I am a child of the 80's and remember going to the local arcade for the day and playing games. Now todays kids got computers and home gaming systems. My question is this...Would a arcade do good business in this day and age? I live in a town of about 12,000 and there is nothing to do here for the kids, but i am not sure that an aracde would go over well. I'd have some of the older games as well as the newer ones. Let me have your input on this. Thanks a million.

I live in a considerably larger city, but arcades here are alive and well. Not just with the children-of-the-80's-all-grown-up crowd, but with the school-age kids, too. We have a huge arcade with all the latest expensive video and sports games (that cost between $1 - $4 to play), right down to little mall arcades.

My favorite is a stand-alone 24-hour place that has been around a long time. It gets most of the latest video games when they come in (usually they cost $1 to play), but tends to steer clear of the sports type games (baseball and basketball throwing, etc.) They keep most of their games around for up to a couple of years (they cost 25 or 50 cents to play once they're not new releases anymore) and then sell them. But the best part of the arcade is a section with the "classic" video games (and they have most of them) that only cost a dime to play! They also have a restaurant that sells burgers and hot dogs and drinks, etc. The place is packed 24/7!

If you want to see if people in your area are into arcade games, try finding somewhere to rent a bit of space (like a corner store) and rent a couple of arcade games for a month or two to see what kind of revenue they bring in. My friend started out doing that, and ended up buying several games because they were doing so well.

Good luck!

: I am a child of the 80's and remember going to
: the local arcade for the day and playing
: games. Now todays kids got computers and
: home gaming systems. My question is
: this...Would a arcade do good business in
: this day and age? I live in a town of about
: 12,000 and there is nothing to do here for
: the kids, but i am not sure that an aracde
: would go over well. I'd have some of the
: older games as well as the newer ones. Let
: me have your input on this. Thanks a
: million.

IMO, this idea would not work with today's teens. However, I think it has great potential if you market to the thirtysomethings in your area. All the old arcade games, pool tables, beer on tap... I'd hang out there

: I am a child of the 80's and remember going to
: the local arcade for the day and playing
: games. Now todays kids got computers and
: home gaming systems. My question is
: this...Would a arcade do good business in
: this day and age? I live in a town of about
: 12,000 and there is nothing to do here for
: the kids, but i am not sure that an aracde
: would go over well. I'd have some of the
: older games as well as the newer ones. Let
: me have your input on this. Thanks a
: million.

i grew up in a town about the same size and the arcade was packed all the time..... but that was about 15 or 16 years ago.

my nephews and nieces dont even know what one is!

i am not sure how it would go over in your town.... whats the mix of ages like? alot of kids? personally, i would love to have "Roy's" back up and running so when i visited, we could go and play donkey kong, kung fu, tron, zaxxon and fuseball.

here in Chicago, there are "Dave and Buster's" which is a bar atmosphere with hundreds of new video games..... in Canada there are Sega Cities, which are very similar to D&B's.
these are pcaked all the time with a mix of teenagers through to families with younger kids.

its not at all like the arcades we used to hang out in, where mom would not approve of us being there!

so basically, i am saying, i would love to see the arcades of old crop back up, but i'm not sure how it'd fly.

email me at reis_marc@hotmail.com....... i am taking a few days off of work and would love to help you out on the ideas that you have though.