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How Many Different Places Did You Play Arcade Games?
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ssc arcade:
F1r3f1ght3r as a fellow Nebraskan (I grew up in Blair) some of your names brought back some memories

When I saw WC Franks I could almost smell the sandwiches and hotdogs.  I worked at a Godfathers in High School mid 80's

Tempest, Centipede, Galaga were my favorites.

I think I beat Ghost-n-Golbins even though today I can't get past the first few sections.

Other than that it was a few bars, bowling alleys, For a short time an arcade called the Bears Den, dark, smelled a little, typical small arcade, most parents didn't want their kids in there.

Those were the days, State Fair was a good spot for games you usually didn't see.  That's the only place I ever saw a Tapper, I really loved that game.
dax:
I was a pinball freak before there were video games.  My parents were divorced when I was young and my father kept a few ammo boxes of silver dimes in one of the closets.  He was never around, so when I was bored I would grab a handful of silver dimes and I knew a guy at an area bowling alley who would trade me a quarter for a silver dime, so I'd go over there, convert the cash, and then go to the neighborhood pinball parlor and play all the time.

When video games came around, I remember playing Pong at a local university cafeteria, and then Space Wars; when I was in Jr. High, it was asteroids at the local supermarket. 

When I was in high school I worked at an amusement park and I was an attendant at the arcade for about six months.  There I got to play on a wide variety of games.   

My first arcade cabinet I acquired was when I was just out of high school and going to college.  A friend's father worked on video games and I wrote this BBS software for the TRS-80.  His school wanted a copy of my software to run a BBS and he offered me an arcade cabinet for a copy of my software.  So I got a Popeye machine, that I ended up leaving in the garage when I moved out of that apartment.  I wasn't the biggest fan of that game anyway and it was before Mame I believe, otherwise it would have been great to mod.
Sinner:
The first game I played was Pong sometime in the 1970's...I was between the ages of 4 and 7, so around 1975-1978...anyway, they thought I might have dyslexia, so I was sent to a specialist, and he had a Pong machine in his office (which was more like a gym or indoor playground for kids)...
After that, I remember going to the Charlottetown Mall, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island...they had a bunch of machines...my mother would go shopping, and I'd get to play games...the guy that looked after the machines was a friend of my dad's, so on days where there weren't a bunch of people around, he would open the machines and give me credits for free...
There were a lot of other places that had 1 or 2 machines, and a couple of arcade opened and closed, but the mall was always the constant...
NoOne=NBA=:
Pong was the first game I played too.
My grandparents bought one at a charity auction, and had it in their garage.

I played anywhere, and everywhere I could--literally.

All the arcades in town (they all a few games that nobody else had--notably Spiders, a dedicated Major Havoc, Environmental DOT, sit-down Star Trek and Gravitar).
The deli (only Venture and Wizard of Wor games in town).
The grocery store (only Cheyenne machine in town).
7-11 (Crossbow and Donkey Kong).
The bowling alleys (played alot of pinball in them too).
The market near school (best Asteroids machine in town).

My first home system was an Atari Video Pinball (the stand-alone one that played Pong/Breakout and Pinball).
After that I've had about every console made up to the PS1.
I quit buying consoles after that.
RayB:
OK so here's my map for my 1982 to 1987 period, in the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec. I worked it out and I used to bike 1.48 miles to get to the first downtown arcade! We had *FOUR* of them.  :D (marked with green squares) Later, if I could afford it I'd take the bus. Sometimes I only had $2 to spend, but I'd go anyways!

I also would bike to the closer convenience store / gas station (the Quebec equivalent of a 7/11) marked in red. They only had 1 game, but they rotated it monthly and it was nearby. Games I remember playing alot there were Juno First, Joust, Centipede, Ms Pacman (which I could use slugs in!), Bomb Jack, Blueprint, Commando, and Gaplus (the last game I ever played there). I'm sure there were others, but I don't remember them.

We were lucky that we had a cluster of 4 arcades in a 2 block span downtown. But this city also had its share of "nazis" in city hall. You guys think the "video games are bad" brou-haha is a modern phenomenon, think again. In my city around '83 there were alot of rumblings about passing laws that would forbid arcades within a certain radius from any school. They also wanted age restrictions.

At that age (in '83 I was 13), I didn't read the papers or keep up with politics of course, so I never fully understood what the problem exactly was. It could have been "video games warp young minds", or it might have been that "arcade games are like gambling", or even "arcades are a haven for kids to hang out while playing hookie". In the end they ended up passing the age law. You had to be 14 to play arcade games! Of course, there's no such thing as ID for teenagers, so I would just lie and say I was 14.

Later, I think the age was raised, because the convenience store near me ended up sticking a sign on Gaplus (or was it Slap Fight?) that said you had to be 16 to play. I of course just ignored it.


Later I will post a map of Montreal, which is where I lived during my college years.  :D

PS: The store marked by a purple square is where I played Zaxxon.

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