New Arcade - London

city41

city41

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All those beautiful candies .... and Gauntlet Legends :)
 
city41

city41

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We have a couple hipster targeted arcades here in Denver. They focus on late 80s/early 90s games. They're not bad. But I wonder how well something like this one would do here. I'd even think just having a bunch of candies would catch people's interest.
 
amaradona

amaradona

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Today,they got the place flooded unfortunately...I hope there is not so much damage.
Anybody from London who goes often?
 
IDCHAPPY

IDCHAPPY

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I think a couple of Naomi's got wet but Mark doesn't seem too down heartened, a couple of days drying out should do them he reckons.
He should have some Jelaco pony cabs in there soon too :-D
 
Teddy KGB

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That place looks great. There is a similar place a few towns over from mine but on a much smaller scale... and it's going out of biz. :(
 
amaradona

amaradona

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good to know!
I just arrived in London and I amazed that there is no retro games shop.For a such big city,that s curious.
I am glad we can get at least one game center like that one.
 
mr aize

mr aize

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So I went down an checked out the Heart of Gaming today... Very cool and the guys there are real sound. Been meaning to check it out since it opened, finally got round to it... Anyways, the guys say I can bring some of my neo geo carts down an run em there if I want (if they don't have em already) so any of you in london wanna meet up for a session. Got windjammers, super dodge ball and league bowling for starters (I suck at most of em but play well enough to make it interesting) They've got a bunch of neo geo games there as well along with plenty of fighters... One thing they seem to be lacking is shooters but I was only there a couple of hours an didn't get that much time to chat to Mark, so maybe they've got some that weren't hooked up...
 
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xsq

xsq

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nice place. If I'm in London again I'll have to take a trip over there, thanks for posting this up, looks like a way better place to visit than that stinky old Buckingham palace thing ^^
 
F4U57

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Damn, that looks great! Nothing like that in Sydney, at least not that I'm aware of.
 
lethalsilicong5

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I hope this place does well. There was a nearly identical place in Milpitas, CA that closed down a few months ago. I wish them the best. London is a way bigger place so hopefully their crowd is bigger :D
 
wyo

wyo

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lethalsilicong5 said:
I hope this place does well. There was a nearly identical place in Milpitas, CA that closed down a few months ago. I wish them the best. London is a way bigger place so hopefully their crowd is bigger :D
Click to expand...

In my experience, the UK has a higher gamer to non-gamer ratio living in closer proximity, which should help.
 
Naika

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This arcade looks fucking awesome, and the payment scheme seems sensible to me. Cross you fingers for this place to stick around fellas, cuz we know how hard it is nowadays for arcades to do so. Love all the Candy Cabs too.
 
wataru330

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I wish them all the best. We had something similar...two somethings, actually-w/ in a stones throw of Silicon Valley.

And they both went under.

A shame really, but is a Japanese style Game Center viable in this day & age? If they can't survive in the Bay Area, w/ it's rich gaming history & culture...when even major Japanese arcades have shut down over the past year-I wish these folks in London luck.

I really hope they make it.
 
theMot

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F4U57 said:
Damn, that looks great! Nothing like that in Sydney, at least not that I'm aware of.
Click to expand...

There is nothing mate, one day I would like to rent out an industrial unit somewhere stick 20 or so cabs in there and open it up one or twice a month for a fee.

Gotta keep chasing that carrot lol
 
IDCHAPPY

IDCHAPPY

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I'd love to do something similar here, there's a lot to think about though...
 
mr aize

mr aize

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Been thinkin a lot about this over the last year or so.... Obviously owning your own arcade would be a lot of people's wet dream... But how do you make it economically viable? Thinking only way is to combine it with another business... I.e a bar/restaurant... Possibly with a club attached... Course you could just sell meth out of it, but I don't think you'd fool the police accountants for long..... (that last one was a joke btw, before anyone gets bent outa shape)
 
wyo

wyo

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mr aize said:
Been thinkin a lot about this over the last year or so.... Obviously owning your own arcade would be a lot of people's wet dream... But how do you make it economically viable? Thinking only way is to combine it with another business... I.e a bar/restaurant... Possibly with a club attached... Course you could just sell meth out of it, but I don't think you'd fool the police accountants for long..... (that last one was a joke btw, before anyone gets bent outa shape)
Click to expand...

A lot of bowling alleys/laser tag places used to have decent arcades but most have been "upgraded" to token-based kiddy games. The main one near me recently sold off almost all of their real games and replaced them with shiny new iPod style games. I don't know what I was more upset about - the change or the fact that I missed the cabinet fire sale. Personally, I would combine an arcade with a game shop or game room business that sold and serviced cabs, pool tables, memorabilia and other "man cave" type products.
 
skate323k137

skate323k137

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wyo_vr4 said:
A lot of bowling alleys/laser tag places used to have decent arcades but most have been "upgraded" to token-based kiddy games. The main one near me recently sold off almost all of their real games and replaced them with shiny new iPod style games. I don't know what I was more upset about - the change or the fact that I missed the cabinet fire sale. Personally, I would combine an arcade with a game shop or game room business that sold and serviced cabs, pool tables, memorabilia and other "man cave" type products.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what happened to one of ours, everything is ticket redemption bullshit, not a single "real" arcade game in there. Well, a couple gun games / driving games, but no normal cabs. There is one place about 30-40 miles from me that has ~50 pinballs and ~50 classic cabs all very professionally restored, but it's also a bar / nightclub / restaurant.

Best of luck to these London fellas, I hope they can keep this around.
 
mr aize

mr aize

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Kind of why I was thinking bar... Ok, so you loose the under 18 crowd, but surely most arcade patrons these days are in their late 20s/30s... You could do competitions, i.e beat the local donkey kong high score, get a free pint/pitcher (depending on how high it is..) Recon you'd snag a fair few of the city crowd after work if you had a decent beer list along side the classic cabs...
 
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