The Forgotten Magic of Arcades

You push through the glass doors and step into a dark room. Rows of hulking machines loom before you. Pings and dings punctuate the air as ghostly lights illuminate the shadows, like a haunted house in a scary movie. But you’re not scared—you’re excited. You see your friends crowded around a machine that’s taller than you. As you rush over to them, the quarters you’ve been saving all week clink in your pocket like diamonds.

What is this strange place?

It’s an arcade in the year 1980.

Today, we can play video games almost anywhere—in our rooms, on park benches, at bus stops. And the people we play with don’t need to be sitting next to us. In fact, they don’t even need to be in the same country as us. But back in the early 1980s, if you wanted to play video games with your friends, you probably went to an arcade. (There were home gaming consoles, but at the time, arcade games tended to be more fun.)

Arcades were incredibly popular, especially among kids and teens. In an arcade, there might be dozens of games lined up side by side, each one housed in a “cabinet.” The games were coin-operated, which meant you needed quarters to play them. Aside from the offerings of a vending machine, no food was served. After all, you did not go to an arcade to eat—you went there to play.

The goal of early arcade games was simple: Score points. You and your friends would wait in line to play your favorites, competing for the highest scores. Top scorers were immortalized on what were known as leaderboards. Seeing your name take the number 1 spot? That was the ultimate triumph.

By today’s standards, early arcade games were pretty basic, with minimal graphics and simple sound effects. But people couldn’t get enough. They loved shooting space rocks in Asteroids, hitting the ball back and forth across the screen in Pong, and gobbling up dots while trying to outrun hungry ghosts in Pac-Man.

By 1981, thousands of arcades dotted America. The video game business had exploded into an $8 billion industry—the equivalent of about $22 billion today.

Little did anyone know that the world of video games was on the brink of disaster.

By 1983, people had grown tired of playing the same handful of games over and over. Companies were churning out new ones as fast as possible. But little time or thought was put into many of these games, and as a result, many just weren’t fun. Some barely worked. Others were so difficult that new players were too intimidated to even try them. At the same time, America was going through a recession, and people didn’t have as much money for extras like video games.

Game companies began to fail. And by 1985, it seemed as though the time of arcades and video games was ending.

But then something incredible happened: A new home gaming console called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was introduced. This console and others that followed, like the Sega Genesis, were fast, easy to use, and powerful. They flew off store shelves. Meanwhile, new and better games, like Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda, were being developed for these amazing new consoles—games that far outshone the ones in arcades. And best of all, you could play them without leaving home.

In the coming decades, video games soared in popularity. Companies competed to release the most advanced consoles. And all kinds of new games were being created for all kinds of gamers. There was John Madden Football for sports lovers, Tetris for puzzle masters, and Spyro the Dragon for fantasy fans.

As for arcades? Their moment of glory had come to an end. Though arcades and arcade games are still around today, they do not exist on the scale they once did, back when it seemed you could find an arcade on every corner.

Still, when we open a game on our phone or pick up a controller, we should thank those early arcade games. Without them, the games we know and love today might not exist.

It’s a Friday afternoon, and you just got home from school. You’re playing your favorite game, NBA 2K21, and you’re playing against people from all over—your friend who moved to California, a new classmate you just met at school, and your cousin in Michigan. As you play, you joke around and chat about your lives.

You glance at your dog, Pancake, who is staring at you expectantly as you sink a three-pointer. You decide you’ll take him for a walk after one last slam-dunk.

Today, such a scene is common. But not so long ago, it would have been impossible. Twenty-five years ago, playing video games was usually a solitary activity. Sure, you could invite a few friends over to play Super Mario Bros., but most of the time, you played by yourself. You might play on your Game Boy or on your TV, or you could wait your turn to use the family computer. And you probably had only a handful of games to choose from.

In the early 2000s, however, video games began to change dramatically.

First came the internet, which had been expanding since the 1990s. The internet made it possible for computers in different places to connect and share information. For video games, it opened a new world of possibility. By connecting a console to the internet, gamers no longer had to be in the same room to play with each other. Now, players from around the world could easily meet up online to play all kinds of games. This led to the rise of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the mid-2000s. (Fortnite is a popular MMO today.)

After the internet came smartphones, which changed the way we play video games again. You no longer needed a Game Boy or a home console to join in on the fun. Now you could play all kinds of games right on a phone. What’s more, games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush Saga enticed a new audience of people who would not have considered themselves “gamers” before. Given how accessible video games have become, perhaps it’s not surprising that nearly 70 percent of Americans now play them.*

In 2021, the world of video games is more connected, more social, and more dynamic than ever before. We have thousands of games to choose from, and we can play them from just about anywhere. We can gather a squad and parachute into Fortnite’s Misty Meadows from our couches, score a goal on our best friend in FIFA 21 while waiting for the bus, or head to the beach with a few friends in Animal Crossing in the car on the way to Grandma’s house. And we can play these games on all different platforms—phones, tablets, computers, consoles.

So what effect are all these games having on us? Experts say that video games can be a healthy way to relax, socialize, and learn. But as with anything, moderation is key. If gaming interferes with regular life—if you’re missing meals, not getting enough sleep, or canceling plans—it’s time to scale back.

What’s next for video games? As technology continues to evolve, gaming will too. Experts predict game streaming services will soon become the norm, making it as easy to play a new game as it is to listen to a new song.

Games will likely become even more lifelike too. For example, artificial intelligence could replace scripted narratives. In other words, instead of reciting lines from a prewritten script, characters in video games may be able to “think” of how to respond to you on their own.

In truth, however, video games are advancing so rapidly that there is no telling what they might look like decades from now. Maybe on Friday afternoons in the future, we’ll be using holograms instead of screens. And maybe Pancake will be able to join in on the fun.

Virtual fetch, anyone?

^{*2018 report “Gamer Segmentation” by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research}

^{This article was originally published in the September 2021 issue.}