Last arcade of much significance in Connecticut bites the dust

spmahn

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
266
Reaction score
0
Location
Bristol, Connecticut
Last arcade of much significance in Connecticut bites the dust

http://www.ctbulletin.com/articles/2011/08/11/news/doc4e43b983745ef253717646.txt

Obviously we're not a big state, so it stands to reason that there wouldn't be much left in this day and age. Smiles was a place that wasn't great, over the last few years they had clearly given up because nearly every machine was in various states of disrepair, but it was nice to know that there was at least ONE place left in the state to go to. It was obvious their heyday had long since passed them by, but they still had a decent selection of classics, including a few you don't see on location all that often like Pac-Land and Joust. but now it's gone, and there's really nothing left.

There's still a handful of "Family Fun Centers" catering to the casual crowd featuring almost exclusively redemption crap, but that's about it. Foxwoods had a decent selection of games, but I haven't been there in a few years as I prefer Mohegan Sun for my gambling, but Mohegan's redemption only arcade is terrible. When I was a kid, most Malls featured a Namco run Time Out arcade, but those have all been gone for well over a decade, and the movie theaters all have the same selection of Raw Thrills titles. I guess it really is going to be up to us in the future to ensure we preserve these old classics as a labor of love, since it's obviously no longer profitable.
 
Damn shame. Was just at Mohegan last week and the arcade was terrible. Believe it or not, there are better machines on the cross island ferries lol.
 
that is a shame, there's some terrible typo's in that write up too.
 
I was there a few years ago. Almost all the games were broken in one way or another. I remember trying to play Street Fighter III, the second player was totally not working and the player 1 block didn't work :(
 
"I guess it really is going to be up to us in the future to ensure we preserve these old classics as a labor of love, since it's obviously no longer profitable. "

I have to disagree with the no longer profitable part. I run a video-only arcade which is now in it's 3rd year and we've been doing all right. At the end of the day it really depends on the location and the management. As you mentioned they had just given up - I bet that if they actually had bothered to try by keeping the machines fixed and clean as well as jumped into the game of using social media to spread the word, then they would still be around. If they really cared they would have found a way to rotate their games around and keep something new in there. Of course that could be part of it too - if they refused to update their roster with anything recent then how is that going to be an attraction to bring people in? The only locations that make classic gaming work have to have A) a large location to cram a lot of classics into one spot B) need to obtain some new games every now and then to keep things fresh.

If you want to run and arcade that only features games from the 78-82 period then it's not going to survive for very long. The number of people interested in playing those games on original hardware who don't already have it themselves at home is just far too small to make a profit. Most people are fine with MAME or Flash-based browser clones, or remakes on XBLA of all these games. The saturation is just too high on the games people recognize and want to play. no one really cares about playing classics they have never heard of. But if you're willing to keep up to date then you can use newer machines to generate revenue and supplement the classics that people might play a few times a week.

The mis-management of a location is not necessarily the indication that the entire industry can't make a profit.
 
Damn shame. Was just at Mohegan last week and the arcade was terrible. Believe it or not, there are better machines on the cross island ferries lol.

Thanks! I try my best....unfortunately, they are pretty rough on the games up there, which is why there is ALWAYS something broken....
 
Back
Top Bottom