More New Arcades: Tum’s Arcade (UK); Eighty3 Bar Arcade (CAN); 2 New VR Arcades In Utah

News has been dead slow once again. It isn’t fun when you know of something going on behind the scenes but don’t have enough to post about (such as a name, nothing else). Fortunately, there are a few new arcade locations opening up around the world so let’s take a look at what they have to offer.

New Arcade Venues

Tum’s Arcade Opens In Halesowen, England – Across the pond in England comes a new retro arcade that in additional to classic video games also features air hockey, pool tables, pinball and console tournaments. For the video arcade/pinball selection they have: Area 51: Site 4, Baby Pac-Man, Ironman Pinball, No Fear Pinball, Off Road, Thunder, Sega Rally, Terminator 2 Pinball, Time Crisis 2, and more. I have often heard lamentations about the arcade scene in the UK so it is good to see more venues like this popping up over there. Visit Tums Arcade on Twitter.

Eighty3 Bar Arcade Opens In St. John, New Brunswick, Canada – Up in Canada a new bar/arcade is getting ready to open their doors this weekend. Following a familiar pattern of games on free play, just buy a drink as an entry fee, they have a number of classics to enjoy. Those include:  Arkanoid, Defender, Frogger, Galaxian, Ms. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, SF2 Turbo, Tapper, and a few others. Visit Eighty3 Bar Arcade on Facebook.

This weekend Eighty3 Bar Arcade will open at the bottom of Princess St. A total nostalgia bomb for those in the arcade generation. pic.twitter.com/yHrdAHITrt

— Matthew Bingley (@mattybing) September 28, 2016

New VR Arcades

Like the trend of bar/arcades, VR arcades are also becoming a thing as the entry fee for getting VR hardware is nowhere near as high as it is for a video arcade. Today I have news on two new venues that have opened/are opening in my backyard of Utah.

Virtualities (Salt Lake City, UT) – The latest VR venue to open their doors here opened right before the Salt Lake Comic Con event. Called Virtualities, they have opened in a place called The Gateway Mall. Unfortunately that mall has had a rocky track record for amusement businesses. Gameworks opened up a location there in 2014 that only lasted about six months; bar/arcades and Tilt have also went in and failed. Perhaps VR is the ticket around that bad track record. Virtualities also promotes having VR cinema available at different pricing from the gaming. You can visit their website here.

VR Junkies #2 (West Valley City, UT) – The day I was taking games up to the Salt Lake Comic Con event I met two interesting people – the first was Mark Hamill’s stepson Chad, who was in town with his dad and was looking for something to do so he stopped by and played a few games. The second was a guy who asked me business questions about the mall and it turned out that he was in the process of signing a lease to open up a new VR arcade just a few stores down from me (I can see their sign from where I sit as I type this). They have been renovating the location for about a week and I assume they plan on opening Oct. 1st, when rent is due. Their official website is here.

This is actually going to be the second location for the VR Junkies business, the first having opened up in Orem, UT this Summer. As such I assume that they will feature similar pricing and they will be using HTV Vive setups with a particular selection of games. It should be interesting to see how things work with a traditional video arcade and a VR arcade in the same mall (Valley Fair).  Moreso when I move closer to them here in a few months to expand my floor space 😛

For everyone mentioned, we wish them the best of luck in the business! If you are nearby, make sure to go and check them out.