What 80’s Arcades Really Looked Like

[jeffreymays]

I was in high school in the mid-eighties. We had Aladdin's Castle in the malls and a stand-alone Malibu Grand Prix, and Showbiz Pizza. These were the dedicated arcades, but every store, pizza shop, small business had machines.

Aladdin's Castle was dark on the inside, low light. Malibu was extremely well lit by tons of windows. Small businesses ran the spectrum from sun baked in the front window, to the darkest corner in the back.

For me, Galloping Ghost here in Chicago reminds me the most of what arcades where like back then… tons of games squished together, people gathered around some machines blocking others, and all the sounds at once!

EDIT: I forgot the skating rink… United Skates of America! It was the most like the current remembrances… neon, blacklight, crazy carpet. They had a decent arcade, but we only ever went there for skating parties.

 

[jawhn]

I soooooo wish I had taken pictures of the arcades I went to. I'd like to remember and recreate the ambience from them.

There was my favorite spot - Starship Fantasy at 35th ave & Northern. That place was decked out in blue neon, the middle looked like you were on a space ship, it was so badass. And I have zero pictures of it.

 

[SillyB]

There were a few arcades around me growing up but games were everywhere. The local coffee shop had a tempest, the pharmacy had two or three they would rotate. The local Mexican place had a Phoenix cocktail. I could always find somewhere to drop a quarter.

In Highschool, once I had a car, we would drive to Pak-Mann arcade in Pasadena. It was a huge warehouse jam packed with narrow rows full of games. No flashy lights, no carpet, just tons of people smoking in the dark in front of arcade machines. They had tons of rare and classic games. In the early days they were open 24/7 but the gang bangers and drug dealers started to over take the place so they got security, watched the parking lots and closed at like 2:00 am. When Street Fighter Champion edition came out they had probably 10 machines in a row right in front. There would be lines to get a chance to play and the competition was fierce! It was crazy.

 

[SynaMax]

Growing up in the '90s, my main arcade exposure was in restaurants and bars.

This one pizzeria had Lethal Enforcers, Aero Fighters 3 and Special Criminal Investigation. The Sicilian dudes that ran the place didn't know how to turn down the volume so for a while the games were ridiculously loud. I'll never forget trying to eat a pizza slice while the Japanese drum and bass music from Aero Fighters 3 was blasting in the background.

 

[sabrewulf69]

That was an interesting video, I'm 32 and grew up playing in the late 90's and early 00's, but there weren't any large dedicated arcades around. Just the small arcades at both of my local theaters, one at the bowling alley and one at skate ring, but all of them were adorned with neon and blacklight carpet. I had always just assumed most arcades had a similar atmosphere since the early 80's, but I guess not lol.

 

[Totally80sMan]

It's good to point out this aspect of how many of the original arcades weren't as extravagant as they've been portrayed but it was magical no matter what.

It was more about the games at the time and we didn't care where we had to go to play them. It was also in my opinion, more about the sounds and the excitement it generated when a bunch of games were on at once and being played all at the same time, that's what I always missed, there was nothing like being a kid in an environment like that & hearing and feeling those sounds through your bones and then imagining you could actually play it too and see it all? You wanted to 'play those games' to quote Wargames.

To paint a picture, think of a space in an indoor mall with standard commercial gray carpeting (ripped up in some areas) with slat white ceiling tiles (the one's that need to be replaced when they leak, lol), as that was more real life, more industrial than polished.

We didn't have the themed Time Outs or Space Ports or Aladdin's Castles where I grew up in FL but there was Chuck E. Cheese and a couple of places like it, skating rinks and Grand Prix. Ironically, those weren't black lit where the games were either. You sometimes had animatronics where the seating and tables were for eating food and cool lights where the rink was but where the games were? It was the same, just standard and (ripped) carpeting, or even grey concrete wit marks all over it from leg levelers as the games needed to be moved in and out easily.

It 'could' be seedy at times but if you could breakdance? and were good? It saved you from a lot of fights because if had a beef with somebody you could just battle it out on the dance floor, seriously. I know that may be hard to imagine for some? but the gangs didn't mess with us B-boys, they brought knives but if a good dancer or had potential? they just wanted you to join their crew because winning a battle was waaaay better than winning a fight, it was humiliating! and witnessed in front of the locals, the chicks and it built a rep.

There were games everywhere though, yes, in bowling alleys next to pool tables, laundry mats, ice cream stores, pizza parlors, book stores just to name a few and often just a few games as we would just hop from one place over to the next.

Good times! and the games only help to preserve it.

 

[WadeLanham]

I didn't watch the video. There was a mix. There were low budget shitholes, and there were huge, impressive (generally mall, and vacation spot) arcades decked out with neon on the walls/ceiling and glow carpet. And everything in between.

