Holy Token Prices! - and, there are some great new games out there!

[yaggy]

Arnold's is really that expensive? I knew they had a nice arcade and kinda remember the prices being a little high, but honestly I didn't play anything.

Oh well.

Jeff

They used to be okay.
Back then, they had about 40-50 games.
They're much larger now, but also worse in every other respect.
Perhaps they think, "where else you gonna go?"
Sadly, they're kind of right. And if you're willing to drop $50,
you'll get a much better cost-per-token...

 

[CrazyKongFan]

I went to an amusement park yesterday (Indiana Beach in Monticello, IN) and their pinball machines were set at 50 cents per play. They had Simpsons Pinball Party, Addams Family, Star Trek TNG, South Park, Theatre of Magic, and a few others that didn't work like Twilight Zone. Not all arcades are out of whack. I want my money back on Theatre of Magic--that game is dreadful.

I used to see their commercials all the time on TV, but I've never been there. Always wondered if they had an arcade...any classic vids?

 

[Stuffmonger]

Dave and busters also has ridiculous pricing. I've gone in there twice. The first time, I went to play games, and spent something like $20 on a card... I calculated it out, and I think I was paying something like $2.50 to play time crisis. I said screw that, and never paid to play in there again. I hate all this card bull so that you can't easily compute how much you're actually spending. What ever happened to just dropping quarters in a machine?

 

[Tweeg]

I hate all this card bull so that you can't easily compute how much you're actually spending. What ever happened to just dropping quarters in a machine?

We have a new local fun place that uses cards, but they track the value in actual dollars and cents so you do know what you're actually spending. The card also can store tickets from the redemption games. It doesn't do it directly (that would be cool), you have to put the tickets in a muncher and swipe the card. That's still better than keeping track of hundreds of tickets, or those little thermal paper receipts that the Rat gives you (and that fade away if you keep them in the car).

Done like that, I like the card system. But I do have several cards left over from places where I wound up with a small credit left over that was insufficient to play a single game. That's annoying.

 

[Tighe]

I went up to Niagara last weekend and there is one arcade there that is actually pretty great.

However, the token prices are INSANE!!

A lot of games take 4 tokens and tokens are 2 for a dollar! WTF?? $2.00 to play a gun game?

Is this the new norm??

BTW - They had some new Terminator gun game and this bad ass NAMCO gun game. It looked like Ghost Recon. Great stuff, really! It's nice to see such awesome graphics and technology in these games but the prices are stoopid.

Well according to the inflation adjustment calculator:

$.25 in 1980 = $.66 in 2010

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

So that seems a little high, but not hugely. Were there many games in 1980 that cost more than $.25? I don't remember many.

EDIT: Also which side of the river were you? Cause Canadian $1 = $1 USA. I know the gap is a lot less than it used to be.

Wow just checked and $1 USD = $1.0527 CAD! I remember when Canadian $1 wasn't worth $.75!

 

[CrazyKongFan]

So that seems a little high, but not hugely. Were there many games in 1980 that cost more than $.25? I don't remember many.

In 1980, I doubt there were any. First one I remember seeing for $.50 was Dragon's Lair, and i think that came out in 1983. Heck, at some campgrounds I stayed at, they still had old pinballs that took dimes! (1 play/1 dime, 3 plays/1 quarter). Although many games had options in their dipswitch settings to use more than 1 coin per credit (you can set DK to use up to 5 coins per credit, for example), I don't remember seeing any games that did that.

 

[Lukenatme]

I used to see their commercials all the time on TV, but I've never been there. Always wondered if they had an arcade...any classic vids?

They have 3 or 4 different "arcade" sections throughout the park--the main one near the beach/waterslides, another in the open-air haunted house lobby, and the redemption/skeeball stuff is along the boardwalk between those two areas. As with most arcades these days, it's mostly classics for the 90's crowd: 6-player X-Men, dedicated linked Rush 2049's, Time Crisis 3, House of the Dead 2, and many others I can't remember. They had a Galaga and Super Hang-On for the 80's era. I liked it for the selection of pinball machines for 50 cents per play. Kids around there played a lot of the pinball machines, even though they were typical routed machines with issues.

Classics wouldn't get any play there. Although away from the arcade, they do have the "shoot the star target on a string with a gun that doesn't have quite enough ammo to get the job done". I was hoping they still had the Spy Hunter cockpit I played the last time I was there, but they didn't (it was over 15 years ago, so I wasn't holding my breath). They have about a dozen skeeball lanes--which kinda reminds me of Showbiz Pizza. My girlfriend forgot to bring a camera, so I don't have any pictures.

 

[GuidoTorpedo]

HAHA, Feeding Frenzy! I've got one of those.

Squandered the last few tokens on Feeding Frenzy.
NEVER GOING BACK.[/QUOTE]

 

[gamefixer]

BTW - They had some new Terminator gun game and this bad ass NAMCO gun game. It looked like Ghost Recon. Great stuff, really! It's nice to see such awesome graphics and technology in these games but the prices are stoopid.

That Namco game is called Razing Storm. Its a great looking game and earns as well as it looks.

As for these token prices, I've got one word. GREED!

I, as an arcade operator, dont agree with this at all!!! I understand the "half the play at twice the cost to the customer" maneuver here but I dont like it. Arcades that operate like this are scaring away the casual player (all of us in here).

I open a lot of my arcades at 2 tokens per play (4 for a dollar) with the exception of a few 3-4 token games.

Matt

 

[Krusher]

cool pic

Ok, cool pan shot!
yours or their stock one?
if yours with what did you take it>?

 

[Krusher]

i think

i think over time operators had to many morons pocketing them and couldn't trust their own staff.. Sad times...

Dave and busters also has ridiculous pricing. I've gone in there twice. The first time, I went to play games, and spent something like $20 on a card... I calculated it out, and I think I was paying something like $2.50 to play time crisis. I said screw that, and never paid to play in there again. I hate all this card bull so that you can't easily compute how much you're actually spending. What ever happened to just dropping quarters in a machine?

 

[Spyridon]

Yeah, that's the Terminator they had. The graphics were amazing. Good stuff.

How about this version on at 100" screen