I’m not sure if this will be the last post we’ll be running about Arcade Infinity and Chinatown Fair, but it seems likely. Both locations are closed now, although there is still a little hope for Chinatown Fair in moving to a different location within New York. It’s terrible to see venues like these closing down and it’s due to a variety of reasons but if there is a place near you you want to see open, don’t let years pass by between visits.
First is another video tribute to Arcade Infinity by Hubert Cheng; the next is for Chinatown Fair via Arcade Hunters.
Just wanted to let you guys know the Ode To Chinatown Fair video is from the guys at Frame-Advantage.com. I just had the video up on our site since we weren’t able to make it there for the final days.
This is quite disappointing. I’ve been planning a Japanese-style arcade in Northern Virginia for a while now and this doesn’t bode well for such a thing. At least these seemed to be legal based as opposed to a lack of income. One by one these Valhallas of arcade gaming are falling…
There is the legal angle at play here but I think that the lack of support from the customers has a role as well. Arcade Infinity would have fought on against the legal problems if they saw the support there but I heard that after that big AI party, sales dropped again(this was while many people thought that AI would be staying open) and the owner felt it wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. I’m sure that Round 1 is one big thing that damaged them. Hopefully it’s the opposite at CTF where they will have seen strong enough support to keep moving on. Unless it’s too big a of a problem to open up a new arcade in NYC, which wouldn’t surprise me.
Which is why it’s important for us to keep trying to spread the word about arcade games. And when you open your location, don’t rely solely upon word-of-mouth advertising, which is what many places do. You can’t control word-of-mouth ads, and they aren’t effective at being a constant reminder to people. Hopefully legal problems will diminish as well as they often stop the existence of a new place dead in it’s tracks.