I discovered arcades when I was about 7 or 8 years old and got to enjoy the late '80s renaissance, such as it was, driven by spectacular new hardware and more thoughtful game design. My local haunts were in Worthing, England—the New Amusements on the pier (latest and oldest games, disinterested workers, bright and airy) and the Connaught Family Amusments over the road (best games, cool staff, dark basement vibes)—and must have gone to hundreds of arcades in a well-traveled childhood. But I never went to any in Walsall, where, 40 years later, Damien McFerran thinks he's found the nation's best remaining venue.
we've had plenty of sad closures recently – not to mention financial struggles – but there's still an impressive number of locations running which attract plenty of support, and thanks to Time Extension reader Paul Jones, we've just been made aware of another one.
Jones got in touch with us to highlight a retro arcade which opened up in Walsall in the UK's West Midlands last year. "I went there a few weeks ago, as I go to a lot of arcades all over the country, as I love the '80s '90s era," he explains. "The place is called The Retro Realm, and I can honestly say, in my opinion, the best one I have been to; not the biggest, but the best. I personally would love to see this place get the credit it deserves."
Sounds like a great place. There are even PC Engines there! A great ghost ship of the British gamer, but something of a joke in America due to its trying redesign/rebranding there.
I'm fascinated by this chart, which suggests that the early '80s "golden era of arcades" was mostly a pop culture fad happening on top of a fundamental whose real peak was 1988. On the other hand, that slow blue decline covers a sharper transformation from "arcades" to "fighting games" in the 1990s. The mid-90s decline in home gaming represents a harmonic low of the non-PC home computer business dying out (Amiga, Atari ST, vestigial 8-bits) and fourth-gen game consoles (SNES, Genesis) getting old. The 1996 bounce is Sony Playstation.
Previously:
• Recreating Street Fighter's punchable arcade controls
• Game over for Japanese arcades
• The last arcades
