Jon King
The rise of the Video Arcade
Games Industry
This essay will look at the history of the video Arcade games industry. It will clearly explain the rise of the coin operated video Arcade games industry, detail where the Arcades originated from and look at some of the influences that came before it, examine some of the most popular Arcade titles and explore the games companies that created the foundation for the industry. It will look at some of the key men involved in the creation of video games.
Life before video games
In 1889 a Japanese man by the name of Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai in Kyoto Japan. It was this company from where the video games industry would develop into what it has become today and it was one of the first big companies in the world of video games. Nintendo Koppai started out designing and producing Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda or President and became an overnight success in Japan. (N-sider Media 2008)
In 1902 the cards had become such a success that even the Yakuza had introduced them into their gambling halls. This led to the inevitable mass production of the cards as they grew in popularity. Nintendo Koppai designed western style playing cards and became the first company to make the transition into the western market, whilst managing to sell this type of card in Japan. (N-sider Media 2008)
The founder of Nintendo Koppai, Fusajiro Yamauchi who died in 1929 left his company to a man named Sekiryo Kaneda, Fusajiros son in law. When Kaneda took over he became the second president of his late father in laws business and with that he was in charge of Japans largest card company. He was also given his father in laws surname, which I think was a sort of Japanese honour. Sekiryo went on to create a joint company, from his father in laws business, in 1933 and renamed it to Yamauchi Nintendo and co. The company that joined up with Sekiryos Company was a distribution firm that he established in 1947 called Marukufu co. ltd and it was this section of the two that became the primary company. (Nintendo database 2001)
The name of the company in the year 1947 again changed to become know as just Marukufu co. ltd which I think was a little disrespectful due to the fact that Fusajiros had given his son in law his last name. This wasn’t to last though as in 1949 Sekiryos Kaneda retired and later died from complications arising from a stroke. (Nintendo database 2001)
The company was then passed onto the next president, Fusajiros great grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. Hiroshi was chosen due to the fact that his father had abandoned him and his mother to run off with his wife’s sister therefore bring dishonour to their family. In 1951 Hiroshi renamed the company to Nintendo co. ltd and in 1952 he started to modernise the firm by moving its head quarters to a newer building on a street called Takamatsu-Cho Street. He also housed his playing card production factories under one roof in Kyoto to increase the efficiency of the production and therefore increasing profits. (N-sider Media 2008)
In 1951 when Hiroshi Yamauchi renamed his Company there was another big Company forming. This Company was set to become one of Nintendo’s biggest rival over the coming years, it was “Sega”. Sega was originally formed in Honolulu, Hawaii 1940 under the name “Standard Games” by Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg and James Humpert. It was originally conceived in order to produce coin-operated amusements for American service men. In 1951 Standard Games was to relocate to Japan as suggested by Martin Bromley and by 1952 Standard Games had become “Service Games of Japan”. (Kent, S. L., 2001)
In 1954 another key figure of the Sega Empire was to emerge, his name was David Rosen. Rosen had been serving in the American army during the Korean conflict for three years and it was in this time that he had grew to love Japan and its culture. Rosen realised a gap in Japan’s already buoyant coin-op market and decided that once he had finished his service for the American army that he would begin his own business. Rosen started to import coin-op photo booths which he intended to install at the various military bases that were present in Japan in order to enable people to purchase a passport photograph. He named this business venture Photorama or Nifun Shasin in Japanese and he charged around 200 yen per picture. This business soon took off and Rosen was making a good profit. (Danny L. Chapman II 2003)
In 1956 Rosen started to import coin-op target gun Arcade games, which he cleverly placed outside of his Photorama booths. The machines came from America where he purchased them for $200 a piece in warehouse sales, he then exported them to Japan. It is said that from this single business venture that Rosen was the man who was responsible for founding Japans Arcade game industry. One of Rosen’s games was Baer gun which simulated a real target range by using a modified air gun. Rosen charged 10 cent for a go on this game and within two months had made all of his money back. The games soon started popping up all over Asia, in particular at military bases, which is where he would come into direct competition with a man named Goraku Bussan. Bussan had already established a business partnership with a man named Marty Bromley prior to Rosen establishing his own business. (Video game rebirth 2008)
