Arcade Era, what type of arcade did you hang out at the most?

[Milennia]

So this is weird but my basement.
My dad collected cabinets and pinball machines. We had maybe 20 machines in our basement.
Combine with my n64 down there I literally never left.
My favorite was T2 for sure.

We also had a pet iguana... my childhood was strange.

 

[Geist 6one7]

I put my quarters up on the machine to claim the next game (I miss that!)

Click to shrink...

I remember this was such a thing that operators started putting these in:

Mostly to try and stop "that's my quarter" arguments.

 

[GearDraxon]

Like Jeff Gerstmann says: "It was decorated... with drug dealers."

 

[Deleted member 34949]

For myself it started off in Laundromats. For the Hour and a half it took my mom to wash and dry all our clothes, I had to make 4 quarters last as much as possible. Good times, met a lot of people that way, usually older kids. Then it went to arcades when I could travel on the subway myself around NYC, mainly Chinatown as all the others ones kept closing one after another.

Click to shrink...

This exactly, right down to graduating from laundromats/pizza shops to spots like Chinatown Fair.

 

[Belthazar90]

I mostly played Metal Slug on arcades and the amount of money I lost in those machines...

 

[ThatCrazyGuy]

In the 90s,

arcade inside a bar/pool hall (2 of them)
Arcade beside the food court in the mall.
Arcade inside a mini golf place (lots of them)
I used to go to Golfland a lot in SoCal. That was a mini golf place too.
I went to dedicated spots, like Pac-Man , arcade infinity, super arcade, family fun and James games in SoCal.

I was lucky being in SoCal for the fighting game scene from mid 90s to 2010s. Moved away 5 years ago, but things had hella changed by then.

 

[squall23]

From late 00s to early 2010s, there was an arcade at my university. Not some rundown place but a place with a consistent upgrades from new cabinets to game updates.

Whenever I go back to Hong Kong, I have access to 4 arcades within walking distance from where I live.

 

[Shawn The Wonder]

Aladdin's Castle
Southern Hills Mall; Sioux City, IA
ca. 1988

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I didn't know Aladdin's Castle was a chain. They had one where I lived too.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Aladdin's Castle (Barton Creek Mall) or Tilt (Westgate Mall) in Austin
Tilt in Hampton (Coliseum Mall) or Aladdin's Castle in Newport News (Patrick Henry Mall) when we were stationed at Langley AFB
I cannot remember the two I frequented north of Chicago, but one used to get a ton of new stuff all the time. They were the only time I ever saw and played on the Super Street Fighter II 4-cabinet Tournament setup. They also tested a lot of Midway games there and I distinctly remember testing MKII and Boon was there and gave the operator shit for charging 75c per play for a test version (nothing cost 75c per game at the time, not even huge cabinets for sit-down racers).

Once we came to San Antonio, t was all Cyber Zone and Diversions.

 

[Kawngi]

I used to love going to Funspot in NH when I was a kid and my family traveled up there. I've probably spent the most time in either a local arcade in the city at birthday parties as a kid, or at Dave and Buster's as an adult.

 

[Crashman]

Bowling alley arcades. Had a real good one that closed down sometime I was in high school. (The whole bowling alley, not just the arcade). Had Attack from Mars pinball, Marvel vs. SF, House of the dead, a NeoGeo machine with Puzzle Bobble and Metal Slug, Tekken Tag Tournament. I didn't know how good I had it.

 

[Fall Damage]

I wasn't picky. I went to any arcade I could. Pizza parlors with the family, mall with friends, local pool hall which was walking distance from home, batting cages, and eventually when I could drive the local nickel arcade which had a decent mix of new and old games. I think my fondest memories were of the mall since my rich friend's mom would drop us off and give us each a $20, it was better than Christmas.

 

[newmoneytrash]

i'm from a very small town and we had a stand-alone arcade for only a few years that i spent a lot of time at. other than that it was a room at the video store or just like random cabinets that would be in bars and stuff my parents would go to

the bowling alley had an arcade room but they were really against kids just coming in and using it. like it was only there for families who were already bowling. the also had an L shaped pool table which was weird

 

[Mark It Zero!]

