Welcome to Location Watch, a special series of posts that curates news about recent arcade business openings from around the world, into one place. The last time that we had one of these posts was back at the beginning of June. Thanks to our various readers for sharing information on locations, along with other news sites like RePlay Magazine and InterGame Online.
As mentioned that last time, things are a bit tough out there, at least in the States. RePlay recently published a survey of how business has been going for operators out here, and a majority said things have been pretty sour compared to this same time last year. I haven’t been polled by anyone, but I would throw my own hat into that ring. It’s been an unusually slow summer, and I have made worse-than-expected numbers in general since November of last year.
Despite the turbulent business conditions though, there has still been some growth to report on. Let’s see what has opened out there:
North America
Fat Cats (Clinton, UT)
Normally I would save this for the FEC links, but it’s rare that I have the opportunity to be there for a grand opening of a new location in-person. Thanks to Zach Harmon of Fat Cats, a chain based in Utah but with locations in Idaho and Arizona, I was invited to attend the launch of their ninth branch up in Weber County, UT (not far from Ogden in the Northern part of the state, if you know where that is). While I snapped some photos, this video tour is better. The game room was designed by Betson Utah – whose sales manager (Steve Lamoureaux) I have worked with – and they also have a Drakons and Mega Shot on the way.
One interesting tidbit that Zach shared with me while giving me the tour is how LAI Games’ and Ace Amusements’ Air Strike has been one of their top earners at another location. This was the first time that I had seen one out in the wild.
Arcade Monsters (San Diego, CA)
Already well-known in Florida, Arcade Monsters have expanded their set-up to the opposite side of the US, holding a soft opening during the San Diego Comic Con event. This brings “two entire floors of arcade & pinball” to the area, opening on a $20/day free play model. The setup is a little atypical from your standard arcade, separating the fun out into different rooms on the second floor where you’ll find a variety of games housed in Vewlix (or Vewlix-like) cabs, then some older candy cabs mixed in with the new dedicated stuff. They also have a strong focus on Japanese games, including some titles that I’m not sure have even appeared at Round1USA. That said, they still have plenty of Americana around, from pinball machines to video titles from the 80s and 90s – it’s a little odd to see a TRON next to a Batman Forever though :P. They also have some indie titles, like Killer Queen Arcade, Spooky Smashers, Black Emperor, and Nidhogg II:
And that’s just on the second floor – the first floor is more open and has a stronger FEC-style flavor with plenty of modern arcade games from the likes of Raw Thrills, Sega, more pinball, and so on. The above tour is a great one to check out in case you can’t make it to this new location in person.
Eastwood (Los Angeles, CA)
While this “country infused” bar is mainly focused on the food and beverage aspects of their bar, they still have what looks to be a fairly sizable game room, with a Connect 4 Hoops, Halo Fireteam Raven, Space Invaders Frenzy, StepManiaX, and a row of sports or ball toss redemption games. Also, in checking out their official Instagram page, I spied a sighting of AH site friend Joey Mucha hopping onto the place’s mechanical bull attraction – perhaps he’s the one furnishing all the games as their operator?
Pinball Planet (Parma Heights, OH)
Due to the slightly tougher conditions for operators at the moment, more costly mixed-use locations like bowling alleys seem to have been feeling the pinch most – among others, the family-ran Southland Lanes in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, closed down this summer, taking its arcade and selection of pinballs with it. But this is a more positive case where those games have quickly found a new home at a new location – Pinball Planet in Parma Heights, less than two miles away from where the bowling alley once was. Alongside those rescued games, it sounds like they acquired some seating and attraction features from it too, as well as a brand new John Wick pinball from Stern. Find them at their Facebook page here.
The Last Quarter (Malvern, AR)
Here’s a new hybrid of a game store (i.e., selling console products) and arcade, where they have a selection of pinball machines, a pool table, and number of video games, including Cruis’n World, DoDonPachi, House of the Dead 2, NFL Blitz 2000, and several others as well. Their Facebook presence can be found here. Arcade fans in Malvern will also be pleased to hear an existing location, Game Craz, has moved to a second, bigger venue. Arkansas Money & Politics has a good report on both places.
Satellite Pinball Lounge (Oakland Park, FL)
Back to the pinball, down in Florida outside Ft. Lauderdale, a new lounge focused on it has opened their doors to the world. Created by the owners of a local indie arcade bar, Satellite Pinball Lounge boasts a wide selection of newer games, including Godzilla, James Bond, JAWS, John Wick (again), Labyrinth, Pulp Fiction, RUSH, Star Wars (Stern), Stranger Things, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and plenty more. From this it looks like they are also strictly offering pinball. You can find them on Instagram.
Sidequest Arcade Bar (Great Falls, MT)
Montana isn’t a place that pops up on our arcade radar too often, but now in the town of Great Falls, you can get the arcade bar experience from this new spot. Sidequest doesn’t have a huge selection of games at the moment, but they do have a couple of video games (Super Bikes 2 and an older shmup called Viper Phase 1) and five pins (Alien, Foo Fighters, Indiana Jones, Mandalorian, TMNT). Here’s their Facebook.
