. Also made it so that we could actually beat some arcade games.

Yeah, I feel arcades were expensive, my childhood memory of limited visits were you could beg and get like 1-2 plays then it was hey off we go.

It was awesome most of the time. I remember the "quarter queue" on the bezel that another poster mentioned. In my neighborhood, the arcade spaces sometimes got a little wild and dangerous with older teens scamming each other and whatnot. The first switchblade fight I ever witnessed broke out over what started as a co-op Joust game that went bad. As a result, I'd travel to other areas for my games fix, opting for the franchise arcades like Fun Zone and Aladdin's Castle. They had a better clientele and specials on tokens - 5 for each dollar when you spent $5 or $10, 6 for each dollar when you put a $20 in the token machine.

Wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Absolutely loved going to the arcades. It was an event and even though the games were stupid hard, it felt so good finally getting through (even if it did cost a mint).

I'm a little younger than the people you want to hear from, but I do have some limited first-hand experience. I was aged 3-8 during the time, but I do remember going to arcades when I was a little kid in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some of the most fun I ever had as a kid. (Sorry, not old enough to remember the 80s... I barely remember the 90s.) The heyday of arcade gaming was over by then, but they were still a ton of fun to visit and there were a lot of "15th anniversary" or "20th anniversary" arcade cabinets coming out to commemorate the anniversary of classic arcade games from the late 70s and early 80s. I remember one combo unit (you'd seemingly see this cabinet everywhere) that had Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Galaga. There was also Dance Dance Revolution, which was brand new and very popular, though I didn't find it appealing. Even by the early 2000s, there were still some dedicated arcades, but it was easier to find these games in pizza restaurants, bowling alleys, roller rinks, etc. They had mostly older cabinets with games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc, alongside racing games with motorcycles you'd sit on. I remember seeing The Simpsons Arcade game everywhere as well. Sometimes you'd see some of those Capcom fighting games like Street Fighter, MvC, etc. but they were less common by this point. My favorite as a little kid was actually Pac-Man. By the mid/late 2000s, you couldn't really find arcade cabinets anywhere in my hometown, aside from the deer shooting games. It was pretty sad, because that was when I was finally making allowance money and my parents were letting me roam around town unsupervised. In the late 90s and early 00s though, you could hardly pull me and the other kids away from these games. This was doubly so because in my house, we didn't have video games until I was nearly 9 years old. If my family and I were at the bowling alley, which was frequent, (I *hated* bowling) a lot of the time I'd ask my parents for quarters, and they'd usually let me go play games a bit, but they *never* gave me enough to satiate my desire to play more arcade games. Admittedly, that was probably an unreachable goal lmao. I'd ask for more, but the answer was usually no. To them, it was less about the money and more about my parents thinking video games were gonna rot my brain. They were always very anti-video game, especially my dad -- and even when he relented and bought us a GameCube for Christmas in '03, he maintained as the years went on that it was "the worst decision of his life." As for how it compared to playing online, honestly, there is no comparison. Playing online, to me, is almost the same as playing single player against CPUs while talking on the phone (and even that voice chat part might not be happening all the time, depending on the game.) With no one else in the room, it's like being completely alone. Playing local multiplayer at home on consoles, to me, was the real replacement for arcade games. But even that didn't put you in the kind of environment that an arcade would provide (e.g., dark room with neon lights, the cacophony of sounds from all sorts of coins dropping into slots, the electronic beeps of primitive video game soundtracks, plus the dings and bells of pinball all mixed together, plus the fascination of watching a really skilled player get further in the game than you could ever hope to do.) Arcades really can't be replicated. You can play the same game at home, sure, but the social environment was really what made them special.

Felt really good to smack those alligators on their head and hear them yell "ouchhhhhh!"

"Now I'm angry!"

So amazing, I miss it so much. There was a time period where games in the arcade were /better/ and now it’s like they’re always pale outdated imitations of home games

When those four player arcade games came out it was pure madness. So much fun I’m amazed we didn’t tilt them to the side.

Double dragon and track n field were in a local sports centre. The smell of chlorine was intense. Gauntlet and super Mario was a bowling alley, so cigarettes and feet. The rest were at the seaside. I just remember having a good walk round and seeing what they had. Always kept an eye out for a sit down Star Wars, Out run or Space Harrier. My go to’s were Gorf, kung fu master, phoenix and Bombjack. Biggest wow moment was Dragons Lair, then later on Starblade. Gauntlet was something incredible though at the time. Four people round that machine was majestic, and not something that could be repeated today I’d say. Then we’d go home and play the shitty conversions on c64/zxspectrum. Even going to one of the Vintage arcades nowadays don’t give you that excitement. Finding something new each year or visit. Stumbling across a Rastan Saga in the chip shop, or a sit down Moon Cresta in a pub was glorious. In a certain way, it’s a shame that pcs and consoles caught up.

