What's in a Name?: Requiem for the Arcade

I don’t know when the time of death was called on the arcade, but it has indeed shed its mortal coil and gone on to the afterlife. While that would be sad in itself, its demise was not fueling my anger. There is an order to the world, and a circle of life. We can expect things to be born, and things to depart. If the arcade departed, it was part of that natural process. Rather, my anger had other origins.

At first, When my kids asked, “Can we go down to the arcade?”, I thought of time spent (my parents would have said ‘ill-spent’) during my youth trying to master the digital environment unfolding on the screen before me, attempting to synchronize the visual and tactile stimuli with physical reactions. Skills would be honed through a Zen-like focus. This nostalgia led to excitement for re-entering this world.

As we descended the steps, a different world emerged. In place of the rows of small-box machines of my youth were these brightly lit, gargantuan machines. Thus, my anger rose not out of loss, but of a bait-and-switch. It was not that the arcade I knew was gone. Rather, it was that an impostor had taken its name, and was now trying to stand in its place. It would be like waking up one morning and finding that “Dad” was gone. In his place was another guy that you had to call “Dad.” And no one spoke of the first guy ever again

The sense of loss was not just about what was no longer there, but what the arcade that I knew represented. The point of the original arcade, along with eating quarters, was to challenge players in this new technological universe. Designers were motivated by their ingenuity, creativity, and programming skills to craft concepts which delivered players to new worlds. You were not a 15 year old kid trying to deal with high school and the awkwardness of growing up; you were a hero defending your world from alien invaders. The high score list provided a goal to attain, with the highest score inspiring awe and wonder about the mystery person who achieved such heights. Even though you may never believe you could reach that level, there always was the next game, the next life, putting another quarter in to see how far you could go. Sure, there may have been time wasted, and money gone. At the same time, it was a chance to excel in ways that were previously not prescribed. For those not good at sports, immortality through on-field achievements was not possible. You lived in the shadow of those able to jump higher, run faster, be stronger, throw farther.

In the arcade, all this changed. Those not endowed with physical gifts were now able to excel on a different field of battle, with much higher stakes. A homecoming game might be important to some, but saving the planet is important to everyone. Who is the bigger hero for winning the contest? I think the answer to that is obvious.

Little of that was present in this new place, which was nothing more than a usurper of the name once held in reverence by adolescents around the world. Here I was faced with the latest iteration of how the pursuit of profit has squeezed the soul out of a place that was once the refuge of many. The scene reminded me of when I was talking to a casino executive about how to study and improve customer experience at Black Jack tables. He told me that, if they had their choice, they would replace the Black Jack tables (and all tables) with slot machines. They are cheaper to run, easier to manage, make better use of floor space, and more profitable. Why keep the tables? Because people expect to see them when in a casino. Short of that expectation, you just have a floor of slots chiming mindlessly.

The new arcade is that kind of soulless environment that the casino executive pined for. No games (or very few) games of skill existed. Rather than pursue the high score, you are in pursuit of ‘tickets’ which can be redeemed for ‘prizes’ of various types. Achieving in the video game used to be the reward. The high score was the pronouncement that you were indeed there, and everyone can take note of the skill you possess. Now, the game is a means to an end, a pass through on the way to exchanging points accumulated for items on display. And the prizes. The usual fare of assorted plastic crap not worthy of mention. If an award can cheapen an achievement, then the prizes on offer are a perfect pairing to the two-dollar hooch that are these ‘games.’

Junk

I use the word ‘games’ loosely. These are not games in that they provide the opportunity to greater mastery through repeated exposure and practice. No. These games are largely games of chance, the type of set up you’d find on a table on the sidewalks of a major city, except with better graphics. You don’t get a chance to get better because there is literally nothing to get better at. Hit a button, see what happens. You are not in control of the outcome. The machine only gives the impression of potential mastery. But you are not in control, the machine is. Like the slots lining the casino floor, these machines are there stimulate your brain to with the lines and noises to that you keep coming back. Not to get better, but to spend more in the pursuit of useless junk and candy that could be easily bought with the money dumped. The tactile of putting the quarter into the machine is replaced with flashing a card from which credits are extracted. Antiseptic and clean. No quarters lining up who is next. No one watching you play to deduce your skill. Kids become the pinballs, ricocheting from machine to machine with no discernible reason.

And there is no reason to like one game over another. There is no personality to any of them, so there is nothing to draw you closer. In the old arcade, the array of game themes would mean you could see which game clicked with who you were. It spoke to you in some fundamental way. There is nothing to speak here to you here in the new arcade. To speak to you would mean these machines have something to say. Rather, they are lifeless, soulless. Empty despite the lights and sounds they emit. They pull you into their emptiness as well, like a vortex or digital black hole.

As I stood there and watched, I wanted to scream for everyone to run for the exits. I wanted to warn the young people there that this was not the experience they should be having. There was more they could have, and it used to be better. They needed to go back to an earlier time. They needed to find the darkened rooms, the low ceilings, the dim glows, and communal setting that was the earlier arcade. Start hoarding quarters again. Placing them on the display, showing you were ready to step up to save the world, defeat the invaders, or navigate through the obstacles. The prize you won was yours to keep, and the time you had was priceless.