When did fifty cents become the norm?

In my arcade, first video game I uncrated that came set up for 50¢ was the Atari Missile Command.

First pinball machine was Williams Black Knight ( which was about 11 months sooner than Gottliebs Black Hole. )

LTG : )
 
for me it was DL. I still think it might be the most overrated video game of all time.
 
Hard Drivin' / Dragons Lair

Yea, I remember Hard Drivin' and Dragons Lair being 50 cents in every arcade I visited in NJ... I see some people said SF2 and MK2 were 50 cents, but I don't remember those being that much. At least not in NJ arcades...
 
When I saw my first 50 cent game back in 84.
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Needless to say I didn't play it very much being a minimum wage earning high school student.
 
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I remember Star Wars running 50 cents at some places.

I also remember "early release" Star Wars (and, of course, Dragon's Lair) needed two quarters BITD.
I also wished Defender allowed two games for one quarter. But that didn't happen. LOL
 
Actually dl was the beginning of the end for me. Shit game play at twice the cost. I can actually remember the disappointment and disillusioned feeling. Unfortunately then the jamma games started, and many of them seemed "samey". Two player fighters or two player scrolling shooters.

That should be another thread. "True jamma classics".
 
.50 cents? Dragons lair was a dollar in my area when it was first realeased. Didnt become 50 cents till like a year aftwr

I remember it being $1 too when it came out. Was pretty painful, dropping 4 quarters into it only to get slaughtered on the first few screens.

I don't think .50 cents was common until at least 1990. Hard Drivn was 50 cents , iirc.
 
I think I saw Star Trek @ 50 cents first. Then Dragon's Lair.

And Spy Hunter was red hot at my local arcade when it first came out and they were asking 50 cents for it too. There were long lines and they added another one and still had decent lines.

Edit: looks like Star Trek came out in '82 and DL in '83 so my memory is probably correct.
 
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This is a tough one. I can't remember what lunch cost yesterday, yet a video game 35 years ago!

You guys have the memories of an elephant.... ;)
 
When did fifty cents become the norm?
It never became the norm in our arcades.

Early games like Star Wars were 50c when they were new, but after the initial interest waned they reverted to 25c. Dragon's Lair was 50c throughout its run, but other games that came out were still 25c.

In the 90s, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat were initially 50c, but reverted to 25c after interest dropped, anywhere from 1-3 months on average. That same pattern continued with MKII, MK3, Virtua Fighter 2, Cyber Sled, etc. until the end of the 90s when the classic arcades disappeared and were replaced with modern arcades like Dave & Buster's where card readers became the norm.
 
Back in the 80s (in NYC anyway) sit-down games, laserdisc games and sometimes upright driving games were 50 cents. Typical upright games were almost never 50 cents as that was considered a ripoff. The most I ever paid for a single game was 75 cents to play the deluxe version of Sega's Galaxy Force which was a sit-down cabinet which rotated 360° and the seat tilted up and down.
 
Back in the 80s (in NYC anyway) sit-down games, laserdisc games and sometimes upright driving games were 50 cents. Typical upright games were almost never 50 cents as that was considered a ripoff. The most I ever paid for a single game was 75 cents to play the deluxe version of Sega's Galaxy Force which was a sit-down cabinet which rotated 360° and the seat tilted up and down.

Yea, I agree... most if not all upright games in the NJ/NY area were always 25 cents. If they were 50 cents nobody played them...
 
Back in the 80s (in NYC anyway) sit-down games, laserdisc games and sometimes upright driving games were 50 cents. Typical upright games were almost never 50 cents as that was considered a ripoff. The most I ever paid for a single game was 75 cents to play the deluxe version of Sega's Galaxy Force which was a sit-down cabinet which rotated 360° and the seat tilted up and down.

One other case of 50 cents were games which were 2 coins to start and 1 coin to continue like Vindicators.

Has anyone ever encountered a game set to 1 coin 2 credits ? Most classic games have this setting but not surprisingly arcade operators probably never used it.
 
I could be misremembering, but it seems like here bitd, almost all cockpits (Star Wars and Spy Hunter come to mind) were 50 cents.
 
The original ROMs for Dragon's Lair Don't Even Have a one coin setting!

I don't think there is any other game without a one coin option. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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