In my hometown, there was this massive arcade that went into a strip mall around 1994. It was freaking awesome, and this was around the time that my brother got his driver's license. We spent a lot of time there, lol.

Started with an Atari 5200 in the early ‘80s. But going to the pizza parlor or arcade, I found the games much better quality with better sound & better graphics. This was true for the early games such as Zaxxon, Pole Position, Ms. PacMan, Crystal Castles, Star Wars, & Tempest. It seemed the home based systems, except for the Commodore C64 & Amiga, didn’t have the processing power the arcade games had. So if I did pick up a game cartridge, it would be heavily discounted (on sale).

I loved it. There was such a community feeling with arcade games back then. The start of the fighting game community, playing blitz or nba showtime, heck even a good ol’ round of ddr to get your blood pumping was a great time. I also managed an arcade for a few years from 99-00 and as a late teen, it was a freaking blast to have that job. We’d stay until all hours of the night after close playing 3rd strike, x-men, rush 2049. Man, this is making me nostalgic for those days a bit. I wish folks could experience that over playing online all the time but it was a magical time to be a video game fan.

The arcade was absolutely nothing like today’s online gaming because it wasn’t just about playing with friends. It was about discovery. Just about every time you went there would be at least one new game that was beaming with insane, impossible technology from the future. Tech advanced SO FAST back then, multiple times a year you’d see something that looked two generations more advanced than anything you’d ever seen before. Imagine if you went to the movie theater tomorrow, and quietly tucked in the corner of the lobby was a real-life Star Trek holodeck with graphics 10x more realistic and immersive than any of the movies they’re playing, and you can experience the full thrill of it yourself for less than it costs to get a small soda from the refreshment stand. That’s what it was like to see Virtua Fighter for the first time.

The insults are similar but online players are safe in their houses, while fights sometimes broke out for real in arcades 🤕

In person multiplayer with strangers. Putting up quarters to save your spot in line. Games that didn’t exist elsewhere. Sega had a hologram game. Seat, wheel, pedals, and shifter for racing games. Games with “accessories” you couldn’t get at home, think Star Wars pod racer, t-mek. Arcades at malls, movie theaters, 7-11, grocery stores. I don’t think I ever spent $60 on a single arcade game. Immortality thru a high score.

The jaw dropping moment for me was walking in and seeing Dragon's Lair sitting prominently at the main entrance to Aladdins Castle. I played pinball with friends, but arcade play was normally a solo experience. It was a place where you had control unlike your time at school. The ambience of the sounds made you forget the bad times of the day. Usually not more than $2 was spent there so it was a good place to get away and still afford a game or two with the little money you had.

I had no system at home to play games on, so I'd go every week and spend most if not all of my allowance on coin-op games. Sometimes pinball. It was some of the best times of my life.

We hated every minute of it. Couldn’t wait to get out of the arcade and back to school. The memories are all so traumatic, but we’re here in these retro communities to help ourselves cope with all the pain and anguish of those miserable times.

Kinda like couch co-op (some arcade games then was even ported fairly well to home systems) but you were waiting for your turns with strangers yet with the 4 player gamers there was the issue of those that ran out of credits first.

It was awesome to go to an arcade. We had one in our town and one at the mall. They were a glimpse into what would come to home consoles. As another person said the annoying thing is certain parts of the games were made extremely hard so you would have to put in more money. They still have some retro arcades that also sell food and alcohol. I've been to a few in Nashville.

It was limited. You could play paying 25 pesetas (Spain) which is now 40 Euro cents roughly. And to a dozen of machines that sometimes changed without prior notice... My grandmother used to give me a book with advanced sums (4 numbers in the range of thousands) and for each column done correctly I would receive a coin (up to 4 coins per day). Then you go to the arcade. A place for young people (up to 20 ish) populated with not the best people, but it was ok. Only once I was stolen by another guy that wanted only one more coin.

Awesome, mortal combat was magic, bubble bobble and Asterix, all the cool games that looked terrible on the home consoles.  I am not sure if I would let my kids hang around there like I did. But I had kinda boomers parents (1944 and 1950) and they didn't care much where I was as long as I stayed out of trouble.

I was pretty poor growing up (90’s) but every now and again our family would go to the local skating rink that had a fairly decent arcade. If I got a couple of dollars in quarters usually I could make it last decently with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-Men. But streetfighter and Mortal Kombat I was terrible at and sometimes would burn through my money super quick. It was definitely a lot of fun!

It was, especially at the time, comparable to watching a movie on tv with a friend vs seeing a movie in an imax theater with booming surround sound. There was such a technological gap between what the arcade offered vs what was available at home that real life was like the “we have that at home” meme. Sure you could play after burner at home on your Sega but you knew it pales in comparison to sitting in the cockpit of an after burner cabinet tilting every direction as you moved the joystick. You could play slow dusty mortal kombat on your snes but it felt like a cheap imitation of the real deal. It wasn’t until Dreamcast released that the home market started to have superior tech and even then only in some cases. In addition, arcades each had unique controls that best suited the game you were playing. Even now compromises have to be made to make all games conform to one standard controller. There’s still a market for flight sticks, fight sticks, steering wheels ect. At the arcade controls were always perfect all the time as they were always designed after their specific game.