Actually, the vacation spot arcades generally sucked when it came to ambiance (concrete floors and garage doors etc.) but had the largest selection and/or newest games.

 

[KazooBR]

Arcade games were everywhere. If you went to the gas station, they had games. 7-11 games. K-Mart games. Practically every store had anywhere from 1 - 5 as you went in the front door. Grocery stores even.
Then there were actual arcades, and they went from super nice to really crusty as has been stated.

This is most accurate to me. I'd play at 7-11, In and out mart, the local Italian restaurant had a couple games, even the church youth group room had a game. My parents bowled a lot and the alleys usually had decent sized game rooms. Malls are what people probably think of first but those were rare visits for me. I went where I could ride my bike and it wasn't to the mall across town.

 

[tomservo]

Nice find on that video!

At about the 1:30 mark, you can see a shot of a 1950's Manley Aristocrat popcorn machine on the right.




I have one just like it in my basement that's been in my family since the 70's. I posted a couple pictures of it in another thread a while ago.

Games That Family And Friends Love To Play

Pole Position cockpit, Centipede, and Boot Hill here. But the cockpit by a huge margin. When people and family are over, it gets nonstop play. Sometimes, one person will commandeer it for over an hour.

forums.arcade-museum.com

Don't see those show up too often.

 

[DPtwiz]

mine was in a shopping plaza in fostoria ohio, where the closed dance studio is. It had asteroids side art painted big on the right wall, and bezerk art on the left wall. It had blacklight carpet and black lights, with a row of regular lights turned down. Row of games down both walls, and a back to back row down the center, with a dragon's lair on the end facing the front door, with an extra monitor on top for people to watch. Was 4.00 for a wristband that was good all day. Mcdonalds across the plaza had .25 cent hamburgers every saturday. Rode my bike 18 mile round trip every saturday for 2 summers, what a great time to be alive. this was 83/84 when i was 13.

 

[gretz99]

No disrespect to the younger ones here, but I don't consider the late 80's "Time Out" type places in malls an arcade. Too sterile.

For those of us who grew up in the Golden Era (late 70's and early 80's) that was a magical time. There wasn't just one "local arcade", within 30 miles in So. Cal. there would be several huge arcades (50+ games). As many mentioned, they were usually dark and smoke-filled. In addition to the regular arcades, there were a ton of bowling alleys (many long gone) that had incredible line ups. And every local 7-11 and liquor store had at least 2-4 games. The Starcade at Disneyland was a sight to see in it's heyday.

Whenever the newest game came out there would be 3-4 machines lined up and there would be a line of people lined up to play. Quarters on the bezel or CP would indicate "I have next game". For those of us who lived it, we're old now but those are the best memories.

 

[PhoenixStar]

-All boys had puffy parted hair with striped topped socks that came up to their kneecaps.
-All girls had puffy long hair with crinkled neon socks that came up to their kneecaps.
-Arcade walls were glossy vertically grooved wood paneling, but became matte finished from caked on nicotine tar.
-The arcade was dimly hazy with 2x4 flourescent lighting. It was hot, humid, even jungle like. This was because cigarette smoke loomed in the air from the cool kids, and because the adjacent laundromat's dryer vents ruptured in the common shared drop ceiling pumping humid air into the arcade. It was a perfect mixture of Marlboro, and Snuggle Bear. Oh yeah, plus there was hints of delicious pizza from somewhere nearby.
-Linoleum white (yellowed) floor tiles were noisy, as the sound of dried softdrinks and Slush Puppies peeled off your soles.
-If you wanted to be a hot shot and you had extra money, you could go to the snack bar and buy a churned frozen fruit drink from the Jet Spray JT20, and a side of Nachos with cheese wiz that's been sitting under a 200w incandescent red heat lamp for 3.5hrs.
-If you wanted to impress a girl, you had to show her that you could handle your ride in Out Run, or catch a bad guy in S.C.I..
-When your curfew is up, you put out your cigarette on a Mr. Do control panel, splash on some of your dads travel sized Brut, walk outside, and wait for your mom to pick you up in the wood veneered Ford LTD wagon.
-While you sit waiting on the parking curb under the streetlight getting eating by mosquitos, you notice that just as your mom pulls up, your hot babysitter is in another parking spot getting nailed eagle by the HS quarterback on the hood of your favorite car, a maroon 1986 Dodge Daytona turbo with a 5 speed transmission.

That's what it was like. Hope that helps.

