Do you remember playing classics outside of an arcade?

gfschn01

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Do you remember playing classics outside of an arcade?

It seems as if everyone has an "arcade" story, but did anyone play them elsewhere? Growing up in Louisville, KY, I used to always go with my mom to Kroger (large supermarket chain) where they had a Gorf, Zaxxon, and a Donkey Kong. Back then, I'm sure the games turned a nice little profit and was a great supplemental source of revenue.
 
Sure. While my fondest memories are of playing at the massive local arcade in my hometown (some of you have read about and seen pics of Arnies Place on this site.. It was like no other), I also played games at a number of other locations.

We had a small convenience store not too far from my house. They always had two or three arcade games tucked in the back of the store. That was the first place I ever played Pole Position and Donkey Kong as a little kid. In fact, I can remember the first time I got past the first stage of Donkey Kong while playing there. I was so proud of myself... Ha ha.

I can also remember playing Pac Man for the first time at a local Dairy Queen at the age of about 8 or 9. I member being told "you need to try to eat the ghosts when they turn blue". And so on my first life, I tried eating the blue ghost "Inky" before eating the power pellet. Obviously I died and was very confused. I remember thinking... "this game kind of stinks". Ha ha... Obviously my opinion changed when I figured it all out!
 
I remember playing many video games at the local dollar theater waiting for a move to start or waiting to be picked up. Usually no one paid attention to those machines, so they generally in great shape. I know personally the game I played the most at the movie theater was Galaga.
 
Most of the games I played were at places other than a regular arcade. Local movie theater had Centipede, Pac-Man, Defender, and Joust. Later they added a Paperboy. Mom and Pop grocery store here in town had Gorf, Tempest, Space Panic. Happy Chef had Space Fury, Shakey's Pizza had Dig Dug and Jungle King. The bowling alley had Robotron, Donkey Kong, Battlezone. Another locally owned burger joint had Burgertime. Played em all, it was great!
 
outside of arcades...

Back then they were in every free space available - every store, supermarket, restaurant.

You didn't need an actual arcade to go to an arcade. The local strip mall would have 2-3 games at the pizza place, 2-3 more by the Chinese food, maybe one at the card/hallmark shop and 1-3 at the supermarket.
 
I think the majority of places I played games in the mid 80s were not in an arcade. My first experience was a Bowling Alley in Barberton, OH that had Vs Castlevania, Rampage, Spy Hunter and Gauntlet. I played them every saturday morning for eons!

Other places were county fairs, resorts, hotels, malls etc.
 
I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so the only place I played games growing up were outside of arcades. Bars, bowling alleys, county fairs (those were the closest things to arcade for me).
 
It seems as if everyone has an "arcade" story, but did anyone play them elsewhere?

My High school had a few video games in the lunch room. I remember playing Omega Race and Asteroids there. By 1985 they were removed and replaced with a trash can.

My town at that time had 7 arcades and most secondary locations (7-11, Jewel foods, etc.) had 2-5 games in them.

Games were everywhere. Starting in 1984 they started to disappear.
 
I remember a Pizza Hut that had a Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man, I don't remember which one. I still look in the back of Pizza Huts, hoping to see an Arcade game.

Also, a Dairy Queen nearby had a Popeye cocktail cabinet. I'm sure I played that one a number of times though I doubt I ever made it past the first screen.
 
EVERY DAY walking home from junior high school we would stop at Capri's pizza, get a slice and a soda for $1, get a $1 in quarters and play Asteroids until we got kicked out!
 
it's hard to remember everywhere I've played games they were in the Laundromat, malls and even a grocery store. In fact me and my dad played two player on a Dragon's Lair machine that was sitting in one grocery store in particular...

Edit: Also the only time I ever saw a Dragon's Lair 2 onsite was in a movie theater. I'm not sure I managed to put any quarters in it but I sure wanted to.
 
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i grew up on Bainbridge Island and would take the ferry across to Seattle fairly regularly. the trip was about a half hour and our regular ferries (the Spokane and the Walla Walla) each had seven games. the games would occasionally get rotated but usually only one a time, and sometimes they'd have identical games on each. the ferry was the first time i saw quite a few titles like DK, Scramble, Defender, Tempest, Omega Race, and Black Widow.

the real excitement was anytime we'd get temporary replacement boat and get to see different games. i remember the Hyak had Space Fury that i found fascinating and later on Xevious.

now the boats have a few games but they're almost all modern drivers of some sort or the occasional Pac/Ms Pac/Galaga renunion cab; the operator doesn't seem to place fighters or gun games which might be in agreement with the state ferry service.
 
The YMCA had Frogger, Carnival, Dig Dug, Pac-Man and some bowling game I don't know the name of. A local grocery store had a Dig Dug that I remember well, another had a DK Jr. and a Defender (I think). I remember playing Superman at a 7/11. Runza (burger place) had a DK Jr. cocktail. A laundromat had Carnival, DepthCharge and an EM pin. Pamida had a Mario Bros. and Kangaroo. I always ignored the Kangaroo. The three bowling alleys had games as well. For a town of 20,000 we had quite a few places with games. (3 arcades at one point, as well).
 
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The laundromat across from Dreher High School had a Defender set on lower than default difficulty.

It was the only one I could roll back in the day. Different story now!
But yeah- they were everywhere.
I remember the Galaxian in the pool hall. A COLOR game! This wasn't Space Invaders...

And there was a hole-in-the-wall bar where they had a Stratovox.
 
I very rarely played outside of an arcade, because they were so close to my house. I remember Pizza Hut had the cocktail games and Convienent may have had one. The only place I remember were the Holiday Inn Holidomes or whatever they were called. Those would have between 6-8 games. I remember that was the first time I ever played Qix.
 
I remember seeing games everywhere when I was a kid. There was a Berzerk at a local grocery store I('d always get to play while my mom would check out. I took some extra quarters one day and played it while she was there shopping and after she checked out I wouldn't stop playing so she left and I had to walk home.... it was worth it :D

A local spaghetti place had a Road Blasters for years and a few weeks ago I went to play it while waiting for our table. I walked around the corner and fount it was gone, replaced with one of those stupid machines full of unwinable iPads and other $500 electronics :(
 
one cool story I forgot to tell:

The High Museum of Art here in Atlanta used to have a kids exhibit that I took a field trip to(it was the mid to late 80s). As part of the exhibit there was a Qbert machine with a mess of free credits loaded onto it. While the rest of the kids looked at the exhibit me and my friend stood there taking turns playing the machine until it ran out of credits. A couple of minutes later a guy happened by and dropped a quarter in it(not know about the free play me and my friend had been enjoying earlier) and played with it. Then a short time after that an employee showed up and loaded more credits onto the machine which we played with almost until time to go....
 
I worked at a huge grocery store when I was about 14 or so and they had a GORF right up front by the registers. I spent many a quarter there on break playing that one.

Right next door in the same shopping center was Good Time Charlies Arcade, I'd go there sometimes on my lunch break.

Like others had mentioned, it seemed like everywhere had games, Quik Trip was another spot we played at a lot. The combination of Icees and games was too hard to resist.

If only I'd known then how good I had it!
 
The Macy's on the way to school had a Centipede in the boys dept. It was set on free play and usually you couldn't get on the machine when you went after school. I was only 9 at the time and the teenage kids would never let you in. I managed to get my fill though and had to have one when I started collecting. Still get feelings of exictment sometimes when I turn it on :)
 
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