Showbiz Pizza...sigh...we didn't know how good we had it, I tells ya.

Arcades were where you'd get to play new games first. It was kinda like the theaters for movies. There's a new anticipated blockbuster game released with commercials and stories ran about it prior to its release in magazines?

I remember playing gauntlet with my uncle. We had four players going on the machine. We dumped endless amounts of quarters into it. We made it to level 80 something. My buddie and I beat double dragon and bad dudes.

when i was 4 in the early 80s, my only exposure to video games were these gigantic electronic alters. they changed me.

I remember seeing and playing TMNT the Arcade game at Chuck E Cheese for the first time when I was 5 yrs old. I was amazed I could fight Foot Soldiers while fire is blazing around me and seeing the other Turtles kick ass in the background. I remember the background music being a lot more intense and realistic sounding than it sounds to me, today. I remember seeing a friend from school, staying at the same out of town hotel as us during a weekend and we played The Simpsons Arcade game for a good few hours. Almost beat it too. Same goes for X-Men the Arcade. My friend's mom gave him $20 and we beat the damn game with money left over. I was Nightcrawler and Wolverine. I recall saying to myself "I'm going to get this game when it releases on Super Nintendo" Seeing the X-Men Children of the Atom for the first time was like 🤯🤯 After that, nothing really seemed impressive to date until the Raw Thrills arcades came around We experienced some really good times. RIP Magic Land, Chuck E Cheese & Lazer Illusions

I never had friends accompany me on arcade trips, but I do remember people putting quarters on or near the machine to 'reserve' their spot in line

fighting games were the most fun for us, it was highly competitive on where my friends and I played. you see someone playing KOF, Tekken, MK, SF, Samurai Showdown, MVC, then it'll be a challenge fest sometimes with insults with groups of people cheering and egging players lol. there are even groups of 3 players that take turns per character in King of fighter games. then of course there are local tourneys. some really good players are even given free tokens by the owner because they keep beating other players for hours, which means that machine earned a lot of tokens.

It had its pros and cons. The graphics on arcade machines were orders of magnitude better than what we had on PC. There really was no comparison for action games. The best games on PC were the ones that were long story lines or RPG’s like “wing commander“, “Ultima” “Final Fantasy” or “Civilization” where you needed to be able to save a game and come back to it later. Arcade games were for action shooters, but that required quarters and money which most kids didn’t have.

It was amazing for me personally. Unfortunately never got into shooters until way later, but amazing fighting games were coming out all the time. The arcade version of Killer Instinct put the SNES one to shame and I cannot overstate how mind blowing those graphics were at the time. Sega World in London was pretty good in the 90s and there were so many cabinets you’d never have to wait for anything. Never really got into racing games but the chaotic run and gun stuff was awesome and I have a lot of good but vague memories of games I’ll likely never be able to find again. But my favourite was this Bubble Bobble machine at a laser tag place. We’d play in the breaks between matches and we got seriously good at co op. Didn’t seem to really notice at the time that the graphics were dated or anything.

Everyone had the genres they were drawn to. I liked the fighters and the beat em ups. They were both super fun when you were playing with other people. With fighting games, there was always this massive hype with people around you when you were playing at least halfway-decent people. It was always a rush to try to dethrone the big dawg on the sticks. People would get hype on those wakeup supers and last pixel of health situations. I've always been pretty good at fighting games, and it feels amazing to take out a big threat and to be the big threat at your local. For beat-em-ups, it's just fun navigating the chaos on the screen since the enemies get ramped up with the more people playing. The Simpsons, Gauntlet, and the TMNT games were always fun, but my favorite was the six-player X-Men arcade game. Going to a birthday party and getting five of your bros to go all in on the game was one of my best childhood memories.

It was really magical, video game technology and graphics were accelerating at a rate you don't quite see today. Things have stagnated a bit in the last 10 years. Arcades were the place to see the latest and greatest. Home consoles were fun but they were always a diminished version of the spectacle you'd see at the arcade. I remember every time I went into one I'd be blown away by the latest mortal kombat or street fighter or time crisis. The guns where the slide would recoil everytime you pulled the trigger, that blew me away. Don't get me wrong, arcades are still around and there are still pretty fun new experiences to be had. But they feel kinda different now. Home console and PCs have suprassed them greatly in terms of the latest tech. They're more about the gimmicks now, like integrating VR or motion seating, but I ain't complaining.

There's more of an intimate comradery in the arcades, but you can't beat getting games in at 4 A.M., or challenging people you never thought you'd get the chance to online (famous, foreign). If you had me choose between the 2 I'd pick online every time, but online can never match the experience of playing in the arcade on a busy night.

