Arcade Arcana
The Video Game Revolution airs tonight in the US on PBS. I definitely plan on watching it, not because I'm a big fan of video games, but because I used to manage an arcade back in the early 80s. It was a pretty crummy job that involved constant face-offs with surly adolescents violent adults, and undisciplined little brats left in the arcade by their parents, hoping to use me as a surrogate babysitter. I'll never forget having to pick up the wet wads of spent chewing tobacco that would-be urban cowboys spit on the carpet. In addition, the company that ran the joint demanded regular polygraph exams from all its employees! About the only real benefit of the job was spending hours drinking beer and playing free games after closing time with my friends.
Thinking about those less-than-halcyon days of working at the mall led me to the International Arcade Museum and the Internet Pinball Machine Database. My favorites were the first laserdisc-driven game Dragon's Lair, giant pinball Hercules, and Death Race, a game that wouldn't raise an eyebrow now, but shocked and outraged John Q. Public back in the day.
PBS link via Scrubbles
Comments
I had a love-hate relationship with video games, in that they fascinated me, but I wasted prodigous amounts of money and time in arcades. I used to keep track of every single new one that appeared, and personally considered the First Age of the arcade to have ended when the fighting games came out, where people vigorously manipulated a dimensionless point in a giant video costume back and forth on a line while switching it back and forth between sixteen different colours. Er, as it were.
Posted by: Smarasderagd | September 9, 2004 4:02 AM
I quit the biz shortly before combat games emerged on the scene. Managing the arcade pretty much burned me out on playing games, and I've largely avoided them ever since. My kids, however, are a completely different story.
I only watched the first hour of the PBS special last night. Interesting stuff. It made me recall how I was willing to bike 8 miles over to a friend's house every day to play Pong back in the Seventies.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | September 9, 2004 9:48 AM
Arcades and pong may have been the beginning of the "Revolution". Pcs and consoles have really helped to drive it to new heights.
Virtual Reality in some crude forms is already here. It's the use of "Virtual Reality" outside the gaming platform that has got me really thinking.
Posted by: GTA | September 10, 2004 2:47 PM