On this day of thanks…

Thanksgiving might be a US holiday and while we get both visitors and stories from all over the world, I see no problem in expressing some gratitude today before going out and having a feast with the family. You don’t need a specific day to be grateful but at least this gives me an easy excuse to express some thanks – hopefully without sounding cheesy.

Thanks to all of you who come by and support the site, whether you leave a comment or are just here to read the stories. We’re approaching our 4th anniversary on December 3rd and I hope that in this time we’ve managed to have a positive effect. I really have to thank the original creator of Arcade Heroes, who still wishes to remain anonymous, as this has been such an honor and opportunity for myself. Thanks to everyone who supports us with news, links, information, corrections, etc. and for everyone in this business who have kept coin-op gaming going despite false notions of it being dead. Thanks to our new sponsors who have joined us this year which will make running the site a little easier since these sites aren’t free (and it makes it easier to justify why I’ve spent so much time online looking for stories and writing about these things 😉 ). Thanks to my family for their continued support as well, not just of this endeavor but of my arcade location that I run every day. It has required a nearly superhuman amount of patience through the stressful ups and downs that come with running a small business that is not only in the middle of a terrible economy, but it’s a kind of business some go out of their way to preach that it doesn’t exist anymore, as though that’s helpful to us who are working at it on a daily basis.

Thanks certainly have to go to The Stinger Report who has sent along nearly 1000 news stories to us over the years. They’ve been integral in helping us make it this far. In fact they’ve sent along a couple of links for me to share with you today, which are effectively newsfeeds 959 and 960.

The first link is to another Asian based amusement convention, although I’m not entirely sure which one. Unfortuately none of the pictures get really close up to the products, they are more just a view of each booth. A few of the companies seen there were at IAAPA as well, although their booths were much larger at this show. [Link]

Second is a story of a guy in China who paid $15,000 for 10 minutes of playing an MMO on a screen the size of a football field out in public. That sure tops paying around $1 for a certain amount of time on an arcade game that often varies depending upon your skill. [Link]

Also we have another link to some IAAPA pictures from Fillmore Games, based in Japan. Thank you Tosh! [Link]

That’s not everything, I’ve got a little more news regarding Taito for today but it will need another post, so stay tuned.