There business was providing vending machines to companies that required them and this company did do very well partly due to their military contract to supply the American bases. The two partners decided to expand their company by importing Pinball machines. This was a wise move as Pinball was already a very popular game in America and with so many Americans in Japan at this time it was bound to do well. The success that Bussan and Bromley had was noticed by Rosen as at the time he was coming to the end of his service with the American forces. Their success was his inspiration and when these men crossed paths in business it would be this success that would be their downfall. After all if Bussan and Bromley hadn’t been doing so well in business at the time of Rosen’s service, Rosen may have never wanted to get into the coin-op business and would never have built up a rival firm. When Rosen’s business matched the success of Bussan and Bromley’s company it would prove to be no contest. Rosen learnt his first valuable formula for success “Superior technology plus great game play equals market success”. (Video game rebirth 2008)
In 1956 Rosen’s company was doing well and he was contemplating the expansion of it, however this expansion was to meet with the wrath of the Japanese Government. The Government believed that Japanese citizens were to busy to enjoy this type of entertainment due to the fact that they were rebuilding the country after the devastation caused by the Americans at the end of world war two. The average Japanese citizen would have been working six and a half days a week at this time. It took Rosen a year to persuade the Japanese Government to grant him the licence that he needed for his expansion, which he did by explaining that its citizens needed to have time to unwind due to the long working hours. (Video game rebirth 2008)
In 1957 Rosen was granted his licence and with that he imported $200,000 worth of used coin-op machines. The coin-op Arcades went down a storm and Rosen soon had Arcades in every major city in Japan. By 1960 Rosen had corned the Arcade games business with Bussan, one of his main rivals, concentrating on the Jukebox industry and having similar success. (Kent S, L., 2001)
In 1964 Rosen decided to become partners with one of his earlier rivals Bromley under the name “Rosen Enterprises”. It wasn’t long before Rosen had conquered another former rival Bussan. This would prove to be a great move for Rosen who now would no longer need to import his coin-op machines from America as Bussan had 6,000 manufacturing plants in Japan.
The three men now decided to rename the company “Sega Enterprises ltd”, this name was designed by Bussan and stood for “SErvice GAmes”. The idea behind this name was that the company was providing a service to the public and they wanted their employees to remember this at all times as this was the companies number one objective. (Video game rebirth 2008)
The first Arcade game locally made in Japan by Sega was a game called “Periscope” and was released in Japan 1966. The game was a massive success even though the technology used to produce it was still very limited; this game was an electromechanical game. When the game was released in the west it again, was a massive success and it attracted the attention of the Gulf and Western Corporation. (Video game rebirth 2008)
In 1970 after several years of negotiations “Sega” gave in to pressure from Gulf and Western with an offer that they just couldn’t refuse for the company and sold it on. Rosen stayed on at “Sega” as president however Martin Bromley decided to retire. The company went public in 1974 with its stock openly traded on the New York stock exchange. It seemed that “Sega” had made it. (Danny L. Chapman II 2003)
The birth of Video games
I have now looked at the major players previous to the birth of the Video game and so I began to research the men involved in designing the first Video game.
The first man that I have researched into is a man called William A. Higginbotham. In 1958 Higginbotham was working as the head of BNL’s instrumental division, it is said that he may have designed the first video game. BNL used to hold open days in the autumn were people could come and visit their labs and exhibits. It was at such a time as this that Higginbotham had designed a game that could show the sorts of things that Brookhaven could achieve. (Research and development of the U.S Department of energy 2008)
"I knew from past visitors days that people were not much interested in static exhibits," said Higinbotham, "so for that year. I came up with an idea for a hands-on display – a video tennis game."
William A. Higinbotham (Burnham, V., 2001)
During this visit Higinbotham found that he had created something that was very exciting, as he could tell from the crowd’s reaction.
"But if I had realized just how significant it was, I would have taken out a patent and the U.S. government would own it!"
