The Life and Death of the American Arcade

Quite an interesting article. I hadn’t known about the crusade against the pinball machine, or that New York governor Fiorello LaGuardia took such delight in literally smashing the seized machines. Or that the arcade’s death had less to do with changing consumer preferences and more to do with crusades on behalf of the nation’s youth.

Jim

This article is such a great illustration of how governments reject and hassle new industries precisely because they create uncertainty for the status quo. Government is, even when it comes to pinball, a force against progress. Great find on the article.
http://twitter.com/royals4lyfe Eddie Royal

As a young adult, this article really puts into perspective the fact that people have always used the fear of the “corruption of youth” as an impetus for government intervention. Starting in the early 20th century, when the progressivism ball got rolling, freedom basically had no chance of surviving.

I mean, it’s already laughable to think of the “noble” government confiscating kegs of alcohol in the 1920′s and smashing them in the name of “public safety”. But pinball machines? Really? Fiorello LaGuardia was a true progressive hero.

I also can’t believe that there was such outrage over video games in 1983. Psychologists worried about the “intensity of the experience”? Seriously? Graphics back then could be generously described as pixelated crap.
http://www.facebook.com/kevin.kaylor.7 Kevin Kaylor

I don’t know what exactly killed the arcades, but arcades is cheaper in the short term then consoles. Even handhelds like the playstation Vita are expensive. In Cali many arcades are being replaced by your typical retail stores or suburban homes. Maybe the government had something to do with it, maybe the intellectual property laws, I don’t know. There is definitley a need for arcades especially for people who wants to kill time and spend a $1.00. And it’s so much cheaper then spending $300-400 on a freaking console.
geoih

The “arcade” has simply become geographically meaningless. Kids today go to a world wide arcade on the internet. My kids regularly play games with kids all over the world through their Xbox and Playstation. Who needs to travel to a potentially dirty and dangerous arcade when there are a half million people playing Halo in complete safety right in my own home. You don’t need a physical arcade when there is a virtual one sitting in the family room connected to millions of other people all over the world.
Franklin

Nicely stated, and exactly the point of the article. Your observation reflects the reality, as it has sadly been since the dawn of time. I would only annotate “how governments reject and hassle new industries” with “how governments reject and hassle industries and people, old and new.”

The troglodytic, mis-characterized “progressives” respond to these stories with, “Good point; perhaps there were some overreactions to arcades. Let’s fix this by making government even bigger so it can monitor itself. We need another arcade committee.”

But, uhh, I don’t play pinball and don’t care how other folks spend their time.

“Well, that’s too damn bad. We now have an arcade committee. We need to pay these people, and you’re gonna fund it. And if you refuse to ante up, we’re taking your house.”

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but this is precisely how taxation operates, at the national, state and local level.

Ask a leftist if this is ethical, fair, civilized. They’ll rationalize it and follow their masters, to their very last breath. And we have fewer “tilt mechanisms” to suspend their greed.
Anonymous

You’re right about dirty arcades. Just like restaurants, they keep the lights dim so you can’t see how filthy the places are.
TJ

Before my family finally allowed my brothers and I to get a video game console, the arcade at pizza parlors were the only places we could get to play as little kids. We always looked forward to the end of every sports club season because the banquets were held at pizza parlors. There were a lot of awesome games, but our favorite was Super Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong. We’d end up sinking $5-7 in quarters before our pizzas were ready. Interestingly enough, there is a modern arcade in the city I live in, but it seems the convenience and comfort of your own home makes it hard for it to compete unless someone comes up with an ingenious idea for a new arcade game.
The argument that video games corrupt youth hasn’t changed. Yet it’s hard to imagine how youth could become corrupted by a pinball machine or by playing too much Defender (those pixels are too realistic! Somebody might actually want to fly a real plane like that and kill someone!) It’s another example of people scapegoating a specific product rather than placing responsibility on the individuals themselves.
Deuce

Thanks for the link to an amazing article Tom. The demonization of video games as a political tool is an interesting take. Like so many things it shoots the messenger. Is spending hours playing violent video games a hazard to the minds of the young and impressionable? Probably. But it also the product of so many factors from societal norms, to parenting, to a lack of any greater sense of purpose. Video games themselves are just a bunch of numbers passing through a logic chip. In and of themselves they can scarcely be blamed for these greater things. Much like the gun debate, we can argue that guns can be dangerous, but these dangers always require the involvement of a misguided human. And that key element is the product of many many things that DO need addressing (though not by disingenuous politicians), but cannot be blamed on the guns or video games themselves.

Demonizing video games also requires denial of the world we currently occupy. We live in a computer age that has rendered many of the challenges of thousands of years of human civilizations, ‘virtually’ nonexistent. And few could deny that the first encounter with computer technology that many of us had was with video games. Early arcade games ran fairly simple, repetitive programs, and accordingly the early video game legends mentally decoded the patterns in these games in order to dominate them. This interaction of human versus machine intelligence was unique in all of history, and unleashed the curiosity and creativity that drove the rapid advancement of the computer age. From my generation, I remember many kids who started off with PacMan, moved to Atari consoles, then ultimately made the jump to the early Tandy computers, where they began to program their own scripts, simple games, and crude programs. Not unlike the tone generating machines in the 70s prompted guys like Jobs and Wosniak to toy with integrated circuitry and change the face of technology in a way unprecedented in history. Decades later, with a longer view of the full potential of computer technology, its easier to put into perspective. Earlier video games introduced us to a new frontier. Something much radically different and exciting, with huge potential, and seemingly limitless boundaries. Like many such things (nuclear power), it was destined to strike as much fear in people as hope, as unknowns so often do. But which of these it struck in any given person had more to do with that person, than the technology itself. In the case of politicians it came down to the old adage that the thief always locks his doors. The person most likely to claim the inherent dangers, is usually the person who would use it dangerously. The person who would look upon it favorably is the person who would seek to use it to better mankind. Steve Jobs embraced the technology behind video games at the same time the government was touting its dangers. The next time you are getting a naked scan at the TSA checkpoint, ask yourself who ended up using it for good and who ended up using it for bad. You won’t be surprised by the answer. This lesson is pretty consistently translatable to most everything, and one not to be missed in the context of this excellent piece. I hope you all read it and enjoyed it as I did.

Now I’m off to waste hours (but not quarters) on my mint condition, 1981 Galaga upright. While I take a break from developing innovative clinical laboratory instruments and employing people. Let’s hope my victimized, rotted brain can recover…
http://www.facebook.com/kevin.kaylor.7 Kevin Kaylor

But it cost a premium to use the “world wide arcade”. You have to pay for the console which is like $250 (PS3), the video game itself (probably $50), than the internet access which you pay monthly, and the experience is terrible because there is so much lag. Arcades are not dead, as long as video games are ridiculously expensive, there is always a need for arcades because it’s so much cheaper in the short term. Look it China, they don’t care about copyright laws and they sell video games much cheaper there, but internet cafes are very popular.
Dave Carroll

“Like so many things it shoots the messenger. Is spending hours playing violent video games a hazard to the minds of the young and impressionable? Probably”

Check the recent Reason TV video about this. Youth violence in the last two decades since violent video games have caught on is down. Video game violence is fake. If anything it probably serves as an outlet to get out aggression so that real violence becomes less likely.

That said I do think that the realism of modern games is a bit much and prefer games from around 20 years ago like the original Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombats.