One of the duties delegated to my iBook is to be my main emulation machine. Console systems, the Atari 8-bit, the C64, and others were all part of my early computing and gaming days, and when nostalgia kicks in I like to revisit them once in a while.
Looking through the recent changes to MAME though, I suddenly realized something: I didn’t know these games. Of course you don’t fondly remember everything and at some point it’s no longer nostalgia but merely recent history, but I’d never even heard of most of these games let alone played them.
At some point I fell behind somehow. As a younger kid I was your typical vidiot that you’d find in the arcade in the spare moments of the evenings and weekends, but right now if you stuck me in an arcade I’d stick out like a sore thumb. Somewhere along the way I went from one state to the other, but I couldn’t really tell you exactly when.
So what happened?
1) Time. One of the things you lose as you grow up is all that copious free time that enables you to stand around the arcade for hours at a time in the first place. Maybe just chores at first, but eventually you pile on studies, a girlfriend, a job, other friends, and before long you’re a salaryman fighting to squeeze in any relaxation time.
2) Money. Games started getting expensive near the end of the ’80s and start of the ’90s. Sure, most classic games were still a quarter, but any new games were usually 50 cents, or even a buck for the really snazzy ones. You didn’t really get much value for that money either; whereas a classic game you were semi-decent at could last a while, the new games were over far too quickly if you sucked, and the cost didn’t allow you many attempts to hone your skills.
3) Access. Arcades seem to have peaked in the late ’80s sometime and only shrunk ever since. At the Kingsway mall in Edmonton there were two arcades that I regularly went to back in the ’80s, roughly divided into newer and older games, but it’s been diminished greatly since then. The last time I was there I can’t even remember seeing *any* games (though I wasn’t really looking, either). It’s the same in other malls too — if there are any games at all, it’s limited to a tiny little section with only a handful of the most recent titles.
4) Skill. I have to admit that I’m really not as good at the action-oriented arcade-type games as I used to be. There’s not much point to playing them then if you can’t devote the time to improving yourself, and there’s no fun if the games are ruthlessly harsh on newbies.
5) Age. Well, I’m not getting any younger. The arcade environment just makes it even more painfully obvious how much of a kid’s business it is and makes me feel like even more of a fossil. :-)
6) Home. And finally, what’s the point in going to the arcade when you can enjoy all your old favourites and embarass yourself privately on new titles in the privacy of your own home! Home video game consoles may be what finally killed the arcade for good, and looking back I can’t say I really miss it.