crazy stuff witnessed at an arcade

resipsa

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when i was growing up, many of the arcades i frequented were in really bad neighborhoods in brooklyn. i used to go anywhere to get my arcade playing "high" and put my high scores up all over the place. i would hang with a few friends and basically my skills were pretty good so most of the thugs would not mess with us. we were considered cool because of our great gameplay!

my tag was "del" that i would put up on a high score and was well known in many arcades in brooklyn. most of the arcades were in pizzerias, grocery stores, candy stores, etc. for the most part, these areas were taken over by some of the toughest guys and the store owners would basically stay away. they were clubhouses where locals would hang.
most of the time the only interference was when the coin operator would come and empty the quarters or when things would get seriously out of control. the owners of the stores were making their money so basically they let the local kids and teens have control of the arcade section/room.

i saw many crazy things take place but my motto was see no evil, speak no evil and i never had a problem. i saw many drug deals go down, marijuana smoking- all the control panels always had cigarette burns, people with guns, knives, all types of things going on.
many times the coin doors were broken into and we played for weeks sometimes before the coin op noticed. especially the ones that had seperate coin door and safe door.

if you were good at a game, the toughest guys would show you alot of respect and i thought it was cool to be able to walk in some of these arcades and not get killed!
i was only 11,12, 13 yrs at the time and it felt really cool!

what were some of the ugly or craziest things you seen or experienced hanging at an arcade?
what was you tag- the 3 digit name you would put up in a high score?
 
I don't really remember seeing anything ugly happening, but I didn't hang out in rough places either. Only thing I can remember is while camping, the general store outside the campground had an arcade that I spent way too much time in, and one time when I was there, some guy kicked in the door of the Asteroids cab. A couple of us gave our eyewitness account to the owner, and he gave us a couple bucks to use in the arcade for our help.
 
Billy Mitchell accidentally throw a pool stick through Eight Ball Deluxe backglass at Twin Galaxies.

little punk try to stab my smart @$$ friend with a small pocket knife. he he. good thing it was winter and we were in coats. that was only the beginning of the "stabbing" behavior. that guy is doing major time in the Pen now. eeeek.
 
I've always used JON as my initials. I've seen drug-deals.... fights... I saw a guy cease in James Games once... the rumor was he was ODing... I saw a chick slap a guy right across the face and tell him his brother prick was bigger (I thought that was great, I was about 10 and they were 17-18 or so I'm guessing).
 
The arcades were in the center of Amsterdam it was the 80's, heroine and cocaine were at an all time high and the center was the home of junkies/drug addicts and homeless people.
Some arcades were in the red light district right in the middle of all the action.
We were hanging around there since early age so we were used to it.
Some friends had brothers or sisters that were junkies and my sister was a junkie so to us it seemed all normal thing that belonged to everyday life.
I seen as lot of things, a lot!! but what I hated the most were the pedophiles as some poor kids or kids addicted to gambling went with them.
Problem with the gambling machines was that were also in the arcades and many kids got hooked on these and were always in need of money which made them an easy target for the pedophiles.
The kids that played the gambling machines were very agressive as well.

Weed was for sale everywhere so that was quite common and nothing special.

You did need to watch yourself and we mostly were packing but only for self protection as we were not into fighting or violence.
Being street kids helped ,so we weren't the weak ones, fitted in fine and were mostly left allone.

getting the money to finance your game addiction and to buy food was difficult as we were all poor.
I had a few phone boots where I installed a small sponge in the coin return.
Often junkies also claimed those phone boots as they did the same trick, that sometimes got out of hand.
The Arcade staff amd owners hated us, we were a plague a pest, we were even there on xmas eve, we were not cared for and knew little love nor compassion for others.
We cracked the machines to get the coins or play for free, smashed the quarter pushing machines in a special way to get the coins etc etc..

Yep it was a dangerous place filled with drugdealers, criminals, hustlers, prostitutes and junkies and a lot of stuff went down but I never ever once felt unsafe because I wasn't in to the bad stuff.
But still I say, The pedophiles them I really hated.


My Tag was KID
 
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Dang, I don't really have any crazy stories. I used to work at an arcade and was stalked by an ex there. I accidentally erased everyone's high score off a game (Tekken Tag Tournament 1) when I was trying to help fix the settings. I seen my mall arcade so packed that it got the attention of all the mall security guards and police. There was lots of ohhs ahhhs and other comments being yelled like if there were people actually watching a fight. Come to find out that everyone was crowded around the MK3 machines watching this guy rack up godly wins and doing all the fatalities etc etc. This was like a week after the game was released, and I don't think smoke was even found yet.

Craziest thing though? Going to the grave site of your former arcade hangout and former work place (Timeout) and seeing it just waste away. The Aladdin's Castle is still sun burnt into the bricked wall and some posters are still up as well. Time out is now a animal shelter, it was creepy being in there and seeing the old prize counter and display case still original filled with cat and dog accessories. All the outlets covered and just about everywhere a arcade cabinet once stood is stacked animal cages. Place went to a good cause to say the least.
 
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Nothing crazy like Drugs or Fights but my local Arcade had an unboxing of their Dragon's Lair when i was a kid. My buddies and i all showed up there were a ton of kids there they had it roped off took it out of the box. We watched them work on it prep it i guess and setup the player etc... Then they started a line and everyone got to play a game, 50 cents? Nope! $1.00 lol i didn't even play it i just stood back and watched the tv that was on top and watched all these guys playing this die very quickly. I remember being blown away from the art / graphics and that the game seemed very difficult.