My dad used to take me to a couple arcades here in my city in the late '90s, almost every day in the afternoon.
The one that we went to the most wasn't a dark den, it was a huge, open building with very good lighting, a couple pool tables in the entrance and a bowling alley above it. The arcades with the BIG CRTs always had Mortal Kombat 4, Street Fighter 2 and Metal Slug 2/3. For around 2 years i'd go there to watch people play Metal Slug, I knew them like the back of my hand but never played myself. Until one day i decided to play, and got pretty far into the first game; a few weeks later I beat it without losing a life.
I kept going during highschool with my friends on weekends to play, but Metal Slug was always my favorite arcade game by far.

So this is weird but my basement.
My dad collected cabinets and pinball machines. We had maybe 20 machines in our basement.
We also had a pet iguana... my childhood was strange.

Click to shrink...

It sounds pretty awesome tbh.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

For those who were arcade goers, and hung out with friends at arcades, what was your arcade setting of choice?

Was it just a standalone arcade of its own? Or was it a part of something else.

For me during my younger years, the prime arcade spot for me was probably with mini golf. They typically had the biggest arcades around, and would occasionally play mini golf, but only when we wanted to do something different.

Other types may include ones that were located in movie theaters, arcades located in pizza places, arcades at laser tag, bowling alleys, etc.

So Arcade Era, what kind of arcades did you hang out at the most?

Click to shrink...

Why all the past tense?

For me it's stand-alone arcades, both now and in the past.

 

[thebeeks]

Late 90s - early 00s: This is going to sound crazy, but my orthodontist had an arcade in his waiting room. As various local arcades started closing he bought cabinets for a song and put them in a sectioned-off area called the Brush Zone. There were about 10 cabinets in there... Gyruss, a Playchoice 10, Double Dribble, Fatal Fury 2, TMNT, Super Off Road, etc. All the machines were set to free play, but to enter you had to go to the back area and spend 2 minutes brushing your teeth. I used to ask if we could go to the orthodontist a little early so I could get extra arcade time in. Having braces sucked (and I had them for years), but I got real good a Gyruss, so there's that.

Early to mid 00s: A big mall sprung up in the next town over and they had a Gameworks. They would have these summer specials were you paid a certain amount ($15 or so) and you'd get to play for hours. So my high school summers were spent in the Gameworks playing DDR (Every few years they'd upgrade from 3rd Mix, to MAX, to MAX 2, and finally Extreme).

Nowadays: Well, before COVID, that same mall with the Gameworks eventually got a Round 1 (the Gameworks eventually became this miniature aquarium thing). My husband and I would go and mostly hang around in the music game corner (we met playing DDR in the mid 00s, actually). I don't play DDR much anymore but I really enjoy Groove Coaster. But since the pandemic we haven't gone anywhere near that place. Everybody touching the same buttons and such, the out of breath DDR and PIU folks huffing and puffing everywhere... no thanks. I miss it though.

 

[GamerJM]

Nickle City, a standalone west coast arcade. Apparently like, THE Street Fighter/FGC scene was at a Golfland not too far from me that I had gone to but like, only to play minigolf. Had no idea there was a burgeoning fighting game community in my backyard.

 

[EggmaniMN]

I played DDR and met most of my current friends at various Namco arcades in the area. Aladdin's Castle in Rosedale MN and Maplewood MN, Time Out in Burnsville. Spent every weekend there in high school, worked at an Aladdin's Castle after high school. I became assistant manager after one month, found out the manager was a pedophile, quit, reported him and I don't know what happened to him after that but he didn't work there anymore. The pay was minimum wage for assistant manager. Woof.

Still, I really miss arcades. There just isn't anything around here other than Dave & Busters, which is okay but generally overpriced. The days of playing DDR doubles with the machine set to joint premium are long long gone, standing around the machine talking about what songs you were trying to pass, making friends, running tournaments, taking a break on the Arctic Thunder machine because it had AC in the seat. Learning a duo freestyle with my girlfriend. Lotta cherished memories in there.

 

[Busaiku]

Bodegas and laundromats.

 

[cheetadaze2000]

I would take any arcade experience I could get as a kid in the 80's and 90's, from a 7-11 down the street with a Street Fighter 2 machine and a (hopefully working) pinball machine, to mall arcades, to bowling alleys, etc.

