The great home arcade compromise..

vintagegamer

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I have been in this hobby 20 years, and have yet to be able to get one dedicated space for my home arcade. Some self-imposed, some not.

My arcade "space" always ends up having to also take in homeless bum ugly cousins like the lawn mower, gardening crap, brooms, refrigerators, car parts, bookshelves, you name it.

I know I should just be thankful to have games, and a place in which to play them, but every time some of you post your dedicated game spaces, I just sit there trying to interpret how you were successful.

Warm Regards,

Fred Sanford
 
I have been in this hobby 20 years, and have yet to be able to get one dedicated space for my home arcade. Some self-imposed, some not.

My arcade "space" always ends up having to also take in homeless bum ugly cousins like the lawn mower, gardening crap, brooms, refrigerators, car parts, bookshelves, you name it.

I know I should just be thankful to have games, and a place in which to play them, but every time some of you post your dedicated game spaces, I just sit there trying to interpret how you were successful.

Warm Regards,

Fred Sanford
This is an easy one. You just need to sell your house and buy one with a basement or dedicated arcade space. Problem solved
 
This is an easy one. You just need to sell your house and buy one with a basement or dedicated arcade space. Problem solved
Yep. My new home has a HUGE basement, and I've carved out a section for the arcade games. It works quite nicely.
 
This is an easy one. You just need to sell your house and buy one with a basement or dedicated arcade space. Problem solved

Pretty much, yeah. When I moved up to Atlanta from Florida a basement was high on the requirements list (in Baja Alabama, a basement is also known as "the downstairs pool").
 
This is an easy one. You just need to sell your house and buy one with a basement or dedicated arcade space. Problem solved

I have a basement. It's just that the steps were designed by Ray Charles.

And, some of the items I mentioned constantly ship their way into my space from wife.com
 
I have been in this hobby 20 years, and have yet to be able to get one dedicated space for my home arcade. Some self-imposed, some not.

My arcade "space" always ends up having to also take in homeless bum ugly cousins like the lawn mower, gardening crap, brooms, refrigerators, car parts, bookshelves, you name it.

I know I should just be thankful to have games, and a place in which to play them, but every time some of you post your dedicated game spaces, I just sit there trying to interpret how you were successful.

Warm Regards,

Fred Sanford
Damn, I almost feel bad for having 2 rooms dedicated to games. But on the flip side, I've been into this for more than 20 years, and I'm ready to downsize my life dramatically, move to a much smaller house, and sell almost all of my games. I'm going to miss it, but I guess I got my fill.
 
Before I got married I had 7 pins & a row of vids in the house. Now married with a kid I have one pin and vid in the garage and a couple at work. Managed to keep a cocktail in the house.

It's worth it to have the family. I hardly have time to play anyways so why have 20 games. A couple in the garage is plenty.
 
Space is not really a problem for me. (I have like 13 games in my tandem 3rd car garage. )

However, the real problem for me is how uncomfortable it is to play games in my garage. Rarely is the temperature a comfortable 70 degrees. It's either freezing cold or blazing hot. Not to mention it's also dusty and smells like a garage. Nobody in my family wants to spend time out there and I can't really blame them. So my games almost never get played. It really bums me out.

I have a full unfinished basement that would be perfect for my games but the staircase going down is a switchback staircase and I'm never in the mood to deal with that. And what goes down must come up someday.

This is why I'm building a semi-custom Ms Pac cocktail with a bitkit inside. I can easily get a cocktail in the basement and bitkit has plenty of games on it without having to move a dozen 300 lb games.
 
Space is not really a problem for me. (I have like 13 games in my tandem 3rd car garage. )

However, the real problem for me is how uncomfortable it is to play games in my garage. Rarely is the temperature a comfortable 70 degrees. It's either freezing cold or blazing hot. Not to mention it's also dusty and smells like a garage. Nobody in my family wants to spend time out there and I can't really blame them. So my games almost never get played. It really bums me out.

I have a full unfinished basement that would be perfect for my games but the staircase going down is a switchback staircase and I'm never in the mood to deal with that. And what goes down must come up someday.

This is why I'm building a semi-custom Ms Pac cocktail with a bitkit inside. I can easily get a cocktail in the basement and bitkit has plenty of games on it without having to move a dozen 300 lb games.

I also use my tandem 3rd car garage as my arcade. While my temperature is less prone to big swings, it gets quite hot in the summer sometimes. The biggest hack I've done was to simply put insulation on the garage door. By doing this, I feel like now my garage can generally maintain a given temperature (warm or cool) in relation to the outside as long as it stays closed for at least a number of hours.

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The guys with the accessible basements have it made. For me the garage is too hot and dusty, plus I do oil changes and park in there. The insulated door helps a bit, but not enough.
Fortunately the small office off the living room works well 🤙🏻✌🏻
 

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What kind of arcade life do you want and what are you doing to make it so?

If arcade parties is your thing, make sure you invite people who are into that.

I keep running across people who want to experience a arcade repair party. Trust me this experince is not as easy as tossing a soldering iron and a handful of caps and telling them go do repair stuff. Laughs.

A bad personality will cause issues. The basic can they play nicely with others. I know many talented repair people who are great in repairs but they are not restaurant trained. Laughs.

My point is that if you want it put in the effort to make it so.
 
Before I got married I had 7 pins & a row of vids in the house. Now married with a kid I have one pin and vid in the garage and a couple at work. Managed to keep a cocktail in the house.

It's worth it to have the family. I hardly have time to play anyways so why have 20 games. A couple in the garage is plenty.
Having a family is overrated, I've been married a few times, and have lots of kids. Kids are a lot of work and wives are exhausting, who has time for that? Games never want anything from you and if you get tired of them you can just turn them off unlike the wife. So I say your logic is flawed and 20 games are not enough.
 
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