I now own that game! Bought it from the same op about 6 or 7 years ago.
 
This is not only crazy, but wrong!
 

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While a friend and I were playing Pac man I was eating a hot dog and the mustard dripped onto the control panel. We ran outta there without even finishing the game and never went back...them were the days...even to this day I drive the long way around that place even though it's a car wash now...
 
I do remember a lot of drug buying in the arcades back in the early 1980's. Most arcades even had signs posted saying no drugs, weapons or gambling. I do not remember anyone ever playing for money (gambling) but drugs was a common place for buying/selling at the arcades.
 
The bad kids would usually hang out in front smoking, or park it by the rear exit door and smoke out. Never saw any fights, people were pretty well behaved but you'd have occasional pushing and shoving to get a better view of a game when a crowd formed.

I recall being bored one day, having just run out of money. Probably the saddest feeling is when you're done with the funds and have already bummed a few tokens off of friends. I found a cabinet (taito classic cab) that's control panel was un-hasped. Didn't take much to lift it up and find the credit switch..... let's just say I put a 'few' credits in and played a while longer. :rolleyes:
 
Of course in the arcade heyday the machines were everywhere. Even our local grocery store had a Ms. Pac-Man in a corner at the very front of the store. There was always a crowd of kids around it. One day we were shopping and I heard a huge crash from the front of the store. Someone in the Ms. Pac-Man crowd had been pushed through one of the floor to ceiling windows next to the machine. The next time we went shopping the machine was gone.
 
Craziest thing though? Going to the grave site of your former arcade hangout and former work place (Timeout) and seeing it just waste away. The Aladdin's Castle is still sun burnt into the bricked wall and some posters are still up as well. Time out is now a animal shelter, it was creepy being in there and seeing the old prize counter and display case still original filled with cat and dog accessories. All the outlets covered and just about everywhere a arcade cabinet once stood is stacked animal cages. Place went to a good cause to say the least.

Is it still like this today or is that a memory of when you saw it years ago? If it's still like this today I'd go take a few pics. It may be sad but it's still arcade history.
 
I worked in a Pizza place that was right next door to a fairly big (and very nice) arcade. This was actually a bit later than the whole arcade craze... Probably 1993 to 1994. Especially late considering that the arcade was very new, probably moved into that spot and started business around 1992. Sadly, I can't remember the name of the arcade. Crazy, as I spent so much time there back in the day.

The big issue with this particular arcade was a combination of the long hours, lack of security guard (or any form of attendant)... The place was just open with nobody watching. We were in the same strip mall as a movie theater. Perfect setup, people would eat pizza, hang out at the arcade, go watch a movie, come back afterward.

Anyway, this arcade also had pool tables (creating even more of a hang-out atmosphere). This also created a gambling atmosphere and brought more of a seedy element to the arcade. It was a really popular place, and got tons of different groups of people. Some were there just to play the games, others to sell drugs, others to gamble on the pool tables, some were old, some were young... Just a really diverse mix of people. From time to time, this diverse mix would create issues.

I remember one time, we (from the pizza place) had to break up a fight out front on the common sidewalk. One guy was beating on another guy with brass knuckles. I remember to this day scrubbing the pooled blood off of the cement with a push broom and a bucket with hot water and Clorox.

There was another event where someone had apparently overdosed (or just lost it?) and went absolutely nuts in the arcade. Jumped up on a pool table and started screaming at everyone, removed his shirt and proceeded to slice his chest with a knife from shoulder to opposite side kidney... Just a flesh wound, but seriously gross. I remember the police showing up, but not sure what else. I'm guessing he was taken away in an ambulance.

Rumor had it that this arcade closed due to pressure from the township regarding the criminal element it was attracting. The arcade was attempting to do it "right", and although they never had a full-time staffer on duty, they did bring in a professional security guard for a while. I think the issue with this approach was that it PREVENTED or deterred people from hanging out in the first place, thereby reducing their revenues. That combined with the expense of the security guard and township pressures probably spelled the end.
 
Drug deals between games are about the only odd stuff I remember seeing at arcades back in the day.
 
I remember Paulie smashing that Rocky pinball game with that liquor bottle. Crazy world.
 
I was playing Killer Instinct in a mall arcade when some guys comes up and puts a quarter in to challenge me. It's a close game, and I start a long combo on him that will likely end the game and he PUSHES ME AWAY FROM THE GAME and proceeds to kill my player.
 
i was playing killer instinct in a mall arcade when some guys comes up and puts a quarter in to challenge me. It's a close game, and i start a long combo on him that will likely end the game and he pushes me away from the game and proceeds to kill my player.

c-c-c-combo breaker!
 
put your quarters up!

i remember having to put your quarters up on the machine to hold your spot. i would do this with several machines and you would have to be like a hawk and watch your quarters or they would disappear fast. i remember the asshole who would walk in out of nowhere and put up 10 quarters and think he would play 10 games in a row. man they used to take guys like this, take his quarters and toss his ass out in the street with a black eye!
i remember an arcade that opened near my house, there was an ice cream shoppe and they took the store right next door and filled it with machines. well somebody hid between the machines when they closed up for the night, broke into all the machines and stole the quarters. it was one of the nicest arcades around. the owner just decided it was not worth the hassle and closed it up the day after. there were people who knew who did this and boy did he get his ass handed to him. they gave him a curb job! we had no place to hang because of this s-bag!
DEL
 
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