I agree about the horribleness of Japanese game arcades, but that actually can be an attraction if you’re in the right (or wrong?) frame of mind. I’ve dropped into “game centers” quite a few times over the years—usually just to use the restroom, though occasionally to look around. While arcades in the suburbs can be just annoying with the noise and teenagers, those in the scuzzier areas of big cities—Shimbashi and Kabukicho in Tokyo, Isezakicho in Yokohama, Nishinari in Osaka—can have an atmosphere of life-on-the-skids ennui all their own. I remember, one weekday afternoon, watching several middle-aged guys silently sitting at a horse racing game—something like the ones in [1] and [2]—in the dim basement of a run-down building in Shimbashi. It looked like they had been there all day. What a way to spend one’s life.
I haven’t been in any arcades for several years, but apparently they have been no-smoking since April 2020 [3, in Japanese].
[1] https://lineblog.me/mssp/archives/5037607.html