Arcade Memories of a British Gamer
Tickets, Please
I was born in the early 90’s, so most of my memories of being a kid are from the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
As I grew older and YouTube became a thing, I was exposed to the world of video games outside my own country of England. Watching Americans talk about video games on YouTube was wild, as although I understood a lot of what they were talking about, their frames of reference were wildly different to my own.
Even YouTubers around the same age as me would talk about arcades they visited as a kid, and perhaps still do, and all I could do was feel jealousy. The memories of arcades they shared were not how I had ever experienced them, and I couldn’t help feeling those emotions.
Americans spoke about these big arcades that had every kind of game going, including the latest and greatest video game experiences. They spoke about playing Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, beat ‘em ups, and all sorts of genres that I had never seen once in an arcade.
In my youth, I had seen arcade machines in three places. The first, were arcades in holiday camps. The second, were arcades by the seaside. And the third, were machines at the back of pubs. Those were the only times I had seen them, and let me say, those arcades were not the same as the ones they described.
My earliest memories of these arcades are the ones in holiday camps, which we would go to for most holidays in my childhood. These arcades would mostly feature machines which spit out tickets that you could redeem for little toys or packs of sweets. They would have penny pushers for you to stick in your 2p coins, a handful of driving and shooting games, and some crane games. I never saw the types of arcade games US gamers spoke about. I don’t think I ever saw one pinball machine.
That was usually all they had on offer. If you were lucky, there would be an air hockey table as well. There was always a section at the back too, labelled 18+. As a kid I was always mystified by this, wondering what secrets were held behind the walled off section. In reality, it was just one armed bandits, for people to gamble away a few pound coins.
Seaside arcades operated in much the same way, with pubs usually only having one armed bandits. Despite this, I loved those arcades. Walking into them and seeing all the lights, hearing the whirring of the machines, the penny pushers clicking and clacking away. Even if I didn’t have much to spend, I just loved being in them. The worn down carpets and beat up machines didn’t phase me, I just liked to be around these pieces of kit.
Occasionally, once in a while, something amazing would happen and it would stick in my mind forever. Usually when I went to these arcades, especially on the holiday camps, I would try and get there as early as possible when it was usually pretty empty. I would then walk around and take a good look at each game, taking it in. I always enjoyed seeing some of the stranger games, like those ones where you had to hold onto bars as it pretended to electrocute you.
One time though, I saw a machine I had never seen before in any other arcade. It had a single joystick on it, with two buttons either side. Now bear in mind that even seeing a joystick was a novelty, as most of the other games available didn’t have them. As I approached it, I could see some kind of animated movie playing on it. It looked like an older cartoon, and it seemed mystifying.
I am of course talking about Dragon’s Lair. It was an original version of the machine, which meant it must have had a laserdisc inside playing the game. I had never seen anything like it. Excitedly, I put my fifty pence inside and began to play. I immediately died, as I had no idea how to play this kind of game or what inputs to do at the right time.
It didn’t matter though. This was my first time seeing a real game that wasn’t a driving or shooting game in an arcade. I have no idea how that holiday camp would have come across this machine, and no idea how long they held onto it for. But at that moment, it was an amazing experience.
Years later as I got older, I would often spread my net wider to find arcades with real games in them. I’m from Kent, which didn’t have too much to offer. In London there are some better experiences, where you can often find a few fighting games mixed in with all the standard stuff. One time in a small arcade in Brighton, they had a Street Fighter 2 machine - not the original, some kind of bootleg version. It was crazy to find it sitting at the back, unloved and unplayed. I certainly changed that.
The crux of all of this is that I think American experiences tend to colour too much of the way we speak about video games online. Every country experienced gaming very differently, so when people talk about the history of games, they need to bear in mind location. The Mega Drive outsold the Super Nintendo here, so in Europe, Sega won that generation. That’s just one example, but it’s a key thing to bear in mind whenever you listen to historical analysis of gaming.
Anyway, that was some of my memories of arcades in the UK as a kid. What were your arcade memories like, where ever you are in the world? Let me know in the comments below!
I'm from the UK, raised in Bristol, and born in the early 80's, so I have a few more memories of arcade games than you. You are right though, a lot of locations tended to be seasides, motorway service stations, bowling alleys, and definitely the odd arcade cabinet at the back of a pub - I remember seeing a standup OutRun machine in the skittles alley my dad played at once.
I don't really recall any particular, dedicated UK arcades like were popularized in America, but the pier at Weston-Super-Mare had a lot there. Plenty of those typical penny-drop machines, but also racing cabinets, shooting games like Time Crisis, things like that. I remember a skiing game where you stood on the skis and physically had to swivel on them to ski down the slalom.
Never really played the arcade games though, I was just more fascinated by the attraction modes of them, I could just watch them for hours. Sega Rally I enjoyed though, generally though I was just never very good at them!
Cool memories! Thanks for sharing!
For me, in 90's Romania's Capital, arcades were like the previous versions of internet cafe's. :D Neighborhood spots where they would make a business out of 5-10 arcade games. I remember Street Fighter, Final Fight, Raiden, House of the Dead, and yes, Dragon's Lair too :) and many others. Many spots placed near highschools. :))
I remember I would save change in a milk bottle and then would go with my father to empty it at the local arcade spot, after which I would stay a bit longer, just looking at the "experts" playing those game and reach stages I would only dream of.
Cool to remember!