I'd say my favorite arcade was Camelot Golfland in Anaheim, CA. It had minigolf and waterslides (and later lazertag), but I was mainly there for the arcade, which was very large, had a good selection of new and old games, didn't smell too bad, and was maintained well enough. This was located next door to a Family Fun Center that had a smaller arcade that we could walk over to as well (also multiple varieties of go-karts [I liked the drifting/skid variety], bumper boats, battle boats [had tennis ball shooting cannons], an outdoor maze, another water slide, roller rink, etc.). Camelot is still operating but when I've been there recently the arcade portion is just depressing, mostly ticket redemption games and shooter, racing, and novelty games (I know this is most arcades in general nowadays).

What really sealed the deal for me and Camelot, as an unscrupulous youth, was for a span of probably 5 years my aunt managed a local movie theater that had arcade tokens that matched Camelot's tokens, so about once every 3 months I would end up with a free bag of those theater tokens and my friends and I would spend a day using them at Camelot. Not something I'd do today, but I feel like I more than paid Camelot back in my later teens when I fell hard for Dance Dance Revolution and was probably spending a $100+ per week playing it over the summer, plus whatever I was spending on bad pizza and soda (pretty much all of my part-time job salary).

My girlfriend (now wife) and I easily spent enough to straight up buy a DDR machine, it's nuts looking back on it. For a brief time around the late 90's/early 2000's Camelot had a pretty hot local scene for fighting games and DDR, so I'm glad I got to experience it.

One more edit: When I was in college I had a brief love affair with Arcade Infinity (AI) in an asian-centric strip-mall called Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights. It was the place to go for imported Japanese arcade games, seemed to have the latest and greatest DDR and other Bemani games, and would stay open very late. I spent many late weekend nights getting bubble tea in the plaza and trying to beat new DDR songs without being able to actually hear them because the arcade was too freaking loud. They also had an arcade version of Typing of the Dead which was quite the novelty.

 

[EdgeXL]

For those who were arcade goers, and hung out with friends at arcades, what was your arcade setting of choice?

Was it just a standalone arcade of its own? Or was it a part of something else.

For me during my younger years, the prime arcade spot for me was probably with mini golf. They typically had the biggest arcades around, and would occasionally play mini golf, but only when we wanted to do something different.

Other types may include ones that were located in movie theaters, arcades located in pizza places, arcades at laser tag, bowling alleys, etc.

So Arcade Era, what kind of arcades did you hang out at the most?

Click to shrink...

I generally favored independent arcades that just had video games and none of the skeeters ball or mini basketball crap. When I was about 8 my mom would drop me off at a local arcade with some money on Saturday afternoons and come back later to pick me up. Looking back with an adult eye I realize she did it to get me out of her hair for a while but all I cared about was I got to play video games by myself. Kind of a miracle I was not abducted.

When I was older I liked Land of Oz which was a local arcade in a strip mall. Good selection. I went to Tilt but did not like them as much as my location was smaller and in a mall. Too far from my house.

I avoided Chuck E Cheese once I turned 10 or so. Too many ticket games and too many little kids.

 

[TheeFanatic]

I was/still an arcade goer. Just like to play the nostalgia games whenever i get a chance
Minature Golf Courses- Boomers, Golfland, Malibu Grand Prix. they always kept up with the newest games and was always packed. The golfland in NorCal had great fighting scene action.
Malls had their arcades like Time-Out. Decent for SF 2 and pinball.
Bowling Centers- different variety of games
Colleges- the rec room especially UCLA had tons and tons of SF's all over. Lots of competition.
Then the private own arcades like Super Arcade, Electric Planet,etc.- nostalgia right there.
Even Vegas back the 90's had arcades in their hotel to keep the children busy while the adults gamble.

Like everyone has been saying in this thread 80's-mid 2000's arcades were the spot to hang out.
RoundOne, Main Event and Dave and Busters still try to keep the arcade scene going which is pretty cool but at a more expensive price.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

Springhill Mall
West Dundee, Illinois

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

The local bowling alley was the closest thing you could call an arcade.
That said, the craziest games would turn up there now and again. There was a two player Virtual On cabinet one time that disappeared just as quickly.

 

[Aurica]

Kawasaki Warehouse in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. It's closed now, and I'm very sad I can never return. Great atmosphere, great prices, and a great selection of 50 yen retro games.

Also, Hey in Akihabara, Tokyo. Tons of shmups and beat em ups, Virtual-On, and a great selection of modern rhythm games.