William A. Higinbotham (Burnham, V., 2001)
It was thought that the first video game was created much later than this; however there was a book called “Basic computer games” written by a man called David Ahl were he states that on a trip to Brookhaven he thinks that he might have witnessed the first video game. Ahl was said to have know about the computer gaming at MIT and at a company in Cambridge as early as 1961, but had not heard of this type of work being done anywhere before his trip to Brookhaven in 1958. (Research and development of the U.S Department of energy 2008)
The game that Higginbotham had created was called “Tennis for two” and consisted of a simple side viewport displaying the floor, a net, and a ball. The ball would be hit backwards and forwards with a controller that had a rotating knob to control the angle of the bat and a button that when pressed returned the ball to the opposing player. The game was very basic but the concepts of the game were the same as some of today’s. The game itself was actually run by an analogue computer and an oscilloscope. (Burnham, V., 2001)
"It was simple to design," remembered Higinbotham. "Back then, analog computers were used to work out all kinds of mechanical problems. They didn't have the accuracy of digital computers, which were very crude at the time, but then you didn't need a great deal of precision to play TV games. "
William A. Higinbotham (Burnham, V., 2001)
The game only took about three weeks to make and was built by a man called Robert V. Dvorak.
"Bob and I worked very closely together," said Higinbotham. "I made some drawings, gave them to Bob, he made a patch board, we changed the things that didn't work, and got it running in time for the first tour."
William A. Higinbotham (Burnham, V., 2001)
The sad part about Higginbotham’s invention was that he never realised its full potential as it only featured at two of Brookhaven’s tours, between 1958 and 1959, after this it was disassembled and the parts were used for other projects. It is argued that this was the first video game and from the evidence that I have looked at it does appear to be. Therefore I do believe that William A. Higginbotham should rightly be credited for having designed the very first video game. (Research and development of the U.S Department of energy 2008)
The depending on what generation that you came from, depends upon what people think the first video game was, for instance a lot of people, if asked, would say that it was “Pong” whereas people that are slightly older would say that it was “Computer space”. The fact of the matter is that “Tennis for two” was the first video game played on an oscilloscope, next came “Spacewar” that was the first game to be played on a computer without an oscilloscope, followed by “Computer space” which was a revamped version of “Spacewar” and the first coin-operated video Arcade game and then “Pong” that was the first successful coin-operated video Arcade game.
The next man that I researched into was a man called “Steve Russell”. In 1961 Russell was working as a programming student at MIT when he was given the opportunity to work on a computer donated to MIT from DEC. The resulting product that Russell’s team came up with wasn’t what DEC had expected. The team led by Russell created a game called “Space war”. Russell was inspired by a man called E.E. Doc Smith, who was a science fiction writer in the 1930’s to the 1940’s. Smith was referred to as the “Father of space opera” after producing the very popular “Lensman” and “Skylark” series and had a large part to play in inspiring Russell to create “Spacewar”, as Russell had grown up reading his work. (Mike Richards’s ___)
Russell also had a passion for B-grade science fiction, enjoying titles such as “Doc Savage” and “Flash Gordon”, to name some. (Burnham, V., 2001)
The game “Spacewar” was a two player game with the objective being, to destroy your opponent’s ship. There were several fun features to this game including black holes, asteroids and negative gravity. The ships would fire torpedo like bullets at each other until one player had won. (Burnham, V., 2001)
The game created by Russell was initially written and used on a PDP-1, which would enable more than one person to use the computer at the same time for the first time. Unluckily for Russell he never actually profited from the game. (Burnham, V., 2001)
“If I hadn't done it, someone would've done something equally exciting if not better in the next six months”. “I just happened to get there first”.
Steve Russell (Burnham, V., 2001)
Russell, nick named “The slug” for being so slow at producing the finished product, finally after six months and around 200 hours he got the game finished, 1962. This game was known to be the “world’s first video game”, however as I wrote earlier in this assignment I believe from my research that “Spacewar” was in fact the second video game.
It is said that Russell was apparently unaware that Willy Higginbotham’s “Tennis for two” ever actually existed. (Burnham, V., 2001)
The birth of the Video Arcade
The true father of the Video Arcade Games Industry went by the name of Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell was born in 1945 and from an early age was obsessed with technology and how things worked. Bushnell worked at a local ham radio station and here he was taught everything he needed to know about radios, circuitry and electronics. It was here that he became the youngest ham radio operator in the state of Utah. (Sellers, J 2001)
During Bushnell’s younger days his father passed away, which left him with the task of managing his father’s cement business. This proved to be a valuable lesson for the young Bushnell, as he learnt a lot about how to run work crews and managing his own company, all of which would add to his already growing personal ambitions. (Burnham, V., 2001)
Bushnell attended college where he studied Electrical Engineering and took a part time job at a nearby amusement park to help him earn some extra cash. With his previous experience Bushnell was soon promoted to arcade manager. This job taught everything that he needed to know about the arcade industry, from the sorts of games that the players would play regularly to the ins and outs of running an amusement arcade as a business. (Burnham, V., 2001)
Bushnell’s dream was to take the genius of the game “Spacewar” and place it in a room full of booths that all played “Space War” for the small price of a quarter.