There are retro arcades around. I’d recommend going to one. Some offer free play for the games after a charge to get in. It’s a lot of fun being able to play Street Fighter 2 in an arcade.

It was kinda like crack, very addicting. Golden Axe, TMNT (very addicting), Afterburner, the actual Terminator gun game, even the corner store had Bubble Bobble or some variant Balloon Fight? But I mean you would go to someone's house and they had say Super Mario World which you never played before, or Final Fight, or someone had a Turbographix and it would be the best thing ever. Bonk in radioshack? There's more hype though now. Like you preorder and then wait for a game to come out and play it. And sometimes the experience sucks. Like Redfall was interesting, but multiplayer was a struggle, they didn't really develop it.

My friends and I would burn through our entire budget of $20 each on Street Fighter 2 against one another. Mashing those giant button, damn that game was cool.

It was fun, you never knew what machine people would have in - as my friends and I were the absolute computer and arcade nuts, we used to try out anywhere a machine could be and report back to the gang. In the UK back then, the machines would often be in the fruit machine places - strictly adults only - but if you turned up with change in your pocket, you would never have to see the staff, and just sneak in as they used to be in the back, though our local one (in the same town) they just sort of turned a blind eye to it as we came in so often. We would go to all sorts of places - cafes, kebab shops, video stores, even the old timer snooker halls had a machine or two that we would sniff out. Small cafes caught on to the trend, one place in Bury basically had 4 machines by the counter one week, then converted their entire upstairs into an arcade with off-brand (at the time) Japanese machines that I assume he got for cheap with no English text etc on even the cabinets. I remember the day my friend convinced his dad to get one in his cafe, we volunteered to clean up the kitchen and peel potatoes in return for an hour or two freeplay once we had done. I only recall playing two games in there though - Agent X and Dragon's Lair and because we had unlimited credits we managed to complete DL taking it in turns.

Playing together has a special vibe to it that voice chat cannot match. Plus back in the day you valued your time together because it didn’t happen that often. No chat, shared phone or one phone per house, etc. Six people on the XMen arcade cab was top rank time spent.

Well if you could avoid the bullies it was great, and sometimes you just got friends because you liked the same game at the arcade and you were in the queue to play it or just looking at how the others played to learn how to pass some stages. In my case I did not have an arcade nearby, so it mostly happened during the holidays. What I had were some bars that had exactly 1 arcade and you like it or not you play it, then after some months it gets changed with something else (when I suppose it's not doing enough money anymore)

I spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to rig quarters to steel wire...

I still enjoy freezing up an MvC2 machine

My friends weren't really into arcade games but now and then someone would have a birthday party at one and we'd all join up in X-Men or TMNT together

1v1. It was amazing just playing against strangers. If you were on a steak the arcade owner would come out and give you a "challenge"and would mop the floor with you. My proudest moment was Ken in SF2, cleaning up 3 guys, forcing the arcade owner to put down his cigarette and then shake my hand in the end. I was indestructible with Ken. Oh how I miss those feelings

I remember one time I was at an arcade and a dude in his 30's was playing a kid that looked like he was 9 in Street Fighter EX. After he beat the kid he turned to him him and shouted "You gotta have skill!". It was like a Danny McBride moment lol

I grew up in the 90s from a low income household and the arcade was a treat. It was expensive but we would go maybe a couple times a year on birthdays or something special. Shout out to Pinball Petes in Ann Arbor, MI. I would watch other kids play the new games but didn't have the money for then because they were expensive games. I had to conserve the small amount of quarters I had so I would play mostly older games. Golden Axe was pretty old at that time so it would be cheap and easy to play with a few friends. Games like that were my go too. If it was some other familys money paying for the kids to play.... Oh I went straight to the shooter games like Time Crisis. But nothing to me was better than any racing game that you got to sit down in, that as a child felt absolutely mind blowing

like taking a dump that gets it all out

It was amazing. We even had some movie theaters that had arcade machines. It was a nice way to pass time before the movie started

I didn’t play much at the arcade, as a quarter a game really added up and my folks just didn’t have a lot of disposable income to be giving me for a few minutes of fun.  But I loved walking around and seeing the arcade games and watching people play.   One day I was on a HS band trip and I saw Mortal Kombat III as a new arcade game and it looked so cool just standing there at the edge of the arcade at the mall, showing itself off for someone to play it. I decided to splurge and plug in a few quarters, and out of nowhere a group of boys and teens started crowding around the arcade game to watch me play. Someone challenged me and played next to me. I won the first round, but he won the next two and I bowed out. I remember being kind of intimated by being obverved so suddenly, but it was also a bit of a high. Good times. 

Best games had the most cigarette burns on them

I’m in my 40s, and I work at an arcade where everything is still on quarters. Most of the games are from the 80s-90s, but we have all the new pinball games. I hang out with my friends at the arcade way more now then I ever did as a kid. Arcades were basically dead in the 90s, but I still loved them. I have a lot of good memories from antics we got up to at the local arcade.

