2016 Year-In-Review – New Games, New Locations, Top Stories

We are in the last week of 2016. With that, it’s time to look back at the past 12 months to remind us of what went down in the wonderful world of arcades.

2016 Year-In-Review Video

But first, here is a video that I put together to give us a visual look at the games released this year; what is coming in 2017; new arcade locations that we reported on and our Top 3 Stories.

2016 Game Releases

In case you are wanting to look back at some of these games, check out our 2016 New Releases page. The releases page is always a popular one although I didn’t do the best job at keeping the Asian and European market pages up-to-date this year. I am working on the 2017 Releases page…it is already looking like 2017 is going to be slightly stronger than 2016, solely in terms of quantity. Quality, we’ll always have to wait and see.

Top 3 Stories

I personally find it interesting to see which stories were the most read during any given year. For 2016, our top 3 were:

#3 – New Details on Cruis’n Blast By Raw Thrills & Nintendo

#2 – IAAPA Day 1: Impressions on Daytona 3, Cruis’n Blast, The Walking Dead, Maximum Tune 5 & More

#1 – Unknown NEO GEO MVS Fighting Game Discovered & Dumped (turned out to be called Dragon’s Heaven)

The #1 post actually ended up being our most viewed post in Arcade Heroes history, beating out the previous best of our Sega Rally 3 Hands-on preview.

As for the #1 video of the year, here it is again in case you missed it:

And for that #1 design, Wheel of Fish…click here!

Also, I’ve seen a few people buying up The Arcade Experience book that I released in 2013. The digital version is only $4 now…thanks! I have been working on that Almanac I mentioned on our 10 year anniversary video and one other fun project but it has been a very, very busy year with more pressing matters side-tracking my focus.

My heart-felt thanks to all of you readers out there for making this site what it is. The 2016 year has been an interesting one for this business but things are certainly not coming to a halt. Have a great New Years and here’s to an awesome 2017!