 

[AncientGames]

I just watched this video on YouTube detailing the muddied nostalgic "myth" of 80's arcades being blacklight/crazy carpet, etc. havens and actually being much more drab…some comments say their arcades actually WERE like that…

So my question to KLOV, being a young collector at 27 born in '97 well after the Golden Age and beyond, what was (were) your local arcade(s) like? I like to imagine what it would've been like to be alive during a time where my passion (arcade games) was so prevalent in society.

I started visiting arcades in 85 just as many conversions started. Im from a small town of 30k back then and we had roughly 6 arcades and pool halls. Every Arcade in my area had a cement floor, relatively high ceiling, games we all types with some having a seperate area for pool or snooker. I don't recall much in the way of decorations on the walls back then but as the vids started loosing ground the pool halls grew and the vibe changed to a more cozy basement atmosphere with wainscoting, tables and alchohol.

Thats just my small town.

Now though they are alll gone.

 

[Encom]

In my area, almost all the independent mall arcades featured carpet at least half way up the walls. I assume it wouldn't show the marks and bruises from the games getting knocked into them. The one at the mall I most often frequently also had small signs with the high scores and names on the pinballs. If you managed to get three (I think) high scores in a month, your name would get put on a brass plaque and attached to the wall. Seemed like there was at least hundred of the brass ones on the walls.

 

[jkoolpe]

Pretty sure this has been posted before (possibly by me), but here is a very cool video that was shot at what was my favorite and probably most-visited (by me) local arcade from BITD (says it was shot in 1981):

Very nicely captures the look, sounds, and feel of the place (called "Central Park") just as I remember it. Probably because it was filmed at the height of its popularity . It was definitely one of the nicer arcades at the time in terms of setup, wall artwork, game condition and volume, and pricing (1 token per game, 5 tokens for $1, 30 tokens for $5). The $5 amount would usually last me for my whole day or evening . And they would even give a free token for each "A" on your report card!

Also quite certain that I honed much of my expert skills on that very Tempest machine that you see in the background during the footage.

I'm actually kind of surprised that I didn't actually see my younger myself in the video.

Amazingly, the original building is still there. I passed by it just a couple of weeks back; it's now some sort of daycare center.

Jonathan

 

[cdjump]

(1 token per game, 5 tokens for $1, 30 tokens for $5). The $5 amount would usually last me for my whole day or evening

I thought about token pricing when i posted earlier, but forgot to include it. That was a huge influence on what arcade i'd go to. The token ones usually gave you more than 4 for a dollar, and that meant more games played, which was important to me.

 

[WadeLanham]

Pretty sure this has been posted before (possibly by me), but here is a very cool video that was shot at what was my favorite and probably most-visited (by me) local arcade from BITD (says it was shot in 1981):

Very nicely captures the look, sounds, and feel of the place (called "Central Park") just as I remember it. Probably because it was filmed at the height of its popularity . It was definitely one of the nicer arcades at the time in terms of setup, wall artwork, game condition and volume, and pricing (1 token per game, 5 tokens for $1, 30 tokens for $5). The $5 amount would usually last me for my whole day or evening . And they would even give a free token for each "A" on your report card!

Also quite certain that I honed much of my expert skills on that very Tempest machine that you see in the background during the footage.

I'm actually kind of surprised that I didn't actually see my younger myself in the video.

Amazingly, the original building is still there. I passed by it just a couple of weeks back; it's now some sort of daycare center.

Jonathan

Lucky to have something like that captured from a place you frequented!!

 

[jkoolpe]

Lucky to have something like that captured from a place you frequented!!

You got that right!

I really also enjoyed seeing the "out of this world" artwork on the walls that I'm sure I only really noticed in passing despite spending countless hours at the place back then as the games would of course been my primary focus at the time.

Jon

 

[WadeLanham]

Most of us playing as kids, 25 seconds per quarter on Defender:

 

[Yoeddy]

Pretty sure this has been posted before (possibly by me), but here is a very cool video that was shot at what was my favorite and probably most-visited (by me) local arcade from BITD (says it was shot in 1981):

Very nicely captures the look, sounds, and feel of the place (called "Central Park") just as I remember it. Probably because it was filmed at the height of its popularity . It was definitely one of the nicer arcades at the time in terms of setup, wall artwork, game condition and volume, and pricing (1 token per game, 5 tokens for $1, 30 tokens for $5). The $5 amount would usually last me for my whole day or evening . And they would even give a free token for each "A" on your report card!

Also quite certain that I honed much of my expert skills on that very Tempest machine that you see in the background during the footage.

I'm actually kind of surprised that I didn't actually see my younger myself in the video.

Amazingly, the original building is still there. I passed by it just a couple of weeks back; it's now some sort of daycare center.

Jonathan

That kid's powder jacket at 2:15 is SUPER dope! I had a gray and light blue one with the pocket in the front for the Walkman. The arcade in it's rawest form!

Jason