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Comment by Beltiras | Hacker News Reader

Is the golden age of arcade gaming over? I can't remember going into an arcade psyched about playing any game. It's all dance pads, racing games and FPS. Frogger, Pac-man, Gauntlet, Tetris, Mortal Kombat, Warlock, those were exciting games. Maybe it's just the gramps in me yelling about the kids on my lawn.

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I think the golden age of arcade gaming has been over for quite some time. Consoles and PC gaming have taken the need of the arcade away from a lot of people. Consoles and PCs are now the target for games rather than arcade cabinets.

That said, if you are ever in the Chicago area I suggest you check out Galloping Ghost. It is the largest arcade in the US and they have over 500 arcade games and it is all free play. $15 gets you in the door and then you are free to come and go as you please throughout the day as long as you keep your receipt. My buddy and I would go and play Mortal Kombat II and NFL Blitz for 5 or 6 hours at a time.

They have games you probably never saw in arcades, too, because they didn't see wide distribution. For example, a previous boss of mine used to work for Midway back in the day, and he donated some of the arcade games he worked on to Galloping Ghost. Galloping Ghost helped him restore one of his rarest ones, too, and it's playable there.

More on topic, if you're in the area to check out Galloping Ghost, you can head a little ways Northwest to Schaumburg and go to the 257 restaurant, which is basically a Namco museum and has food, bowling, and a bunch of Namco arcade games and memorabilia.

I would not recommend going to 257 with the intention of having a good time playing arcade games. Their selection is fairly limited. As the name implies, it's good if you just want Pac-Man games, and mediocre for much else.

It's definitely not on the level of Galloping Ghost, for sure. It's more of a place you go to if you want to do a mixture of bowling, food, and (Namco) games.

That's the first time I've heard of such a place, but it sounds wonderful. I imagine you'd need to be pretty handy with your own repairs.

Have they been around for a long time (i.e. are they profitable enough to stay open longterm)?

They are in their 7th year of operation so they aren't going anywhere soon. It is interesting because in the beginning they got all of their cabinets and games from dumps and would fix them up and get them running. They create new cabinets when necessary but as much as possible the things are close to original. They have cabinets for newer games too that are played on a PS3/4 but are abstracted away from the player through the cabinet.

There isn't much of a reason to go to an arcade to play normal games anymore, you can just play those at home. The arcade niche now is games you don't have at home because they use special hardware which is too expensive or unwieldy.

Yes, I think I have become grampa yelling about the kids on my lawn ;)