Always wondered what arcades were like in other countries during the 80's

VertexGuy

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 13, 2014
Messages
8,166
Reaction score
149
Location
Connecticut
Always wondered what arcades were like in other countries during the 80's

Any oldschooler arcade buff's from other countries share some details or stories about
what arcades were like back in the day and now?
Im also under the impression that alot of the greater titles were not avail in some countries
as i see people trying to ship containers full of american greatness over to thier countries
for thier home arcades.
 
Australia was a bit of a mix. We got some original dedicated cabs from Japan but not many from the US.
We still get plenty of Space Invaders and Nintendo cocktails showing up down here but most of the US classics (which are very hard to come by) have shown up by boat in the days since.
We had a local manufacturer/distributer LAI that would put the kit games into either generic cabs or they would attempt a knock off. Some of the knock-offs were quite good (Outrun springs to mind) and we didn't know any different. The Namco pole position still seems more familiar even though I've since seen the Atari more often.
Ironically we were probably more likely to get the more exotic machines than some of the similar ones as it was easier to import those than build them locally. I remember seeing plenty of afterburner and other environmental machines but not many (any?) vectors.
At the end of the day the experience was probably pretty similar with the other kids and the environment, it's just the backdrop had a few different looking landmarks.
 
I went to Mexico last year for a family trip. Most little shops have a modded xbox or something else in custom cabinets with 9 buttons each player. In Atlixco, Puebla saw a row of dynamo showcases with different fighting games. Couldn't see another location since we were short on time at the central market.
 
I lived in Argentina in the 80s - arcades were rare. The one I did run into was a small shop, and they had upright games, a few (maybe 10?) lined up the walls with a small hall in the middle. It's where I learned to dislike the difficulty of GhostsNGoblins. They were expensive for my 12 year old self to play...
 
I went to Mexico City around 1989.

There were probably the same or more arcades than in Socal.

I remember the local pharmacy had E-Swat, Altered Beast, and Street Fighter 1 (pretty popular).
There were regular small arcades around the neighborhood, in downtown they had bigger arcades with nicer decoration/lighting etc. All of the arcades machines looked American.
 
Last edited:
Here in Holland dedicated video arcades where plenty for a short while in the early 80's filled with all the known games for that era, especially Amsterdam .
For a couple of years most snackbars also had one or two machines, disco's , pubs, bowling halls, the main hall of movie theaters etc
There are still some barcades, some eat and play like ton ton club, hobby projects, and an awesome hall in Zoetermeer with mostly the later games, nineties, drivers and Japanese candy stuff .
New is Gamestate who recently opened three arcades, one is huge but they rely mostly on modern ticket machines and stuff like the Starwars Battlepod , looks like this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBWe3qPVbAc
 
Last edited:
in my town,, my area...
the bowling alleys had a handful,, 2 black and whites,, couple rasters and 1 pinball.

We had two arcades that seemed to only last a couple years then closed.
Rene's pool hall lasted the longest and had a history of being siezed for gambling .

some of the small quick stop shops had a couple... the pizza places usually only
had 1 caberet or a cocktail.
 
Found the pic I took. Those cabs took a third of the entire room. Didn't take a pic of the corner store though.
 

Attachments

  • 20160212_135713.jpg
    20160212_135713.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 81
a dollar to play? Shit....

You forget that is Peso. So around 14 plays (when I was there) for the dollar. Good luck getting change for it though. We has 200 peso bills and nobody except the big stores had change. Not even the stupid money exchange places wanted to convert it to smaller bills/coins.
 
Arcades in the UK were almost always a mixture of video games and fruit machines (real money gambling slot machines). The 'fruities' probably made far more money than the 'vids' so I'm sure the business plan for many operators was to have videos to get the kids in whilst their parents gambled.

Although most arcades were fine a lot of people frowned on them for this reason, and I'm sure some were pretty dubious. Most arcades worked with cash (only a few were tokens) and in retrospect I imagine massive amounts of drug money got laundered through the fruit machines though I had no idea about that at the time!

UK generally had all the machines the US did, certainly the ones from Atari and all the Japanese manufacturers (Sega, Taito, etc). As the jamma era came in from dedicated cabs it was common to see the 'kit' games in generic distributor cabs like Electrocoin or Leisure 2000 often without a game specific marquee.
 
Arcades in the UK were almost always a mixture of video games and fruit machines (real money gambling slot machines). The 'fruities' probably made far more money than the 'vids' so I'm sure the business plan for many operators was to have videos to get the kids in whilst their parents gambled.

Although most arcades were fine a lot of people frowned on them for this reason, and I'm sure some were pretty dubious. Most arcades worked with cash (only a few were tokens) and in retrospect I imagine massive amounts of drug money got laundered through the fruit machines though I had no idea about that at the time!

UK generally had all the machines the US did, certainly the ones from Atari and all the Japanese manufacturers (Sega, Taito, etc). As the jamma era came in from dedicated cabs it was common to see the 'kit' games in generic distributor cabs like Electrocoin or Leisure 2000 often without a game specific marquee.

In the 80's "UK generally had all the machines the US did" I doubt that.
mid 90's and up.. yeah id say so.
 
Why do you doubt it? I'm not saying absolutely everything, but I can't think of much that wasn't there. Obviously Atari had the local factory in Ireland, so that covered all the big titles. The Japanese companies went direct to the UK/Europe distributors as opposed to the US subsidiaries (that's why you see the titles screens of Euro versions say things like Data East Corp and Taito Corp instead of Data East USA). Titles like Commando which was Data East USA license in US, R-Type which was Nintendo license, Kung Fu Master which was DE I think, were all 'native' Capcom & Irem in Europe as they came from Japan.

Arguably stuff like R-Type, Nemesis (Gradius), Salamander (Life-Force), Wonderboy, Pacland, Tiger Heli were more common in the UK than US. Literally every arcade I can remember had a Wonderboy or Wonderboy Deluxe at one point!

Williams games were plentiful, many UK guys have Defenders, Jousts, etc. I remember Defenders in pubs in the early 2000's. Maybe not more obscure stuff like Turkey Shoot though. I remember Xenophobe, Rampage and a lot of Bally things, but I can expect some of the less successful ones (Sarge?) never made it over.

Certainly all the mid 80's Sega stuff - full motion Outruns, Afterburners, etc, were quite common. Same for Capcom - Street Fighter 1, GnG, Black Tiger. Same for Konami.
 
Btw, if you really want to know (you probably don't, it's ok :)) just look up the Euro/UK flyers at the arcade flyer archive. Lots of stuff there I don't even remember.
 
attachment.php
 
Back
Top Bottom