What inspired you to get into this hobby?

gorfchampion

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Was it friends who had games? Was it a desire to restore something to like new condition? Maybe you wanted to bring back that feeling of being a teenager again, playing a cool arcade game at your favorite hangout?

For me I guess for as long as I can remember I wanted to bring home an arcade game. From the very first time I played Space Invaders to a few years later when I first played Gorf; I wanted to have ALL of them in my house. Once I was able to buy the house I grew up in then it was a matter of finishing off my basement into an arcade. By the time I got it done I had 18 of em in my living room ready to be moved down. Every time I go down there it just brings back those carefree childhood memories, I love it...
 
For me, I started out by getting really into collecting atari console stuff, and then I had a chance to get a Battle Shark arcade cheap, so I did. Then I realized I had been collecting toys instaid of real games, so it's been all arcades since then. BTW I have some Atari stuff on ebay right now ;) (which holds it's value quite well)
 
I was into mame for over 10 years and finally got around to finishing a mame cab rather than having it in "prototype" stage as it had been for years. Once that was done, the desire was to re-create the whole arcade feel which led me to the arcade ambience sounds. But with only 1 cab to work with I found that the kids were getting all of the playing time or else I would get stuck playing whatever interested them (how can you deny your kids' interest in playing an arcade game???) and when I'd have some friends over it would be just as bad.

So really I think for mame fans, arcade game collecting is just the natural progression after building a mame cab. But all of the reasons you specified apply as well.
 
As for me I worked at Chuck E Cheese as a gameroom attendant for a while and got to hang out with the repair guy and learn some stuff. Then I worked at a place called Kids Kingdom at a local mall as a ride operator. Then Kids Kingdom got bought out by Exhilarama and I was made rides department manager and that place had a huge arcade and also got to mess with some light repairs on the larger rides and arcade games.
Good times.
 
I think the point that got me in was when I saw the local Time Out or Tilt (can't remember which) had some price tags on some of the games and I had the moment of "oh holy crap, you can actually buy these things??". I think they were asking 1200 for a game I liked (a SF or MK, can't remember at this point) which if I was very careful I could maybe afford, but living at my parent's I realized I didn't have the room. For some reason I always thought that you could only buy games direct from the manufacturers and they'd only sell to businesses, when I realized you could own them privately, that got the ball rolling. Plus I thought they'd be like 20 grand or some insane price I could never afford. Granted, it was a couple years before I owned even my first PCB, and a bunch more years before I got my first cabinet, but that was the moment that started the itch.
 
My father had a Big Ben in his garage for as long as i can remember. We used to play it all the time. Always thought it would be neat to have when i got older.

Fast forward to about 6 years ago, i was working on the garbage route with my dad and a business near our shop set out a dedicated nba jam. i wanted to keep it but my dad insisted that it probably did not work and that i did not need it. i remember him saying "look how dirty it is." so we lifted it in and the blade crushed it.

Fast forward again to about 2 years ago i think and i discovered MAME while i had a broken foot. As soon as i could walk, i bought my first cabinet for MAME. Within a week of buying the cabinet for MAME, i got a empty MKII cabinet. Restored the MKII and then got a Sinbad pin. Been non-stop since then. Bought and sold quite a few.
 
Ever since I saw Silver Spoons, I always dreamed of owning my own arcade games. Rewind back to 1995- I had just graduated high school, and stopped by a local bowling alley. They still had some classics on location, and I was jammin on Dig Dug. The guy at the counter mentioned to me that it was for sale. A deal was made, and he dropped it off at my mom's house. You can't imagine the look on her face when I got this machine. (I did tell her the day before, that I was getting a new video game- just left out the detail that it's afull size arcade machine!)
-Mark
 
I was happy working on and playing my MAME cab for about 5 years, then I started seeing games available locally. After the first one, I became an addict. In a little over a year, I have 14 cabs out in the garage, a High Speed pin in the dining room, and the old MAME cab in my office. I enjoy working on the games, playing the games, and collecting the games, so this has turned out to be a great hobby for me.
 
I was inspired by all the Hot chicks that dig guys with arcade collections . I'm really just a wanna be , doing it all for the women .
 
Almost embarrassed to say, but didn't even think about buying games until I saw King of Kong.

- M1A
 
i built myself a mame rig then heard all the people bitchng saying its nothin like the original hardware so bought a neo geo 2 slot and well i was hooked (still dont se a diffrence betwene mame and dedicated excpt for the games with odd controlls like spinners ,wheels,ect)
 
Great reading about everyone's jump into arcade collecting, good question!