My local place in Shimokitazawa was interesting. Half manga cafe and half arcade. Mostly people playing guilty gear and gundam extreme vs. with nothing much outside of fighting games.

 

[inner-G]

Our mall had an Aladdins Castle



In high school my friend worked in a bowling alley, and I hung out there and played a ton of Bust-A-Move on their Neo Geo cab too

 

[djplaeskool]

90s: Mall Arcades
Primarily for: shmups, racing games, light gun games, and fighting games

00s: Dave and Busters
Primarily for: Derby Owners Club and DDR/Pump It Up

Now: Round1
Primarily for: Beatmania IIDX

 

[VariantX]

Never really had that experience growing up. By the time I was old enough to be allowed to go out on the town alone, all the businesses that had cabs and arcades either removed the cabinets or the arcades themselves shut down.

 

[TheeFanatic]

90s: Mall Arcades
Primarily for: shmups, racing games, light gun games, and fighting games

00s: Dave and Busters
Primarily for: Derby Owners Club and DDR/Pump It Up

Now: Round1
Primarily for: Beatmania IIDX

Click to shrink...

I still have my DOC cards. But never tried the local tourneys. Wish there was still one around.

 

[eyeball_kid]

In the '80s it was an Aladdin's Castle at a mall in Houston.
In the '90s it was a small arcade in west LA that was close to work. Pretty sketchy. Definitely some gang dudes hanging out there so there was always security at the door. But they got most of the latest cabinets. I played Tekken 2 there with Todd Bridges (Willis from Different Strokes) a couple times.

There was a different vibe in arcades of the 80s vs. the 90s in my experience. In the '90s it became a little bit more where you had to watch your back and watch what you said to someone. In the earlier days of arcades it was mostly a friendly environment. I mean I was also a little kid then, but I never saw any fights break out. Of course back then it was mostly single-player games, and people would huddle around the one dude that could get far in Donkey Kong or Tron. In the 1990s it was all about competitive games like Street Fighter 2 so there was a lot of tension and shit-talking all the time.

 

[ThreePi]

My dad was an avid bowler and bowled in tournaments most weekends so I spent a lot of time in bowling alley arcades throughout the north Chicago suburbs. Far and away the best was at the bowling alley at Great Lakes Naval Base. However, post-9/11 they restricted access and stopped holding tournaments there.

 

[Hayama Akito]

Before Street Fighter II I didn't mind, from malls to small places, I just wanted to play anything. When Street Fighter II came out my main choice was very small, niche-type arcade places because the competitive scene was always much more serious and high level than malls or bars or whatever, also I fucking loved so much to find very obscure games in those places, in the middle of the nineties a local arcade had Power Instinct 2 and we played it so much with my friends, and I know that game is pretty obscure outside Japan.

I still go to arcades though... well, until coronavirus was a thing of course, but when this shit is finished I will go again. Arcades are my favorite videogame experience, forever. There's nothing compared to be with your friends on a real place and play some shitty and obscure fighting game and had some good laughs in the process, nothing. Support your local arcade.

Kawasaki Warehouse in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. It's closed now, and I'm very sad I can never return. Great atmosphere, great prices, and a great selection of 50 yen retro games.

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It was also the only place I remember you could play a lot of godlike Cave shmups at 50 yen. Playing Mushihime-sama Futari on 50 yen was awesome. Such a shame that place doesn't exist anymore, yet I heard they moved all their games elsewhere (I don't know where though).

 

[8bit]

A dedicated arcade that was half Bingo and sandwiched between a softporn cinema & one of the greatest nightclubs in the world.

 

[Deleted member 45765]

Cyberstation #5745 in Taunton, MA. There was also another Aladdin's Castle in Natick, MA, both mall arcades.

There was one special arcade in Downtown Crossing in Boston, called simple "The Arcade", and they had all sorts of new Japanese fighting games on projection TVs. You'd see kids in there battling dudes in ties on their lunch breaks. Incredible place even though it was pretty much a shithole.

 

[Aurica]

It was also the only place I remember you could play a lot of godlike Cave shmups at 50 yen. Playing Mushihime-sama Futari on 50 yen was awesome. Such a shame that place doesn't exist anymore, yet I heard they moved all their games elsewhere (I don't know where though).

Click to shrink...

There are a few more "Anata no Warehouse," so I wouldn't be surprised if the games got split between them or something.

