Campground arcades?

spmahn

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Just wondering, has anyone been to any commercial campgrounds lately? Do they still mostly have arcades? I remember my father for into a camping kick around the late 90's - early 2000's, and just about every campground we went to had an arcade full of classics in their rec room. Some places only had a handful, other had a huge selection of games and a few pinballs to boot.

When we first started camping I thought it was odd to be doing something outdoors like camping and find an arcade on the campground, but I guess it must be something expected at most places, since just about every location we went to had one. I imagine that would be one of the few environments left where the classics would actually earn decent money, since you have such a large group of families on site with kids, many of whom probably have zero interest in doing outdoors stuff. From what I remember most of the places kept the games ing good working order, but given that it was almost a decade ago, I can imagine that many of these same places allowed their games to deteriorate over time and neither had the skills nor time to fix them, so they'd eventually just do away with them. Regardless, despite how much I hated camping, those were still good times.
 
I went camping (i.e. - RVing) with my family in the mid-80s to early-90s, and almost without fail campgrounds would have at least one arcade machine somewhere on the property. Campgrounds with gamerooms actually had their own notation in the telephone-book-sized campground guide we'd break out every late afternoon to figure out where we were going to stay that night.

A few of those gamerooms were very large. I can remember two or three that had at least 20 games in them. But almost all had at least one, and if they did, it was probably a Donkey Kong. Strange to think of it now, but I was always disappointed if that was the only machine they had. It was too common! You could play that almost anywhere :)
 
I still remember those road trips I took when I was fixing computers in small towns and gas was cheap. I remember stopping by a few KOA camp site. Mentioning I fix computers and was ask to look into tweaking/fixing a few arcade machines Laughs.
 
From what I remember most of the places kept the games ing good working order, but given that it was almost a decade ago, ... Regardless, despite how much I hated camping, those were still good times.

My own memories of a campground arcade is from Williamsburg, VA playing Jungle King and Ring King there. My only other memory is that it rained a lot and we ended up in a motel as a result. This was in the early-mid 80's.
 
I sold a Defender to a Campground owner in Montana.
He said he had about 30 old arcade machines at his campground.
Not sure where, but has to be western Montana.

Steve
 
I seem to remember quite a few. The campground where I am getting married used to have a decent arcade, but the "new" owners didn't approve.

The last time I made a camping road trip (along the interstate) there were quite a few gamerooms, but this was at least 10 years ago.

Garden of the Gods Campground in Colorado Springs probably had the best. In '95 they had over 20 pins (EM's through DMD, current at the time). A look at their website shows the gameroom still has a few classics, but only one picture. Nearby in Manitou Springs there is a "Penny arcade" although it was looking pretty sad last I was there. Sigh.
 
some of my best early arcade memories are from a campground. it was the early 80s and they had a decent selection of the older black and white and vector games that were already starting to look outdated. i remember playing drag race and asteriods while listening to a 45 jukebox....
 
Back in the summer of 97 my family took a trip to Tennessee and we stayed at a KOA campground. They had a huge gameroom/arcade. Probably 20-25 vids, 3-4 pinball, pool table and even some redemption games.
 
I got a Strider and a Blood Storm cab from a guy who runs a campground a year ago. He had about 15 other games in there as well as a pool table and "older Pinball: (don't remember the name) he had a good selection of games (no donkey kong or pacman though)
 
I did alot of camping growing up (my parents had a motorhome), and lots of them had gamerooms. Sometimes my parents would try and pick one if we were on the road that had an arcade listed in their guide (they had one of those Good Sam campground listing books). Sometimes the arcade sucked, or didn't exist at all, and some weren't bad. I know we used to stay at a KOA in Columbus Indiana that had a Pac-Man, and at one in St Petersburg FL when visiting my grandparents that had a really nice arcade. Over the years, I remember playing Deluxe Asteroids, Space Invaders, Popeye, Gauntlet, Tron, Marble Madness, Ikari Warriors, 720, Operation Wolf, and pinballs Silverball Mania and Future Spa there. Sometimes there might be a place near the campground that had games too. There was a general store outside the state park in Aloha MI that had a nice arcade.
 
Some of my best memories were playing Arcade games at KOA campgrounds in the 80s... It's the perfect setup, you are trapped with nothing to do... Tah-Dah!!!! Arcade!!!
 
a few campgrounds around here just got a hold of me on my machines for sale.
so they appear to be trying to be sweet around here!!
 
The campgrounds around here had small arcades back in the 70's and 80's when we camped. The first place I remember is the "Pot o' Gold" campground in Acra, NY.

My wife and I now take our son camping and the place we usually go HAD an "arcade" 2 years ago. There were 4 games in a shed that I didn't even know was there until the last day of the season!

I'm currently fixing up a cocktail multi with the hopes of trading it for some free camping this summer. We'll see.
 
Three years ago I went to Whippoorwill Lake in Leopold, MO. While at the beach I spied an outside pavillion with what appeared to be a small lakeside arcade. There was a 100CD jukebox, a Ms. Pacman, a Megatouch XL, Trophy Hunting, Whirlwind pinball and San Francisco Rush the Rock. All looked good but I thought that was a bit bizarre being lakeside with moisture and exposed to all the elements. Well that night it rained and poured something fierce. The next morning I stopped by the pavillion for a peak. The Trophy Hunting was completely dead. The Ms. Pacman appeared to be stuck on a startup screen, but was still on. I then took a 1 hour walk around the lake and came back. I looked at the Ms. Pacman and she gave up the ghost. The screen was blank. I unplugged the power cord, plugged it back in, turned the power switch off and on and there was still nothing.

I guess it just goes to show, nice concept, poor execution. Arcade machines and water are a bad thing.


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I grew up a few miles from the Aqua Land campground in Newburg MD, and I walked there all the time to play games.

From the early to late 90s, they always had a max of 4 games at a time, favoring the classics. Some of the titles that appeared were... Gyruss, Frogger, Carnival, Ms.PacMan, Express Raider, Black Tiger, Crime Fighters, and Vs. Super Mario Bros.

Haven't been there since '98, so who knows if they still have games, though.

Kyle :cool:
 
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