Are old arcade games destined for museums?

[Dos_Box]

I took my lad out to the Arcade Club in Bury yesterday, and it was very busy (as it always is on the weekend), but one thing shocked me, it was that out of the four floors, the top one, which contains the bulk of the 80's arcade cabs, was pretty much deserted.

The others however, were very busy, with more modern machines such as the Dance Dance series, Guitar Hero and every one with a gun prop were not lacking in players.
It got me wondering if kids now have no interest in their dads\grandads generation of games, and what will happen to them.
At least I didn't have to queue to play on anything!

 

     

 

 

 

[Davit2005]

There is one in Barnsley too which I took friends 9yo to in December last year, both of us loved it and spent about 2 hours there, it was busy but we managed to play the games we wanted to play including old 80's/90's games 🙂

 

https://www.retrodome.co.uk/

 

It would be a shame to see them unused.

Edited April 28, 2025 by Davit2005

[Dos_Box]

With a little bit of thought, perhaps the younger generation view that what a game is has changed.
By this I mean that it should be high definition or genuinely cartoon like. Still I got to play Battlezone and (my favorite) the sit-in Star Wars cab all I wanted.
And why can I play vertical scrolling shmups, yet horizontal ones have me struggling!

[Davit2005]

I remember my friend playing this one in the 80's 🙂

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/227380/Dragons_Lair/

[Dos_Box]

They had Dragons Lair II at the Arcade Club (didn't play it).
I recall when the first one came out and we all thought that was the future!

 

[Jaan]

The oldies (as in the people of our vintage) tend to go to the later opening times of the adult only admittance. But yes....as we die off, the younger generation wont be interested in this type of stuff....... i'm from the Sega Master System and Mega Drive Generation.... i have no interest in Atari console as it was a little before my time....... same thing i guess......

 

Also i'm sure you've seen the cabs i've built before:

 

 

 

 

[flyinghaggis]

2 hours ago, Dos_Box said:

 Still I got to play Battlezone and (my favorite) the sit-in Star Wars cab all I wanted.
 

 

If I was there those would be the cabinets I'd be making beeline for! 😎

 

If used to go to the Replay Play Expo events every year (primarily for the arcade cabinets) but they've stopped running so many of them unfortunately. I think the only one left is the Blackpool event which is a bit of a trek for me travelwise  It's a shame because they had some amazing stuff there like the full size ride-on Sega space harrier / Afterburner cabinets.

 

https://www.replayevents.com/upcoming-shows

 

I'd initally thought that perhaps they'd stopped running them because the cabinets were becoming too valuable to allow the public to game on. Or perhaps that they were becoming difficult to maintain and source spare parts for due to the fact they're nearly 50 years old. However, it's more likely just that only folk who remember them from back in the 1980s would have any interest in playing them today and they're a bit too niche!  

 

 

Edited April 28, 2025 by flyinghaggis

[Dos_Box]

7 minutes ago, flyinghaggis said:

 

If I was there those would be the cabinets I'd be making beeline for! 😎

 

If used to go to the Replay Play Expo events every year (primarily for the arcade cabinets) but they've stopped running so many of them unfortunately. I think the only one left is the Blackpool event which is a bit of a trek for me travelwise

 

https://www.replayevents.com/upcoming-shows

 

I'd initally thought that perhaps they'd stopped running them because the cabinets were becoming too valuable to allow the public to game on. Or perhaps that they were becoming difficult to maintain and source spare parts for due to the fact they're nearly 50 years old. However, it's more likely just that only folk who remember them from back in the 1980s would have any interest in playing them today and they're a bit too niche!  

 

 

I still go to the Blackpool one (it's just down the road really), but the one thing I've noticed about it over the years, is that the type of home computers from the 80's you can play on have begun to get younger and younger. Gone are the many ZX81's, Spectrums, C64 etc, and there are many more Amigas's etc. I guess a lot of these machines have either become too valuable, or just break too easily now.

[3s-gtech]

I don't tend to go for the earlier stuff. SFII is about the earliest I enjoy - I just find a lot of the 80s stuff a bit dull now. I played them plenty then, and I'm not very nostalgic.

 

Virtua Racing, Sega Rally, Daytona USA - the big early 90s stuff is still pretty appealling. Doesn't have to be in a huge cabinet either! Spent many hours playing stand up Virtua Racing.

[Koldov]

1 hour ago, Dos_Box said:

With a little bit of thought, perhaps the younger generation view that what a game is has changed.
By this I mean that it should be high definition or genuinely cartoon like. Still I got to play Battlezone and (my favorite) the sit-in Star Wars cab all I wanted.
And why can I play vertical scrolling shmups, yet horizontal ones have me struggling!

 

Yeah I definitely think the younger generation have a higher expectation of both the gameplay and the graphics, they've never really known anything else... but it's not just that, they've been spoilt by games consoles and PC games that are visually stunning and pretty immersive, plus played in the comfort of your own home... I mean really, what kid these days would want to spend their money firing blocky pixels at wave after wave of other blocky pixels....