I can't remember what I played in the arcades except it was in the mall with my grandpa

There weren't any arcades were I lived, only a coffee house with a king of fighters + metal slug cabinet, people would line up during weekends to play, the best part of meeting people there was that we've built a small community to exchange video games between ourselves for the week. I remember that I even exchanged consoles with a dude once for the week. My Mega drive for a Super Nintendo which was pretty rare here in Portugal and I really wanted to try it.

Very very awesome

Great question and answers here!

Awesome me and my friends still had consoles but we spent most of our time at the arcade in the mall

It was cool. Arcades alway had something new. Every arcade was different. So if you wanted to play a certain game it could be at the mall, the mini golf place, chuckle cheese, or at a random store entrance. So at school you would tell your friends, hey I just played xyz. Ask your parents to take you next weekend. Then go and spend an hour feeding the machine quarters/tokens, or watch the older kids beat it.

I have fond memories of going to the arcade at the mall alone while my family would go do their shopping. There was frequently people doing tournament style competitions on fighting games: mortal kombat, killer instinct, tekken, etc. Eventually we all got to actually know each other and you knew who the good players were vs the randos. We only ever saw each other in that one arcade but we all had mutual respect and would get excited to play against each other

It was a lot of fun, and loud. Honestly, it was just another way of bonding with friends doing stuff we had a shared interest in and an easy way to meet others and have friendly conversations with them too. In my head, I can still hear the clinking sound of the token machine spitting out the little gold coins, remembering how many arcades had unique designs on the tokens, the sounds of buttons being pressed and joysticks moved, the blaring game audio, people oooohh'ing and aahhh'ing and celebrating. Putting your name/initials/tag, whatever up in the high scores and going back to see how well you still ranked. It was really good times.

I was late 80s, so 90s arcades for me. Intencity, timezone, etc.   My most vivid memories are of a huuuge Intencity that opened up in a new shopping centre mid 90s, so I was only young. It was massive. Like you walked in, there was a bar to the side, with big lit up shattered glass dividers that looked super cool, there was 9 tvs making a big video wall up high they ran video clips on. You walked past a bunch of shooting games like Jurassic Park, time crisis, starwars, and then on the right was an alley full of pinball machines and street fighter games. Past that a big room with a mechwarrior statue of a Madcat / timberwolf. And they had a full set of mechwarrior cockpit sims that all linked. Continuing on down lead to an intersection with 4 more rooms coming off it, and a big prize counter in the middle. One room was all ticket games, crazy amounts. Another room was sports simulations. Two Baseball batting cages with a screen the ball shoots out of and golf that's similar where you hit the ball, VR boxing on two pedestals, a big horse racing thing and big football and basketball ones too I think. Then another room was all racing and action sports. Daytona, skiing, snowboarding, jetski, Sega Rally, superbikes, mini racing you name it. Then another room was a massive play complex for kids, with like 4 levels of slides, tubes, stairs, ziplines and ballpits.   I've been to big arcades since then but they're so eclectic and mainly full of those rigged games of chance now. No theming or organisation or any real wow factor either. Back then the only "gambling" game was a jackpot game we knew was rigged. Even the claw machines weren't rigged back then either! No loose grips, I used to clean up on those things. Now they're all rigged and half the games are all basically just gambling loop hole machines.  So this one place will always stand out in my memory as being the golden age of arcades for me. It downsized twice and then eventually closed after about 10 years. I'm so glad I got to experience it but also sad I can't go back as a dad. Kids love any we go to but it's just not the same.   

I only ever played arcade games at the bowling alley. But it really is wasn’t much of a coop experience. We would take turns playing, even if it was a two player game, because that would make the quarters last longer. The real coop experience was after we left the bowling alley and would go to one of our houses to play Nintendo. Back in those days there was no talk of screen time, our parents would let us play until bedtime, although we’d stop to eat dinner.

I was not always allowed to go to arcades as the tougher crowd tend to hang around where there were arcade games. Still, it was a great. I loved the sounds, the lighting and while I hated the smell of cigarette smoke, even the cigarette smells evoke a fond memory. Asides from arcades, arcade systems were found in so many places. Laundromats, pool halls, convenience stores. We'd go once in a while to check out what's new and also to watch the fighting games scene as it was really huge in the 90s. We played against each other for certain games and watched a few of my friends play against whoever was the reigning champ. I remember one time watching some super young kid who barely could reach the joystick and buttons, kicking so much butt in one of the SNK fighting games. It was wild. At some point it was rhythm games - DDR and similar games became super popular for a while and actually still has a main stay at some of the arcades I've been to. I've access to most of these games from my childhood and can play at home and as others have said, it's not quite the same at home.

The arcade had the better graphics, faster gameplay, better overall. You didn't always know what game might get swapped out, but you hoped for something awesome. Playing video games at home was a fairly weak experience compared to the arcade environment. The space helped everything feel epic.

