Today I went to my favorite arcade for the last time.   No, it wasn’t shutting down like most arcades, I just couldn’t bring myself to witness it’s slow demise. Like an ailing loved one, seeing the decay of what used to be is heart wrenching.  What was my home away from home is now a husk of it’s prior majesty.

Before the lights got dim and the pickings got slim, the arcade was thriving.  The day I turned sixteen was the day I had a free pass to game town (not the name of the arcade).  It’s because of my fondness for the place I write not to lament it’s passing, but to remember it’s living; to share what I experienced, in a place few more will share, in this Internet age.

I was not old enough to partake in the first arcade boom.  Instead I was there for the second, Street Fighter 2 inspired boom.  Having lived above a bar that housed a Dragon’s Lair machine, the large and well animated fighters immediately drew me in.   Thus began my love affair with arcade games. I got my fix whenever I could.  Comic book stores, convenience marts, bars; wherever I could con my family into taking me. What I really wanted, though, was to pilgrimage to that video game meccha that is Family Fun Center.

In its hayday the arcade was full of a noisey busyness of thousands of eyecatches vying for coinage. It’s that purposeful chaos that calls to a child. Sure, you could play mini golf there, or win some prize-tickets, but you couldn’t beat pile driving Dracula with Frankenstien while a would-be martial-arts Wolfman had a coin up for nexts.

That’s what I was big on, fighting games. Friday nights and the place was packed; machines lined with tokens, youth clutching movelists, the low murmurs of comparing tactics and talking smack occasionally gave way to a tide of rising voices, infused with the excitement of a comeback combo.  Familiar faces, but you only earned a name with skill.  In this dark room, lit only by active monitors, was community.

Like the rise and fall of mighty nations, that community was destined to break.  With the advent of better-than-arcade consoles, those great amusement houses went south. At the same time, the price for arcade cabinets started to skyrocket.  Arcade owners had a decision to make: go with the tried-and-true money makers of ticket machines and other light amusement, or pitch in the big dough and pick up the latest fighting game.  It was a no – brainer.  Why cater to the smaller audience?

The only respite for the core gamer was to huddle close to their Playstations and Saturns, playing rough ports of games they already beat.  Sporadic visits led to generic apathy, and flaccidly, the boom ended.  That wasn’t the final bell toll for arcades, though.  It would take a revolution to revitalize the arcade industry… a Dance Dance Revolution.

I struggled a bit with the new Bemani revolution.  After the dark and clandestine back rooms of the fighting game boom, the peppy j-pop sounds and bright flashing lights were bit of a culture shock.  The usual early twenties denizens that used to populate the machinoid jungle were replaced by youthful and trendy scenster types.   What once was dominated by one sex now beset by a mix.  As any old-timer I resisted these changes, snubbed the game and it’s fans; dismissing it as nothing more than a passing fad.

It was roughly this time when I managed to catch that fabled of creatures, the girlfriend who is into video games.   She, as a come-lately gamer, hadn’t ever been to an honest-to-goodness arcade, so, naturally, I wished to share this aspect of gaming with her.   That’s where my geezerish disdain was challenged. She wanted to play, I got talked into it, and that’s where my involvement in the third arcade boom started.

Humid, loud and confusing; sometimes a bit smelly, the Bemani section of the arcade was always full.  Chattering boys and girls clumsily flirt as their friends work up a lather, stumbling about a DDR pad.  Instead of eyecatches, conflicting songs, baselines from different machines making all hard to discern.   More than just Bemani, other games were discussed, familiar faces and if you were around enough you were known. No real rivalry, only mutual camaraderie, sometimes a little cheering on. In this hot and sticky room, people activating buttons to timed cues, was also a community.

That leads us to now, the dregs of that Bemani boom are slowly circling the drain.  My hallowed arcade recently obtained a Guitarfreaks V3 cab, but I can hardly make the effort to go and play.  Two DDR machines stand where six used to be, the keyboard mania is missing keys. I heard rumblings of another fighting game wave, but I won’t get my hopes up.  Perhaps the day will come when the arcade is fully phased out, it seems to be happening in many places.  I figure on that day, I will make my true last visit, and perhaps pick up a brick or arcade marquee as memento.