 

[Goddo Hando]

comic book shop around the corner from my house had like 6 capcom fighters going at once, and i'd practically live there daily after school (RIP my grades)

 

[Deleted member 17210]

The most in total would be mall arcades. Stand alone arcades were also frequented. I have fond memories of around 20 different arcades in my city from over the years.

Even though I didn't go there as much as some of the others, my favourite was probably the one inside a Chuck E. Cheese's (that location was owned by Nintendo and mentioned in the book Game Over, so that was cool) in the mid '80s. It helped that kids would often accidentally drop and leave tokens everywhere.

 

[chairhome]

I remember this was such a thing that operators started putting these in:

Mostly to try and stop "that's my quarter" arguments.

Click to shrink...

I missed those so I made one to 3d print for my MAME/Arcade 1up https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3930381

I mostly did mall arcades when my parents would go. Gold Mine arcade in Sun Valley Mall (I think?) and Aladdin's Castle when I moved to FL. When I got a little older we found a pretty nice arcade 30 min away from where we lived in Orlando called Rocky's Replay. An "upscale" arcade that served food and drinks. The MK4 tour stopped there.

 

[SpotAnime]

Springhill Mall
West Dundee, Illinois

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Southlake Mall
Merrillville, IN

also the local Stardust Bowl bowling alley.

 

[Gaia Lanzer]

In the 80s, mainly:
- Many 7-Elevens (remember the arcade cabinets being right when you walked in and being bombarded by all those lovely video game sound effects and tunes as the combined smells of jerky, coffee and Slurpee went up my nose)

- Local laundromat (had Centipede and a two-in-one of Galaga/Ms. Pac)

- A trailer filled with arcade cabinets in our local swap meet (remember fondly it had Tempest, Ladybug, Kangaroo, and Phoenix, among others)

- The snack bar at the local drive-in theater. These always had an assortment of arcade games.

- Childhood pizza joints. The ones I can list off the top of my head were Chuck E. Cheese's, Showbiz Pizza and the ever-mysterious Capt'n Andy's Rivertowne (was in Whittier, near my grandparents' house; can only find scarce info on it and still have an old, faded sticker of the namesake in a folder somewhere). From my recollection, I think Showbiz Pizza had a good collection of arcade games back then (maybe better than the Chuck E. Cheese I'd visit).

- Having lived in Bakersfield at the time, the Valley Plaza Mall had a small arcade (might've been called "Tilt"). And when I say "small", it was like a hole in the wall.


In the 90s, mainly:
- An arcade near our local movie theater. It was here I first saw, at awe, Mortal Kombat II (there was a crowd that day and all us arcade goers, young to old, were gazing like zombies at the screen as people were playing it), as well as the first time I saw and played NBA Jam, Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons BEU, X-Men:COTA and Namco's Soul Edge.

- The rec center at our local park, which had some arcade games kids used to play, myself included. I remember it was my first time playing a NeoGeo cabinet.

- The arcade at the Montebello Town Center (now called the Shops at Montebello, but back in the day we just called it the "Montebello Mall", back in the day when it still had a Kaybee Toy Store, the Sanrio shop was called "Pinocchio" and when it had an Electronics Boutique), which was where I first saw Mortal Kombat 4 (and remembered how off-put I was at its direction), as well as the first time I saw and played Virtua Fighter out in the wild.

- The Sante Fe Springs Swapmeet, which was on an old drive-in lot that had a snack bar with some cool games my little sibs and I would hang at when we got to the center of the swapmeet and our parents were resting, listening to whatever swapmeet band was playing "Oye Como Va" and "Long Train Running", which despite different bands, seemed to be the setlist EVERY WEEKEND! Played a LOT of TMNT: The Arcade and Golden Axe here.

- The Redondo Beach Fun Factory. Anybody of the SoCali area remembers that place? Why my parents were busy with Wedges/Ledges, I was hooked on the Konami X-Men arcade game or playing Ghosts N' Goblins. Was also the locations of my first encounter with the Killer Instinct arcade cabinet and that one Sega hologram game.

 

[Stall_19]

There was an Arcade by my local shopping center mid to late 90s. Had Pinball machines, Tekken 1-3, Mortal Kombat1-3, Killer Instinct, NFL Blitz, Marvel Super Heroes, The Xmen arcade game, Ms Pacman, Smash TV to name a few, soo much good stuff. I miss that time.

