Note: This article was originally published in the Pioneer in August 2018.

By Trent Rosser

The preteen boy stood at the front of the large double doors. He looked at it like it was the pearly gates. As the doors opened, he felt as he was in heaven. The sounds of bleeping, dinging, chiming and other bell sounds were like angels singing in his ears. With a pocket full of quarters, he stepped through and into the arcade.

All through the 80’s and up to the late 90’s and beyond, arcade rooms were scattered across malls throughout the world. It started in the 70’s with a game called “Pong”. Each person has a line on there side and a small ball would bounce back and forth. The object of the game was to get past your opponent’s paddle. Then came other games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids”. The graphics were just horrible, but we constantly dropped quarters in these machines to fuel our entertainment.

In 1980’s the games changed. They became more and more advance with the introduction of a game called “Donkey Kong”. A plumber jumping over barrels and climbing ladders to rescue a princess that was captured by a giant ape. This game was just the start of the little plumber. He has expanded into many different games. "Super Mario Brothers" and "Mario Cart" followed, just to name a few. A year before that, a game called “Pac-Man” came out and took the world by storm. It has become one of the highest grossing video games in history and had brought the female audience to the arcades. A bright yellow dot runs through a maze eating small “Pellets” and being chased by “Ghosts”. The variety of games were endless. You could be a racecar driver in “Pole Position”a top-notch fighter pilot in “Afterburner” or even a knight riding on an ostrich in “Joust”. Not all games were fighting games. “Burgertime” had you making hamburgers in a kitchen and “Q-Bert” had you changing colors on a pyramid. “Dragon’s Lair” was a cartoon with full motion video with a touch of humor. All kinds of games and even claw machines and skee ball gave you chances to win prizes. A kid could spend his entire allowance within 3 hours and have a blast. One quarter at a time.

Growing up, we spent a lot of our free time at the mall. Anytime we went to the mall, it was guaranteed that we would spend time at the arcade trying to get the high score on a favorite game or testing out the newest release. Some arcades that were in a strip mall or free standing had more than just games. There were the pool tables, and some had a good ole fashion greasy snack food. Fries, burgers, and ice cream. We younger kids would not eat much, after all, we only had a certain amount of quarters. The older kids would. They would be over in the food area all paired up like newlyweds. Some older boy would be talking to a girl and you could watch as she would switch her bandana from one leg to another. It was to show that she was no longer single and now has a boyfriend. Of course, the following week, it would be the same thing, just with another couple. This could be a different story altogether!

One of the free-standing arcades when I was growing up was called “Crazy Clive’s”. These arcades were all over town, but it was a little different. They were inside an old passenger train car. Another thing that they did was convert their game to not accept quarters, but instead take special tokens. These tokens could only be used at the arcade. In case you had to leave before you spent all your tokens, you would have to save them and use them next time you went there. Even the change machine would not give out quarters, but tokens instead. I even seen an old token posted on Facebook recently, so they are still around. They are now worthless in monetary value, but priceless on memories.

As time went on, the arcades slowly faded away to home gaming system. They too started as early as the arcades did, but the graphics were horrible. It was still fun playing the games at home on your T.V. instead of putting a quarter in a machine. Atari 2600 was the one to have at first. The classics like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroid’s” was now in your own home. Then came Sega Genesis and shortly after that came Nintendo. The graphics were much better and more games to choose from. They even had games off movies and sports stars. “Jaws” was a popular game and “Mike Tyson Punchout” was a huge hit. Nintendo dominated the scene for many years, then in the late 90’s Sony PlayStation was introduced. The graphics were much better, and games were great. Sports still was big hit with games like “Tony Hawk pro skater” which was a skateboard game that you did tricks to earn money. Other game systems followed, and PlayStation kept upgrading. I believe that PlayStation 4 is the latest hit.

20 years of games have evolved from 2 sticks and a ball bouncing back and forth on a large coin operated machine (Pong), to coordinating with people across the world to work together on a game (Call of Duty). What used to be a full week of your parent’s paycheck to buy a home gaming system, you can now download on your phone for free. The computer chips that are now in your phone would be able to run a warehouse full of the old Atari games. New games are coming out daily that you can download and play on the phone, but no one will ever know the excitement of walking into an arcade filled with flashing lights and the sounds of 70 video games going off at once.

A few years ago, I walked into a game store and they had an old coin operated video game for sale. $150.00 later, “Popeye” was loaded into my truck and headed home with me. I was able to get it working again. I had to build a new stand and installed parts to get the coin part working again. I ended up selling it for a small profit. I really miss it! Who knows, maybe I can get my wife to buy me a new one? Probably not, unless it is Ms. Pac-Man?