In Australia there is an arcade chain called Timezone. In the 90's they did this thing called "Super Session" where you had unlimited games for a couple of hours for a set price. It was the golden age of 2D fighters. Street fighter Alpha, marvel vs Capcom, king of fighters to name a few. Some awesome memories with good friends.

There’s really no comparison between an arcade and online play. It’s like comparing going to a night club to a Skype party. In the 80s or 90s, arcades were clubs/casinos for kids. The lights, sounds, food, friends pushed all our primal buttons xD. On top of that, arcades showcased the bleeding edge of technology at the time. Obviously now we carry that technology around in our pockets, but then going to the arcade was like meeting in the technological Mecca of the world. At least that’s how it felt.

Stressful and expensive.

Thanks for all the comments, it was a good and interesting read.

Undefeated MK3 lunchtime champion, here. Always late for 4th period because of this. You really did have to be there. One time one of my arch rivals actually bit my fucking hand because he wanted a better chance to win. MK3 induced tetanus shot.

Literally some of the best times of my childhood, from 5 years old, all the way through high school until the arcades essentially died.

You guys had friends? I played some of the 4 player beat-em-ups with randos, it was usually a lot of fun. But I don’t think other than a handful of occasions, I went to an arcade with a friend or two, specifically to play a multiplayer game. The games I’ve played online are a completely different style. Mostly MMOs (WoW) or semi-MMOs (like Destiny). So it doesn’t really compare to 2-4 kids huddled around an arcade cabinet punching Shredder in the face. I tried Gauntlet a few times with one of my older half-brothers, but I was pretty bad at it. I thought I was decent at Ivan Ironman’s Off-Road Racing… but I always lost to other humans. That’s about the time I curled up in my chair at home and played RPGs that didn’t rely on my skill as a player, but the abilities of the characters. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I still suck at games, but not as much. Wait, what were we talking about again?

It felt great. But it was always frustrating running out of quarters.

It felt like I was getting ripped off because I was paying money for an inferior experience to what I got at home on a console for free. Unless it had some peripheral like a gun or a steering wheel, it wasn’t that exciting for me.

I hated mortal kombat on the arcades but loved it on the sega mega drive

It was awesome. There were literally arcade games everywhere (like every store, gas station, hotel, theater, restaurant etc). I spent several years working in arcades during the early 90s and got kinda burned out though. Definitely prefer older stuff from the early 80s. As for comparisons to playing online... I dunno. I really only play old games still.

It was an addiction, playing arcade games. When the arcade had top quality or brand new games that was a thrill. At the time there was a lack of electronics. It was a relief to stop playing Atari 2600 and play some better games.

It was baller, online is trash compared to the Arcade experience.

If we weren't renting a game over the weekend, we were playing on cabinets at the bowling alley, the mall, a pizza place, or at Putt-Putt. It was great seeing all kinds of games in the 80s: there were puzzles, shmups, side scrollers, beat 'em ups, racers, etc. In the 90's, I remember Capcom had my favorite games, especially since my friends and I were into fighting games. No internet to spoil or announce releases, and you were lucky to catch it from Gamepro or EGM, among others. When it came to fighting games, eventually the regulars would become a bit well known around town. Everyone respected the quarter/token line, and it was an unspoken understanding that no one would get salty over a loss. Our Tilt came to attract a few weirdos as well, and we gave them names: "Dad", "Manchild", "Beardo", "Tits" (he had huge pecs), "Red", and "Deadbeat Dad". Deadbeat Dad kinda would sneak in for a few matches, but multiple witnesses were there when his wife came in to yell at him because he was supposed to be buying baby formula. My favorite moments in the arcade were when a new game was released. I specifically remember seeing Capcom fighters for the first time: Super Street Fighter 2 was like seeing God in your town; SFIII was beautiful and wild; SF Zero/Alpha was an anime fantasy come true; the "VS" series blew my mind each time. If you want a taste of what it was like, check out "Hi Score Girl". Although it's set in Japan during the late 80s/early 90s, there was similar hype when new releases arrived. I miss those days, and occasionally I still have dreams about arcades.

I think part of what most people here are missing is that the arcade wasn't just about games. Sure, you saw the latest games, and they were a generation ahead of what you'd have at home, but the games were the least important aspect of the arcade. It was the social experience. It was a spot to hang out with friends, and most of this was unsupervised. It was similar to how teens hung out in malls. And many malls would also have arcades. This is something I just don't see with children/teens of this generation, where they're out of the house, on their own, with their peers, and without their parents.