 

[chairhome]

I had a few. We had a 6 machine laundry mat growning up. Then there was a 10 machine comic shop. Then the tilt in the mall. Then when I moved to Orlando there was a place called Rocky Replay (RIP 🐐)

Click to shrink...

Hell yeah, Rocky's!

 

[TheeFanatic]

In the 80s, mainly:
- Many 7-Elevens (remember the arcade cabinets being right when you walked in and being bombarded by all those lovely video game sound effects and tunes as the combined smells of jerky, coffee and Slurpee went up my nose)

- Local laundromat (had Centipede and a two-in-one of Galaga/Ms. Pac)

- A trailer filled with arcade cabinets in our local swap meet (remember fondly it had Tempest, Ladybug, Kangaroo, and Phoenix, among others)

- The snack bar at the local drive-in theater. These always had an assortment of arcade games.

- Childhood pizza joints. The ones I can list off the top of my head were Chuck E. Cheese's, Showbiz Pizza and the ever-mysterious Capt'n Andy's Rivertowne (was in Whittier, near my grandparents' house; can only find scarce info on it and still have an old, faded sticker of the namesake in a folder somewhere). From my recollection, I think Showbiz Pizza had a good collection of arcade games back then (maybe better than the Chuck E. Cheese I'd visit).

- Having lived in Bakersfield at the time, the Valley Plaza Mall had a small arcade (might've been called "Tilt"). And when I say "small", it was like a hole in the wall.


In the 90s, mainly:
- An arcade near our local movie theater. It was here I first saw, at awe, Mortal Kombat II (there was a crowd that day and all us arcade goers, young to old, were gazing like zombies at the screen as people were playing it), as well as the first time I saw and played NBA Jam, Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons BEU, X-Men:COTA and Namco's Soul Edge.

- The rec center at our local park, which had some arcade games kids used to play, myself included. I remember it was my first time playing a NeoGeo cabinet.

- The arcade at the Montebello Town Center (now called the Shops at Montebello, but back in the day we just called it the "Montebello Mall", back in the day when it still had a Kaybee Toy Store, the Sanrio shop was called "Pinocchio" and when it had an Electronics Boutique), which was where I first saw Mortal Kombat 4 (and remembered how off-put I was at its direction), as well as the first time I saw and played Virtua Fighter out in the wild.

- The Sante Fe Springs Swapmeet, which was on an old drive-in lot that had a snack bar with some cool games my little sibs and I would hang at when we got to the center of the swapmeet and our parents were resting, listening to whatever swapmeet band was playing "Oye Como Va" and "Long Train Running", which despite different bands, seemed to be the setlist EVERY WEEKEND! Played a LOT of TMNT: The Arcade and Golden Axe here.

- The Redondo Beach Fun Factory. Anybody of the SoCali area remembers that place? Why my parents were busy with Wedges/Ledges, I was hooked on the Konami X-Men arcade game or playing Ghosts N' Goblins. Was also the locations of my first encounter with the Killer Instinct arcade cabinet and that one Sega hologram game.

Click to shrink...

Yeah the arcade inside the Montebello mall had some good marvel vs capcom 2 players. I usually went for San Francisco Rush 2049.

Redondo Beach had a great arcade. So many great games. Did you ever go to the arcade in Commerce by the Pacific Theaters? Also Downtown LA. on Broadway and 7th had a great arcade too. Plenty of Virtual Soccer players

 

[Billy Awesomo]

Grandslam USA in Jersey, when I was visiting my cousin in Boston we use to go to Aladdin's palace. On the way to Boston in those days a lot of rest stops had actual arcades. Rutgers Cook campus had a really nice one way back in the day as I recall as well. There were a few other places, Hotels had arcades back in those days in their game room. Chuckie Cheeses had actual arcades machines people wanted to play that weren't just carnival games. University Pinball in Philly, although even up until the early 2000s there were a few arcades in Philly use to play at one across from Game Champ that's now a Payless shoes. Oh use to love the giant arcade in Atlantic city's board walk that pier mall. Also played in various Arcades in Taiwan as a kid when I would go visit the grandparents. Loved playing in arcades in Akihabara as well (Still do whenever I visit Japan). Up until the pandemic I enjoyed going to the Barcade every now and then here in NYC.