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Archives for September 2018

Arcade1Up: Classic ¾-Sized Arcade Games For Your Home

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If you loved feeding coins into arcade machines from yesteryear and don’t want to spend big $$$$ on a 30+ year old machine, then Arcade1Up’s 3/4 scale classic arcade machines may be for you!

There are currently six arcade cabinets (see below), each cabinet housing multiple games. Before you get too excited, there will only be two cabinets available in Australia via EB Games (as at the time of this article) – Rampage and Street Fighter II Editions. Hopefully we’ll see the rest make their way to retails stores in Australia.

Release date (in Australia) is penned for October 11 with a retail price of $698. These aren’t exactly cheap, but they are cheaper than trying to find an original arcade cabinet which may require some TLC and parts to get it working.

With PAX Aus 2018 just around the corner, we wonder if EB Games could lend a few of these for our Classic Gaming Area…

Street Fighter II Edition with three brill Street Fighter II games

Rampage Edition: Rampage, Gauntlet, Joust & Defender 

Galaga Edition: Walmart exclusive only, housing Galaga and Galaxian!

Centipede Edition: Centipede, Crystal Castles, Missile Command & Millipede

Asteroids Edition: Asteroids, Tempest, Major Havoc & Lunar Lander

Final Fight Edition (coming in 2019): Final Fight, Ghosts’N Goblins, 1944 & Strider

Specs:

Recreate that arcade parlour from your childhood right in your living room!
image source: Arcade1Up

 

The Largest Playable Game and Watch Device

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Cast your mind back to November last year when we told you about Dr Tom Tilley’s awesomely cool gigantic Nintendo Game & Watch Octopus game? No? Shame on you!

If you do recall Tom’s great creation, then you will be happy to know that the folks at Guinness World Records took note and have officially recognised Tom Tilley’s mega G&W Octopus game as the “Largest playable Game and Watch device”!

Tom’s feat will feature in the Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2019 at the start of the Retro Gaming section. Well done Tominator, all of us Australians (and fellow retro gamers around the world) are very proud of this achievement.

source: Guinness World Records

 

The Pinball VS Arcade Industry Battle of the 80s and 90s

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During the boom times of the 80s and 90s, it would have been quite hard to imagine that one day the coin-operated (coin-op) pinball and arcade video games business would (almost) disappear.

With the current worldwide resurgence in pinball and old school arcade machines making a comeback in barcades, we thought we’d take a look at how prevalent pinball and arcade games were in the 80s and 90s in the biggest coin-op amusement market in the world, the good ole USA!

We delved deep into the available ‘Census of Service Industry‘ data from the US Department of Commerce, which kept record of “sources of receipts” for pinball and arcade machines in establishments across the US. What we found was quite eye-opening!

source: 1982 Census of Service Industries: Industry Series. Miscellaneous Subjects(SC82-I-5) – US Dept of Commerce

From the 1982 census data, there were 5,434 sites across the US where the general public could attend to get their fix of playing pinball and arcade games. The total US takings at these establishments was a whopping  USD$1.175 billion (for that year), with arcade machines earning the lion’s share with USD$890.4 million and pinball with $284.3 million. Remember, this was just before the video games crash of 1983. Interestingly, Pennsylvania had the highest number of establishments (268), with the split of takings between pinball (USD$34.2M) and arcade (USD$36.0M) being almost 50/50. Everywhere else, it was arcade video game machines that took more coins out of pockets.

source: 1992 Census Of Service Industries: Subject Series. Sources of Receipts or Revenue (SC92-S-4) – US Dept of Commerce

By 1992 the coin-op amusement landscape changed quite a bit. As evident by the numbers, pinball declined substantially while arcade machines broke through the magical USD$1 billion earnings barrier for that year – that is some serious amount of coins! Pinball had unfortunately slid back, earning their operators a poultry (when compared to arcade video games) USD$165M in 1992. With hindsight, pinball was going to be saved by some big name licensed machines – hello The Addams Family!

source: The Arcade Flyer Archive

As already hinted, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for pinball. According to Vending Times (which tracks the use of coin-operated games), in the mid-1990s the silver ball game had rebounded with takings of USD$912M in 1994 (that was 38% of the total coin-op market at the time) and then almost doubling to a dizzying USD$1.7 billion by 1997/8. Pinball had gone from junk to the golden goose in three short years! Before pinball operators could make it rain more coins, it was the 32-bit gaming era that sounded the death knell for not only pinball, but arcade video games too. By the end of the 1990s, the number of venues where one could play pinball and/or arcade machines dwindled dramatically. Things got acutely dire for pinball when the once mighty Williams closed up its pinball division near the end of 1999.

The beauty of hindsight is that we can assess and track the ups and downs of the pinball and arcade coin-op industry. With the current global video games industry sporting 2.6 billion gamers and takings in excess of USD$116 billion per annum, the time of amusement centres on every street corner are long gone. If pinball could tap even 0.5% of this (that’s USD$580M), then the great silver ball game will be here to stay and be enjoyed for many generations to come!

Enjoying some arcade and pinball action at Melbourne’s Invaders Amusement Centre
– circa early 80s

 

How to Win at Pac-Man

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Waka, waka, waka, wanna play Pac-Man like a champion? If you are sick of getting gobbled by Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde, then check out this ‘how to play’ vid, as it will get ya playing for hours instead of minutes!

This guide basically teaches you how to play two of Pac-Man’s maze patterns (there are three officially, but two are 99% the same as each other). So what are you waiting for, go and munch some dots like a champion.


source: stevepiers

 

Classic Tetris Aussie Championship 2018

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Hey Aussie peeps, hold onto your hats, as we have some huge exciting comp news!

After 8 years of the Classic Tetris World Championships (CTWC) in the USA, the competition is coming to Sydney, Australia! Get your diaries out and mark yourself away on Thursday October 4th! This is a huge deal folks, so get Tetris’n.

So what is this all about you ask? CTWC has teamed up with the awesome 1989 Arcade Bar & Kitchen (22 King Street, Newtown) to crown the first ever Classic Tetris Australian Champion. Players will go head-to-head (in a best out of three games) on the Nintendo Entertainment System’s Tetris, until there is only one player remaining. There are prizes to be won, beers to be enjoyed and many classic arcades to be played. It is going to be one heck of a night that welcomes all level of Tetris fanatics, from beginners to pro.

Who will hoist the first ever CTWC Australia trophy? Well, you gotta be in it to win it!

The CTWC Australia event details:

  • When: October 4, 2018 (starts at 7:00pm)
  • Where: 1989 Arcade Bar & Kitchen – 22 King Street, Newtown
  • Event/Info: Official event page on Facebook
  • Entry: $15.00 – grab your ticket here. Each ticket is one entry into the championship and comes with a drink (beer or wine)

image source: 1989 Arcade Bar & Kitchen