“People would look you like you had two heads. “You mean you’re going to put the TV set in a box with a coin slot and play games on it?”
Nolan Bushnell. (Burnham, V., 2001)
The problem with Bushnell’s dream was that it would cost way too much money, as in 1965 each arcade unit would cost around about $120,000. Therefore there needed to be a significant improvement in the current technology available in order to realise his dream. (Burnham, V., 2001)
In 1968 Bushnell graduated from college with a BA in Electrical Engineering and his ambition at this time was to work for one of the best if not the top amusement business in the world, Walt Disney Co. Unfortunately Bushnell never got the job that he wanted with Disney and instead ended up working for a company called Ampex. (Burnham, V., 2001)
In 1970 new advances in computer technology were being developed all of the time, with the transistor being replaced by the microprocessor. The development of this new chip would mean that computers could be built smaller and cheaper than ever before, Bushnell’s dream was edging ever closer. (Video games rebirth 2001-2008)
Bushnell’s dream had now once again become his number one priority. As he began to develop the game the actual hardware that needed to be designed for the system that he would use to run and house the software changed quite a bit until Bushnell finally reached the design that would set the standard for almost all of the arcade machines to follow.
The prototype that Bushnell came up with was created with a co-worker from Ampex, Ted Dabney. The original system consisted of a black and white TV that was connected up to numerous circuit boards. The game was basically the same but with two enemy saucers against the player’s weightless rockets instead of one. (Sellers, J., 2001)
Realising how close Bushnell now was to his dream he quit his job to dedicate all of his time to the project. Bushnell and Dabney decided that they needed a name for their newly formed venture and chose “Syzgy”, which meant the sun, moon and earth in a total eclipse. (Sellers, J., 2001)
The next hurdle for Bushnell and Dabney was to get a company interested enough to manufacture their product, they found joy with a company called “Nutting Associates”. This company was owned by a man called Bill Nutting and before long had given Bushnell a job with his company as a senior director. Bushnell’s role here was to supervise the design and production of “Spacewar”, which was to be renamed as “Computer Space”. (Sellers, J., 2001)
The “Computer Space” machine was very simple in interior design, it had the same black and white 13inch TV screen and a small circuit board which was referred to by Nutting as “the brain box”. The coin box used to collect quarters was an old paint thinners can. The outside of the machine made people think that it was very high tech as it boasted two joy sticks with button information printed upon a polished silver metal plate, it had a standout fibre glass shell which came in three bold space age looking colours of glittering red, glittering green and glittering blue. (Sellers, J., 2001)
The cabinet was typical of seventies culture and how they perceived the modern world to be and so fit in to this era very well. The arcade game was introduced to the public at an event called the AMOA in Chicago, Bushnell and Nutting were said to have shocked the crowd.
