#arcades

Barcade was the highlight of my last trip to NY. I <3 it so much.

"Arcades are videogaming’s’ public installations, a shared focal point for performance, drama and wonder in front of an impromptu assembled audience. The best arcade games encourage crowds to gather and watch a player perform the game. Sometimes the crowd watches because, like seeing a beginner play Chopsticks at a publicly-stationed piano, so the man butchering Dance Dance Revolution counters his hopelessness with endearing committal and a winning smile. "

"I was reading about arcades and how you'd have to queue to play popular games as well as follow rules like no throwing in fighting game or the others wouldn't let you play. This seems rather strange. The money cost must have gotten expensive pretty quickly as well. I'm not old enough to have been to them when they were around so I'm curious about what they were like."

"As I have been saying for a long time now, developers just need to make good games that operators can afford and people will play them."

"The original arcades were magic circles: places circumscribed from everyday life where you could perform a sacrifice and achieve the experience of another world"

"What made the game so fun was the fact that your money was always at stake. A mistake meant that you had to reach into your pocket and insert more money."