Stride Gum’s Save the Arcades competition is now over and they have announced a winner. Where there were four arcades across the US to choose from, one walked away with the $25,000 prize and that was Arcade UFO in Austin, TX. When you look at the final votes it appears that StarBase Arcade in San Fransisco, CA was fairly close to first place, with Star Worlds Arcade and Game Galaxy coming in a distant 3rd and 4th place, respectively.
As to what Arcade UFO will do with the prize money, we don’t know that yet but if you look at their current game selection they already have a number of high-profile games available so it should be both interesting and exciting to see what they will be able to do with this. We extend our congratulations to Arcade UFO and hope that they will be able to continue to provide not only a great venue for players to hang out at but to stand as a great example for others out there to look to. Also our thanks once again to Stride Gum for this undertaking. It is notable however that Stride is not finished here – they have announced that starting next month they “…will ask gamers to nominate the arcade they think is worthy of the next Save the Arcades crusade.” which will happen sometime in 2010 under the name “Save the Arcades 2”.
[Stride Save the Arcades website] [Arcade UFO website] [Discuss on the Forums]
Starbase is in San Rafael, around 20 mins north of SF. It is not actually in San Francisco.
Just a minor quibble, and congrats to Arcade UFO for taking home the cheddar!