“We blew the coin-op industry’s mind”
Bill Nutting. (Burnham, V., 2001)
Bushnell had realised his dream, Nutting associates had 1,500 cabinets rolled off the production line as the birth of the video arcade games was completed. It is true that the game itself was based on a previous game by “Slug Russell“ and that there was a game previous to that in the form of “Tennis for Two” by “William Higginbotham” but when it comes to the first video arcade game then this was it. There is a reason why that people in general don’t know of this game and that is because it was such a flop in the commercial market. (Sellers, J., 2001)
Nutting associates tried in vain to attract distributors even though they had already installed “Computer Space” in arcades, restaurants, student unions, bowling alleys, supermarkets and bars across the country and around the world. They tried all types of marketing, even featuring a sexy topless dancer on one of its flyers. (Burnham, V., 2001)
The fundamental reason why the game failed was down to the actual game play. The ships in the game were hard to control as they were so slow in movement which in turn became frustrating to the game player. Also the rockets which they fired were extremely difficult to judge as to when you should fire them or move out of the way of your opponents. (Burnham, V., 2001)
One of the most important things that came from Bushnell’s idea was the cabinet, even today the cabinets are still designed in a very similar way. The architecture of the cabinet has stood the test of time, not exactly what Bushnell originally wanted but at least he can take that away. I suppose the ironic thing is that a “Computer Space” cabinet was installed in a game room of the ultra modern contemporary resort hotel for the grand opening of the new Walt Disney World vacation paradise in Orlando, Florida. This was the place where Bushnell had wanted to work earlier in his career and now one of his creations had its place here instead. (Burnham, V., 2001)
In 1972 there was to be two important changes in the video arcade games industry, the first was the formation of Atari and the second was the game design by Nolan Bushnell “Pong”. After having had a small amount of success with Bill Nutting, Bushnell wanted to complete his dream, after having thought that he had once already, with a new game. This time the game needed to be more simple and something that people already knew how to play, this was the lesson that was learnt from the “Computer Space” game as this game was too complicated for some. (Kent, S.L., 2000)
At the same time Bill Nutting had thought that his company was the only player in the industry, however there was another that went by the name of “Magnavox”. This worried Nutting as this company had announced that it was releasing a “mystery product”, so Bushnell was sent to see if he could find out what they were up to. This was prove to be a bad error for Nutting because while Bushnell was away he played a game called “Table Tennis” on the Odyssey home entertainment system which gave him an idea for a new game, this game was “Pong”.
When Bushnell returned to meet with Nutting he pitched his new game idea to him but also added that he wasn’t happy with his position within the company, as he wasn’t receiving the sort of money that he felt that he deserved. This didn’t go down well with Nutting, who refused the 30% and more control over marketing and design that Bushnell had asked for. Instead Bushnell was offered a 5%. (Burnham, V., 2001)
“I didn’t like his deal”, Nutting said. “The kind of royalties Nolan was asking for didn’t seem fair. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20”.
Bill Nutting. (Burnham, V., 2001)
There was only one outcome for Bushnell, which was to break away from Nutting Associates and form his own Video games Company. The first person that he got in touch with was his old friend from Ampex, Ted Dabney. Bushnell explained his ping pong game concept to Dabney and told him that they should start their own Video games Company, which Dabney agreed to. They both had cash to start up their new Company, Bushnell with his $250 from royalties he’d earned from “Computer Space” and Dabney with an equal investment from cash he’d made.
Together they both went to register the Company and wanted to call it “Syzgy”, however this name was taken and so they had to come up with something else, that name was “Atari”. (M. L. Clayton 2000)
The “Atari” Company was the beginning of a very lucrative business and would rake in the cash like nothing seen before from a Video games Company. The “Pong” game prototype was built by an engineer called “Al Alcorn” who was employed by Bushnell, as he had been at Ampex with Bushnell as a young student. Alcorn was the first employee of “Atari” and had a lot of input into the overall design of the game. (M. L. Clayton 2000)
The first prototype was installed at a local Sunnyvale tavern, Andy Capp’s, on EI Camino Real. All that was displayed instruction wise was “Avoid missing the ball for high score”, these simple instructions were soon being followed and Pong’s legacy was underway. Just a few days later Atari had a phone call from the tavern saying that the machine had broken down, which panicked Atari, and asked for an engineer to go out to fix it. This seemed like the worst possible start for Atari as the Company was just starting out and wanted to build up a good reputation. When the engineer arrived it turned out that the reason why the machine had broken down was because the cashbox was so full of quarters that it had become jammed! The cashbox could hold up to 1200 quarters which made this change from a problem into a bonus. (Steve Fulton 2007)
The next stop for Atari was to find someone to manufacture their new game, they approached Bally/Midway in Chicago. It was bad news from Midway as they had watched the rise and instant fall of the previous Video game “Computer Space” and had decided to pass on the basis that Video games were just a faze that would fizzle out. This would prove to be a big mistake for Midway. (Steve Fulton 2007)