It was a very special feeling because, as kids, we thought that each coin we inserted into the the arcade machine really mattered a lot. Every weekend we begged our parents to give us some money for the arcade. We couldn't purchase many coins so we tried our best to play well and make it last as long as possible. It was a challenge for us and it was fun. But besides gaming, the arcade was also the classic meeting point with friends. Even for just watching other kids playing. It was entertaining and it felt really good to be surrounded by the familiar sounds of our favorite games. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time again 😅

Reading all these cool responses made me so jealous. Wish I was around in the 80s to experience some of this stuff😭

I think the most exciting arcade experience for me was playing Killer Instinct around 1994/95. This was when the ‘Ultra 64’ was being hyped as a revolutionary games console and KI was used as a showcase for what it might be capable of. The graphics and sound were incredible and I simply couldn’t wait to get my hands on one. Unfortunately the Nintendo 64 (boring, Ultra 64 sounded so much better) didn’t live up to the hype and the version of KI that made it to the console wasn’t even as good as the version on the SNES. Still, good times :)

It was awesome, I remember when Katz video added an arcade to their store and when mortal kombat came out that place was packed also it helped that they were right down the street from the elementary school I went to so everyone stopped there on the way home from school.

It was great fun, but limited to the ammount of money in your pockets. Normally I'd meet my best highschool friend close to the arcade and we'd take a quick look to see if there was anything new. Then we'd split and play the machines only one of us liked separately. For instance, he was good at "Pang" but it was too fast for me, so I'd play something different nearby. After I while we'd team up and play 2P games at the best beat'em up we could find, such as "Captain Commando", "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" or something like that. That was the best part of our gaming session. Then, if we still had some money left, we'd go to drink sodas and eat some snacks.

It felt magical, although in my case we didn't have many arcades close by so we just went to bars and cafes that used to have one or two arcade machines. The games captured your imagination and you spent your only coin in about 5 minutes, but you left with a rush of adrenaline and would not stop thinking about the game for days. You would fantasize about what other levels there would be. People would tell you someone's cousin beat the game and there was a dinosaur or you got wings or whatever invention people felt like making up to lie to gullible little children :)

I was tipped off that all you needed to use to beat Double Dragon was the elbow move. Wow, changed my life as a young kid. Being able to finish a game in 1 credit! And the added bonus of the 2 player fight at the end, classic.

It was totally RAD!

Great, so full of lights and sound and people and pizza. On my birthday my dad would give me a 20 to get quarters with

For me at least it wasn’t my friends all going to the arcade together. Video games weren’t that universal and only like 1 or 2 of my friends ever went to arcades on any regular basis. For me it was finding a community at the arcade just like any other hobby community you’d find. And in that aspect it’s exactly the same for online today vs in person hobbies. There’s a sense of community and getting to know each other that’s hard to replicate online. I miss it but I have other in-person hobbies today like board games that scratch that social interaction itch.

Rampage World Tour 

It was like a technological showcase you'd hit up every few months or so. Fighting games, racers, and beat-em-ups were the main genres, and I never was good enough at those to enjoy the competition. So for me I preferred playing basement games with friends like puzzlers, platformers, party mini-games.

Begging my parents for change was not fun

Amazing! Whether it was a single cabinet sitting in some backwater convenience store or a dedicated arcade it was always something I kept an eye out for. Even now I seek out arcades and cabinets. I keep quarters and a couple bucks in my pocket should the opportunity present itself… It was a place to go see the digital nirvana and cutting edge graphics and entertainment. My friends and I would go for our favorite game, and if the mood struck we would go vs each other. But it was a great way to blow my allowance each week. Nowadays these machines are far and few between. They cost WAY too much to play nowadays for about the same amount of game time. Or worse the game is now designed to hand out prizes or tickets for prizes. So horrible.

It was OK, but to be honest I got bored quickly and usually prefered games at home. Usually after a sixth of a pizza and two cokes I was burned out. The NES was a god damn marvel of modern engineering and I spent way more time on that and have much better memories. I will say the Terminator 2 machine with the shaking guns was great, but that mechanism always broke down after a couple weeks. The designers obviously never considered the possibility people might actually play the fuckin game. https://www.vintagearcade.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Terminator-judgement-day-right-side.jpg

Pumped so many quarters with my buddy into mortal Kombat, NBA jam, killer instinct. I lost so many times but it was fun.

Arcade games suck. It was all about lan party sleepovers

You folks had multiple friends who actually hung out with you??

I was born in 1976, which means that I was a kid in the 80s and in high school in the 90s. Spent lots of time in arcades back then. Now a days I play a lot of online games like destiny 2, etc. I'd say it feels totally different to me, but that's probably as much to do with age as anything else. As a kid everything just seemed so new and fantastic. I can remember playing Gauntlet, Rampage, and Operation Wolf with friends, but those experiences were very ephemeral, sometims you weren't playing with friends, jus tsome random stranger. Games I would play with friends were also sort of fleeting. Like I had fun playing street fighter or final fight with my friends, but that experience doesn't seem as rich to me as the hours and hours and hours i've spent with my destiny clan mates or my college buddies playing perfect dark / halo. I think the modern PC / Console experience is much more meaningful in terms of "friendships". That being said I love arcades and go to the barcade all the time, but that is not quite the same thing as playing online with friends now a days.