FEC Openings & Updates
Dave & Busters Addison, IL Closes – It’s always a shame to report on closures but this is notable for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s among D&B’s oldest locations – it was only their sixth ever opening way back in 1995. But it has most famously served as a big location test hotspot over the years. Remains to be seen whether their new ex-Gameworks Schaumburg location or the upcoming nearby one in Lombard (which are presumably a part of why Addison shut) will become that in its absence…
D&B Open New Locations In Barboursville, WV + Johnson City, NY – on the brighter side of things, they are opening more than one new location to make up for that loss
D&B’s Store Of The Future Concept Also Comes To The Winston-Salem, NC + Euless, TX Locations
Nikkei Covers R1USA’s Big Push
Tilted 10 Replaces A Former Round1 Location In Louisville, KY
Main Event Come To Kentwood, MI
PINSTACK Opens Their Largest Location In North Rim, San Antonio
New Alley Cats FEC For Burleson, TX
Betson Completes Two New Installations For The Rush Funplex In Pleasant View, UT, And Shawnee, KS
AVS Companies Installs At Bavarian Lodge Inn, Frankenmuth, MI + Smash Park, NE
Emagine Theater (MN) Also Gets A Renovated Game Room
Rab’s Country Lanes In Staten Island, NY Adds A Game Room Too
Full Tour Of The Hasbro Gameroom By S1ckH4nds
Decoy High-Tech Game Bar Opens In Gainsville, GA – Not exactly an arcade, but still LBE as we call it.
Note that RePlay Magazine has reported several closures, mainly among bowling alleys with game rooms, over the past couple of months. If there is any kind of arcade/amusement location near you that you like, and you have the means to throw a few coins their way, don’t make it just a single year event. Let’s keep places open by supporting them all year round!
Europe
High Score #6 (Bracknell, UK)
The UK has a few freeplay arcade chains now, and one in particular continues to expand into new places as High Score have opened a new location in Bracknell, London over there. Some on the UK arcade scene have grievances with their unusually steep pricing model (£11.95 for just one hour of freeplay…), but it must be working out fine for them as this is now their sixth and biggest ever location up to this point. The games selection is their usual mix of newer experience-focused pieces, including some you don’t see too often (e.g. Wahlap’s Speed Driver 5).
Ready Player One Arcades (Eastleigh, UK)
For a new UK freeplay arcade entirely, this independent one opened a month ago in Eastleigh, Southampton. Though also priced at £11.95 for entry, their fee appears to be unlimited time, so does offer better value than High Score above. In terms of the lineup shown on their Facebook, it is a slightly less expansive offering than them for now, mainly consisting of redemption, multigame cabinets, a few 2010s pieces from Raw Thrills, and one of the older Mario Kart Arcade GP entries. However, there is also Sega Rally 2, Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, and Virtua Cop 3 as nice standouts.
Waffle & More (Crewe, UK)
Though not their main focus, this dessert restaurant’s ‘More’ means arcade games, so is of a little note here. The aftermarket multigame machines are again a slightly disappointing, but over to the left there does seem to be some uncommon 2000s titles (e.g. Chase H.Q. 2) and an older Japanese version of DDR. That Point Blank 2 on the right looks like an interesting Sega cabinet conversion too…
Arcade Planet (Seville, Spain)
Usually we save locations that have moved to new premises for the updates links, but this is a pretty noteworthy example. Back in June (just after we published the last Location Watch), one of Spain’s most prominent enthusiast-ran arcades of recent years cut the ribbon on their new 2,000 sq.m digs. According to Arcade Planet this is the biggest in Spain right now, and even the second biggest in Europe overall. This packs in more games than ever before, including older rarities like Magical Truck Adventure to newer imported ones straight out of Japan such as Dancerush. Visit their website here.
Le LAP (Gentilly, France)
Every so often we hear of new community-ran spots popping up for arcade rhythm gamers, and now France’s get a place of their own. Started up by Tina and a few others from the community there in reaction to their disappointment with the current state of the Paris arcade scene, this location in nearby Gentilly features imported Jubeat, Dance Dance Revolution, and DanceRush cabinets owned by players. It’s a small-time thing for now, but it sounds like there are plans of many more to come.