Bushnell decided that if it was going to happen then he was the man that would have to make it happen. So his next move was to rent an old roller-skating rink and employ his own workers. Bushnell would employ just about anyone in particular students and hippies, however they got the job done and banged out around 12 games a day. (M. L. Clayton 2000)
The make shift factory was doing well and it sold every game that it produced, the problem was that it couldn’t keep up with the demand and needed to branch out. Bushnell finally found his man in the name of “Don Valentine”, with Valentine’s money and credibility Atari was able to produce more Pong games and sold 8000 Pong machines, bringing in around $300 a week. Nolan Bushnell became known as “King Pong”, this time Bushnell had realised his dream. (Burnham, V., 2001)
Pong became the world’s first successful coin-operated Video games machine. Nolan Bushnell sold his stake in Atari four years later to “Warner Bros” for an astonishing $28 million. Bushnell moved on to the Pizza time theatre chain and renamed it “Chuck E. Cheese, here Bushnell turned eating out into eating out with the fun of Arcade games. Bushnell presently runs an internet gaming site and has the new dream of turning it into the number one online gaming site. No doubt he will probably make this dream turn into reality to. Nolan Bushnell undoubtedly has earned the name “Father of the Video Game Industry”. (M. L. Clayton 2000)
Life after Pong
After the success of Pong the inevitability of other Companies wanting to design and produce their own Video games was certain to happen, Companies such as Midway, who had missed out on “the best thing since sliced bread” were now desperate to enter this new industry. Also companies like Nintendo, Sega, Taito, Midway games, SNK Corporation, Vectorbeam and Cinematronics all wanted a piece of the action and released their own Arcade Video games in the seventies. (Sellers, J., 2001)
There were several top arcade game classics, too many to go into a lot of detail, like “Breakout”, which was another title released by Atari, in 1976. This game was the start of some of the more famous puzzle games, namely “Tetris” in 1985. The game was another simple yet addictive title, as was Pong, which involved you moving a paddle similar to the paddle in Pong however this time the paddle was horizontal as opposed to vertical and you needed to rebound a ball into a wall of bricks which would disappear once struck. (Sellers, J., 2001)
I couldn’t have written this essay without writing about the craze that was “Space Invaders”. Midway Games certainly had their day in 1978 when it released “Space Invaders”, it was said to be the first blockbuster Video Arcade Game. The game was made by Taito in Japan and was such a success there that the Japanese thought there might be a shortage of 100 Yen coins! Midway Games were the lucky licensee in America and quickly rolled their version off the production line. Six thousand machines later and America was saying “Pong who?” The game play itself consisted of one spaceship and three barricades above it, with a marching army of aliens above that. The idea was to shoot all of the approaching aliens before they reached the ground, it was that simple. The game was highly addictive and established the concept of the high score, so now players had something more to play for, the only trouble was you couldn’t input your initials! (Sellers, J., 2001)
The success of this game sparked off a number of similar games such as “Galaxian” which was another title by Midway. This game however was the first game to have full colour, 1979. Atari hit back with its version “Missile Command” in 1980. Very similar to “Space Invaders” in this game the player had to stop three cities on the ground being blow up while missiles would rain down from above. The targeting system was different from other games as it was cursor based. The flaw in this game was that there was a limited number of rockets that you could fire before your bases ran out, meaning the missiles would get you and you would see the words “The End”. (Sellers, J., 2001)
The final Arcade Video Game that I looked at is “Pack-Man”. This game was released in 1980 by Midway Games and was the most successful Arcade title of all time. After sweeping through Japan Midway Games did the same kind of deal that brought “Space Invaders” to America with “Pac-Man”. Very quickly the game had the whole country saying “wokka-wokka-wokka”, just like the main character in the game did. The game consisted of Pac-Man, your main character and four ghosts, the idea was to eat all of the dots scattered around the maze before the ghosts could get you. The general public loved this game even declaring an official Pac-Man day off, in some towns. This game was proof that Arcade Video Games had finally gone mainstream, there were spin off board games and cartoon shows. Midway sold a staggering 99,000 machines, so 8 years after losing out to Atari, when it had the opportunity to manufacture the Arcade smash “Pong”, Midway had finally had its day. (Sellers, J., 2001)
The Video Arcade Games industry went from strength to strength until the mid to late 1990’s, when the home console’s had become so good that the Arcade Video Games industry stagnated. The games people could buy in the shops were as good as the ones in the Arcade’s and eventually became better. There are still Arcades out there today but the shine and the pure joy of playing it first, having your name at the top of the score board and the social aspects of the Arcades are long gone. I’m sure some day that there could be a return of the Arcades as the marketing side of the industry could still learn a lot from the them as they did all those years ago.