 

 

Source/Credit: https://wiki.godvillegame.com/Space_Invader

 

Back in our day though the 8-bit graphics weren't the main point of the game anyway (and we had nothing else to compare it to), we also had to go to an arcade as most of us didn't have anything at home. We had a modern (if not futuristic) electronic game to play like we were some sort of alien killer super hero (beats staying at home playing board games with the family). However, I'm surprised even the modern games were busy, I would have thought arcades in general were a dying breed, but I suppose if they don't have a modern PC or console at home or actually want to get out of the house and meet friends irl as part of 'going into town' or maybe a 'whilst on holiday' thing, there's a place for them...

 

I was a fan of horizontal 'shoot-em-up' games like Defender (very difficult side scrolling arcade game) and had R-Type on the C-64 and what I guess were some of the original 'hand-held' or 'table-top' games like 'Astro Wars' (like Space Invaders) or 'Scramble' (like Defender) made by Grandstand.

 

https://youtu.be/pwoGW_o2ZiU?t=302

 

https://youtu.be/XpMGE3wI2sg?t=312

 

Although nostalgic, they are painful to watch now... and to think I spent (wasted?) hours and hours and hours of my youth playing these...

 

I remember when I was quite young I went on holiday with my cousins in Clacton or somewhere, as my Aunt and Uncle had a caravan there. I was given £20 for the weekend (that was a lot for a kid in 1980)... I went to the arcade on my first day and spent it all in a couple of hours! 🤣

[AlistairB1983]

Personally? I think they'll go a similar way to 'classic' cars and vinyl - something enjoyed by collectors and/or those who 'lived through it' the first time round, but for the majority of others not something that compares well against the modern equivalents. 

 

For me, I've little/no interest in revisiting the vast majority of games I played as a youngster - baring one, maybe two possible exceptions. Not when I have the alternatives of BG3 (if I have the time) or various mobile games (if I don't).

[Dos_Box]

11 minutes ago, Koldov said:

 

Yeah I definitely think the younger generation have a higher expectation of both the gameplay and the graphics, they've never really known anything else... but it's not just that, they've been spoilt by games consoles and PC games that are visually stunning and pretty immersive, plus played in the comfort of your own home... I mean really, what kid these days would want to spend their money firing blocky pixels at wave after wave of other blocky pixels....

 

 

Source/Credit: https://wiki.godvillegame.com/Space_Invader

 

Back in our day though the 8-bit graphics weren't the main point of the game anyway (and we had nothing else to compare it to), we also had to go to an arcade as most of us didn't have anything at home. We had a modern (if not futuristic) electronic game to play like we were some sort of alien killer super hero (beats staying at home playing board games with the family). However, I'm surprised even the modern games were busy, I would have thought arcades in general were a dying breed, but I suppose if they don't have a modern PC or console at home or actually want to get out of the house and meet friends irl as part of 'going into town' or maybe a 'whilst on holiday' thing, there's a place for them...

 

I was a fan of horizontal 'shoot-em-up' games like Defender (very difficult side scrolling arcade game) and had R-Type on the C-64 and what I guess were some of the original 'hand-held' or 'table-top' games like 'Astro Wars' (like Space Invaders) or 'Scramble' (like Defender) made by Grandstand.

 

https://youtu.be/pwoGW_o2ZiU?t=302

 

https://youtu.be/XpMGE3wI2sg?t=312

 

Although nostalgic, they are painful to watch now... and to think I spent (wasted?) hours and hours and hours of my youth playing these...

 

I remember when I was quite young I went on holiday with my cousins in Clacton or somewhere, as my Aunt and Uncle had a caravan there. I was given £20 for the weekend (that was a lot for a kid in 1980)... I went to the arcade on my first day and spent it all in a couple of hours! 🤣

I had Astro Wars! They go for a decent amount these days. if you can find a working one that is.

[Koldov]

When I moved house recently I found my old PS1 in the attic and thought I'd fire it up for old time's sake and to see if it even still worked (although I should have been clearing, boxing etc.), well even the difference from then to now was shocking...

 

I loaded up Tomb Raider (because I've played a couple of the more modern iterations recently), honestly I didn't remember how clunky and awkward it was... and the graphics... was it really this bad..? Somehow I remember it being better... although I keep forgetting it was nearly 30 years ago! How is that possible... because the 80s were only 20 years ago weren't they...?

 

[Hoyt]

Interesting comments and analysis here.  I go back to the original Pong (not straining my noodle to find the date) and did play some of the coin op games that country stores had in the back for the kids to pound on.  They were cool at the time (I seem to recall Space Invaders, then Galaga I think, Defender and such) but as PCs got more advanced in the early nineties games you could play in the home surpassed them pretty easily.  Apogee seemed to have a knack for bringing arcade games home and improving on them.  Stuff like Raptor, Duke Nukem, and Jazz Jackrabbit.

 

I've downloaded a few of the classics when they were on sale on Xbox Live or PSN which seems to be a good home for them.  I played them a little bit but they just didn't grab me like they did as a kid in the seventies.  I guess we just got spoiled a bit.  That being said some older PC games are still played in my household from the nineties, so maybe there is a sort of cut off point of interaction that can hold our attention better.  Games like the original Quake and Unreal Tournament are still played by my Son and I when our work schedules allow.

 

I don't know of any arcades around here but my Son and his friends went to one last week in Greensboro NC that had classic Japanese arcade games from the eighties.  I thought that was sort of interesting.  The attraction of them being from Japan might be what keeps that place open.  I might go down there with him next time to check it out.