FEC Openings & Updates
Namco Funscape Romford Reopens – looks like they got the first Godzilla VR to reach a UK location as part of the refurbishment
Lane7 Opens In Altrincham, Manchester – mostly bar games, but UK Pump It Up players may well be happy with the Phoenix cabinet
Arcade Club Leeds Gets A Level Up
Sega Amusements Supplies Mulligans, Hemel Hempstead
National Video Game Museum Revamps Their Arcade Offering
Mikado Game Center Europe Offers Their Games At Murchante Navarra, Spain For A Week
S’pace #6 Opens In Liege, Belgium
The 2024 Olympic Village In Paris Had Its Own Arcade Room – lots of those multigame cabinets though…
Asia/Middle East/Oceania
Hakuba Virtual Off Center (Nagano, Japan)
We are a bit late to this special example after games media covered it with much curiosity (partly due to the article by a certain massive VO fan at Forbes), but Virtual On players in Japan have a new community-ran sacred place too. They are a highly dedicated bunch, still supporting the series despite its creator leaving Sega back in 2021 and it not receiving a new entry in arcades since 2001’s Virtual On Force. So this new location by the fans, for the fans, should give them a less expensive way to play than the special controller that costs nearly as much as a PS5… read Game Watch’s report on the place here.
Taito Station (Sapporo, Japan)
Taito have been looking into more attraction-based entertainment to drive interest in their locations of late, and this new one up in Sapporo is a good example of that; its entire third floor is dedicated to a horror experience. For arcade fans though, some will be happy to hear they are still honouring their own produce by stocking it with Battle Gear 4 Tuned and Sonic Blast Heroes 2. It’s a slight shame we don’t have newer versions of these from them, but it is nice they keep their last entries around in the meantime.
We mentioned this in our last Newsbytes, but Taito have also recently opened Bootverse, their entry into the ‘active entertainment’ FEC trend that we have seen Bandai Namco and CA Sega Joypolis also tap into. This one is particularly notable for the amount of attractions integrating Taito’s video game properties though.
GiGO Arcade Café (Osaka, Japan)
GiGO have been busy as ever with their ever-growing empire of locations via their various buyouts. They’ve been opening a few new standard locations too, like this new one in Omiya, but have also been experimenting here and there. Earlier this year we heard about one new GiGO with a bar, and now we have “GiGO Arcade Café”, fusing their location concept with a café/restaurant. As well as the cranes and a slew of ‘socialtainment’ machines that will go down well with that crowd (Sega’s Dartslive, Konami’s Scotto etc), they have also got a few newer tabletop cabinets running retro titles like Metal Slug 2.
Elsewhere, GiGO have of course bought out NEN as covered back in June, but they are expanding into Asia more themselves too with the establishment of GiGO Vietnam. And in their homeland they have also been rebranding and renovating existing locations they’ve acquired through their subsequent buyout deals since the big Sega one. This one looks particularly big, and even kept its very nice OutRun 2 SP SDX…
Cow Play Cow Moo Pluit Village (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Another rising chain elsewhere in Asia is Cow Play Cow Moo, who we’ve mentioned one or two times before, and their latest branch in Jakarta, Indonesia has a whole host of new rhythm games out of Japan, one of the best that country has ever seen from the sounds of players reactions. Those aren’t the complete focus though – lots of cranes and pushers too, and some other video pieces.
Taiko Labs (Seoul, South Korea)
While Japan gets a Virtual On-focused location, South Korea now has one entirely dedicated to Taiko No Tatsujin. Apparently the demand for the game there is such that this is a viable business option! All their cabinets have streaming stations hooked up to them, which would be an interesting thing to see when the game finally releases out West. Find their official account on Twitter/X here.
FEC Openings & Updates
Leisureland Opens The Biggest Location In Toyama Prefecture, Japan
Game Apina Comes To Utsunomiya With A Big Kids Card Game Area
Marvelous’ New Pokemon Frienda Inspires ‘Frienda Camp’ Locations
Sega Japan Runs A Limited Time Purikura Spot In Shibuya For Their New ‘Gimmi’ Photo Booth
Ruby Star In Changsha, China Is A Crane Arcade With Actual Video Games
This Chinese Location Has A Logo Looking Like Data East’s Old One…
Funworld Opens In Bali, Indonesia, Mostly Cranes And Redemption
Are any of these locations near you? Then be sure to go out and visit them! Doors can’t stay open on the basis of likes and hashtags.
Coming Soon
Dave & Busters Coming To Lombard, IL – as mentioned earlier, this appears to be one of the locations taking the place of the now-closed Addison, with some staff transferring there
Round1USA’s Opening Window In Houston, TX Confirmed
Thunder Lanes In Neoga, IL Has An Upcoming Arcade Area
Free Play Arcade Bar Opening In Taunton, MA This October
Sparks Pinball Gives A Sneak Peek Of Their Upcoming Troy, MI Location
Extra Lives Arcades Sets Up In Paragould, AR
Sega Amusements Returns To Wolverhampton With Superbowl UK – Certain UK readers may remember this was where they had one of their earliest Sega World locations
Another Sega Prize Zone And Superbowl UK Headed To Aldershot
Leeds, UK Gets The Next NQ64 Barcade
Super Game Shack, A New Arcade In The Works For Leicester, UK
Highest Score Arcade Opening Soon In Salisbury, Wiltshire UK