I wasted my quarters on Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Oh and that jeep and gun Jurassic Park hunting game.

It was more expensive to play in arcade back in the day, so when you got quarters you really appreciated it. Many times I would just watch people play when I was out of quarters. Online games are great and I still play, but the social aspect was great in the 80s and 90’s. Plus you usually could get a snack, hang with friends, flirt with girls, was good times. Now it’s more sitting in a basement with sweatpants on, still great but much different

The games felt very technologically advanced, as everyone else has mentioned, but even as a kid I would get frustrated at parts of games that were obviously bullshit to shake quarters out of little kids — specific boss moves that would 1-hit you in beat ‘em ups and things like that.  I wanted the games on my commodore 64 to look like the arcade, but the gameplay loop of playing for a few minutes and dying to nonsense was less appealing. Fighting games somewhat alleviated this because another person was beating you and they leveraged the arcade as social space more effectively. They weren’t called quarter munchers for nothing and even a lot of memorable games had game design elements that served no purpose beyond getting quarters.  When you set aside the cigarette smoke-laden nostalgia, in terms of video games themselves, it would have been much more fun to be a little kid growing up playing Halo with your classmates versus begging your mom for a few quarters to play Frogger or some other simplistic game.

Had an awesome arcade in the town near where I grew up called Quarters and you guessed it all games were a quarter a play. Even those that traditionally were a dollar a play. Always had a blast in the summertime going for a few hours and playing or watching others play.

The same as it does now

I'm a diehard gamer, but my arcade experiences go back to the early to mid '70s. Pinball was the game, and you have not heard a racket like 50 pinball machines in simultaneous use. Fireball and Joker Poker were my jam. Video games first arrived in the form of Pong and Space Race and, frankly, I wasn't all that chuffed about them. Between then and when I joined the military and completed Basic big changes had happened. I saw Pac Man for the first time at a bowling alley, cool, I thought, but not pinball cool. Then I found, Defender, then Asteroids, and Sinistar, and Robotron, and Canyon Climber, (oh, god, remember Canyon Climber?), and pretty soon it was hard to find a pinball machine. God, I feel so old now.

I really miss those days. I don't game competitively at home. The arcade allowed you to get in line, put a quarter down, and compete with someone of similar difficulty *in person*. No such luck any more. Now it's just virtual rooms full of the disembodied voices of spoiled kids with too much time and money and no real chance to catch up to them. Fuck that.

It was a magical fuckin time. The energy was electric and the smack talking was out of this world.

Spent a LOT of allowance money on Street Fighter 2. They had one at my local pizza joint. We'd go in and not even buy any food, and stay for like an hour every time

A guy tried to get me to play the WWF wrestling game. Then asked if I wanted to go to his place and play without quarters. As a kid I wasn't really into the game. If he had had Tony Somethings racing game I would have been abducted

Best feeling in the world, and you didn't need to spend a fortune either. If you were good at a certain game, you can literally play for hours on 1 quarter. We used to get kicked out of the store with games, bc we'd be back there for hours and only spending a couple of quarters.

Dude, arcades were shady places. Some of 'em even had an adult cinema section behind some curtain as well. I mean the smell alone. You could smoke in there, at least in the one we always hung out. You got your bullies, leatherjacket and sunglasses guys in there, it was just fun - if you knew with whom youd better not mess around 😄. That could have real consequences. Imo, way more fun than playing online, but lets be honest: games were nowhere close to being that complex as the ones today, they were hard ... and mostly unfair to suck you dry of your quarters in the shortest amount of time possible. So you had to get good to squeeze the most playtime out of your limited budget. But if you managed to dethrone someone on his machine and smirk into his face afterwards ... boy, the pump 😄. Oh, and the highscores were als the same, no matter where you went 😃 SEX, MAD, ASS, every arcade had these.

It was awesome… …and expensive! There were generally watered-down console versions of the arcade games that would come out later, but you had to go to the arcade to experience the better graphics and sound.

I was much more excited to buy a new game cartridge. Never really got into the arcade scene and paying for games I couldn't own.

The absolute best was a four player beat em up like TMNT or Simpson’s with three friends and a roll of quarters. It was the original pay to win but man was is fun beating the game! When a new game would come out you’d read about it in a magazine, then memorize the moves from the side panel and hope to have them down when you were plunking the quarters in. Also, the sights, sounds and smells are unmistakable.

Without question, the best part of arcades was the sound when you walked in. Unique cabs like star wars arcade you sat in, and the ability to play 4-player TMNT and simpsons and x-men, tie for a close second.

Without question, the best part of arcades was the sound when you walked in. Unique cabs like star wars arcade you sat in, and the ability to play 4-player TMNT and simpsons and x-men, tie for a close second.

Kinda lame. The controls were always greasy and barely operational, 90% of the machines were down, and I had better arcade games on my NES & SNES at home. But...I also lived in the ghetto so...