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LONG STORY SHORT, 4 years ago the first one was a CL Ironman Offroad 3p I had to load in my upstairs apartment! Enjoyed that machine with my friends and alot of beers!

I started lurking on KLOV... Checking out gameroom pics and repair threads.

Scored a well paying job, moved from an apartment in town to a 3 bedroom house out in the middle of nowhere... had all the room in the world (so I thought) at this point.

Found a NARC machine at a garage sale, dead $10, brought her home...

Registered on KLOV and posted that I had a dead NARC machine, what should I check and does anyone have parts? Jethrokiller hooked me up by selling the parts I needed to fix NARC and I realized that indeed I was able to figure out basic repairs and get a dead machine working again, had to change my undies after playing my first arcade Narc in 15 years!

I started coming down with a bug, a sickness, a cancer, it was COIN OPERATED ARCADES!
3rd machine I pulled the trigger on EBAY, $357 for a Mario Bros. widebody, solid and played good.

4th was a dead Asteroids right after that off of Craigslist that I probably overpaid for but it was a clean cabinet and I knew that was an ultra-classic that I HAD to have as a keeper.

AFTER THIS I WENT NUTS AND WENT THROUGH WELL OVER 150 CABINETS WHITTLING DOWN KEEPERS GAMES DRIVING ALL OVER THE WEST COAST AND MEETING HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN MY TRAVELS...

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THE LONG STORY OF MY FIRST MACHINE AND DESIRE:
When I was in my early teens our local Fun-N-Games @ Northgate Mall in Seattle was closing up so they put pricetags on everything! Pigout was $650, Smash TV was the same or maybe a little more, and I remember a conversion Magic Sword priced near $500. Me and my best friends wanted a machine SO bad but our paper route and lawn mowing job money wasn't enough between slurpees and quarters being pumped into games, let alone greasy pizza and used Nintendo NES games... I vowed one day to have a couple arcade games when I "had a place of my own"...

I spent the next 10 years collecting console games and had over 500 NES games (what I mainly loved to collect)

Then almost 4 years ago I was a bachelor living in an upstairs apartment in Seattle, had the place pimped out with console game madness and lots of couches but something was missing... I was searching craigslist one day for Dodge 4x4 parts and something "offroad" and up popped an Ironman Offroad 3 player arcade machine about an hour and a half away for $300! It was a few days old but I emailed on it asking more about the machine and confirming that it worked. It was pouring down rain the next night so I borrow a NAPA Autoparts van from my boss so I could "move furniture had to do it tonight" (Worked there 6 years so he let me do it!) Me and my buddy Jason drove out in the NAPA Econoline van during a psycho stormy night and went way the EFF out in the middle of nowhere (about 10 minutes from where I now live ironically) and I scored my first game, Ironman Offroad 3p for $3 Benjamins!! On the way home me and my childhood friend Jason are going on and on about all the games we used to play at the arcades and how dope it was that I got an Offroad! Get home safely, BUT, getting up to my second floor apartment was a MOTHER EFF and with four guys we got it ALL the way to the top of the stairs and found it couldn't make the turn!! (I didn't know how to remove control panel!) We actually the damn Ironman 3p over a balcony rail where if we dropped it she would have dropped 15 feet! We were struggling, slipping, not sure if we would get it over the rail without dying or dropping it, and out of nowhere my Hispanic neighbor hears us outside barking and comes in with the gansta' muscle to help us get it inside! After that and he helped us put it in my house I smoked him the fattest fatty with my friends and their help and couldn't believe it actually made it into the apartment!! Must have played Ironman Offroad for 3 or 4 hours the first night, and nearly every night for a week at least!
 
Karl's Story

Karl is crazy awesome! Haha.

My story isn't that interesting. Long story short, I've always been a Nintendo gamer. Have all sorts of Nintendo collectibles, consoles, and games. Watched King of Kong and thought it would be pretty sweet to own a DK machine. Stumbled across a deal on CL and restored that baby to minty form. Arcadejunkie and Jow both recommended KLOV so I joined and learned so much from many of you guys since then: Restoration tips, resources, attending CAX, etc. I've been able to form a humble collection and I'm loving every minute of it.
 
Writing the software for them back in the 80's.

I always wanted one of the games I worked on, so I started bulding a MAME rig. Then I found the arcade game section on EBay. It was a kid in a candy store moment for me.

ken
 
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