Today, April 8th, has been declared to be National Arcade Day. According to this page, it was set by LAI Games, although I’m not sure why today was picked as that day, as there is no major arcade event that I can find that is tied to this date. But, since non-arcade media is touting it, we might as well tag along.
(I would personally recommend either June 1st or June 27th as the day instead, as at least there are historical events like the founding of Sega, Namco or Atari that fit into those dates. Maybe it was actually the founding date of LAI, which would explain it, although I cannot find out what that is exactly)
National Arcade Day
If you grew up in the 1980s or 90s, then arcades don’t need an explanation. If they were from before your time or haven’t had the good fortune of one being near you, then they have always been social hang-outs where fun, challenge, friendship, and sometimes love can be found. If you were into games in general, arcades provided the epitome of graphics, sound, and game design, setting the stage for what would follow.
To commemorate the day, here’s a few general questions about experiencing arcades in our lives.
What Was Your First Visit To An Arcade?
Growing up in the 1980s myself, I did not visit one until near the end of the decade, but it was a magical place for a kid into video games. My first visit to such a venue was to the long defunct 49th Street Galleria, an FEC that existed in Utah at the time. A best friend at the time had his birthday party there, and I was drawn to the arcade over all of the other things that they had to do there (mini-golf, batting cages, bowling).
It was dark but so appealing, with the games themselves being the attraction that drew you in. I can’t recall if it smelled like cigarette smoke, as this was in the age before indoor clean air acts, and when restaurants had smoking and non-smoking sections. Unfortunately it was so long ago that many of those details have been muddied by time; I can’t recall much about what I played either, as we were only given a small number of tokens and I spent them all pretty quickly (I think I played Ikari Warriors, but died very quickly). While I was “coin fishing” around for more, I stumbled across a game that perhaps could be said to have drastically changed the course of my life – Midway’s Discs of TRON.
I don’t believe that I had an idea of what TRON was at the time, although again since this was so long ago, I can’t be 100% sure (I know that I hasn’t seen the movie at this point, but I do know that I read this book about TRON at a friend’s house – I just can’t remember if that was before or after this arcade visit). Either way, something about this game really drew me in, to the point that I doubled my efforts to find a token. I did, but I had no idea what I was doing and died pretty quickly again. Still, something about the game stuck with me, as I had never seen anything like it at home, a friend’s, or at my cousin’s house (for the most part, I played games at the latter two, since we didn’t have money for new game systems usually). I still wouldn’t see the movie for a while after that, needing to wait for a broadcast TV event to show it, but when it did, that helped put me on the path of a little arcade obsession.
Do you remember your first visit to an arcade? Tell us about it in the comments!
What Was Your First Arcade Game That You Played?
On this question, I’m really not sure – it might have been Ikari Warriors as mentioned above, but it’s also very much possible that I played something else on the same visit which I just can’t recall nowadays. I also likely had encountered a machine before then when stopping by at a 7-11, as most of those convenience stores had a pair of machines to enjoy, but all of my memories on that are also very vague.
One slight embarrassment for me is that because there was no arcade place really close to my house, I just didn’t have many opportunities to visit them as a kid. As mentioned, most of my friends had game consoles though, and I played a lot of Atari 2600, 800 and NES games that way. I eventually got a 2600 for myself and soon after that a Game Boy (but this was about the time that the SNES was about to hit the market), but I had no clue that most of the games that I had a lot of fun playing on these systems – Asteroids, Pac-Man, Double Dragon, BattleZone, Contra, Congo Bongo, Star Trek: TOS, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, even Zaxxon – had all started with much superior versions in the coin-op space. I’d learn that further down the line, particularly when the internet became a thing, but also with some visits to arcades as a teenager.
(As a side note, I did once bizarrely have a guy threaten me with physical violence because the Ninja Gaiden which I used to own did not play the way he remembered it. That’s because he played the different NES version. A lot of people who grew up with the NES also thought that games like Contra or Gradius or Double Dragon were all original to that system, even when they were really not.)
Moving on, the first time I came across BattleZone when I was 13 had myself hooked, even though there were far more advanced games around at the time. To be fair, I did also play all the way through Sega’s Die Hard Arcade on that visit with my friend – it and T-Mek were so much fun, and that visit to an arcade solidified my desire to operate one, which as many of you know eventually happened.
In the event that like me, you can’t remember which was the first one that you played, I could throw out there the question: What was the first arcade game that you ever owned?
For me, that was 1942 and Zaxxon, which I bought from a local place that had a bunch of games for cheap. This was in 2000 and I already had dreams of starting up an arcade, so I started small. 1942 worked great and was $250; Zaxxon had a cracked circuit board for the monitor so it was only $75. It took me several years before I found someone who could fix that though. I no longer have either game, as they never were great performers while in my place, but I still have good memories of enjoying them.
As one last note, we are adding a new entrant into the Arcade Hall of Fame today. As you might have heard, Yoshihisa Kishimoto, the former Data East and Technos Japan developer, director and creator who was behind games like Double Dragon, The Combatribes, Block Out and more, passed away this week. We salute him for his efforts and the joy he brought to millions through those creations. RIP.
Once again to close out, happy National Arcade Day 🙂
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