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Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Thu, 29 May 2025 22:51:55 GMT

Sigh and here I am about to hit 17 years operating an arcade in a mall in Utah, and it's tough to get 1% of the media attention that this guy who couldn't even make it work after six months has received, all because people pay attention to negative news instead of the good.

It's simple to see why he failed - poor game selection (only 18 games?); nothing else to draw attention like pinball or basketball or food/drink; possibly a poor location; an unwillingness to operate newer content or to change the biz model when it didn't work.

By ArcadeGalactic

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 14:56:43 GMT

@Llia

Any small business should try to diversify the goods and services they offer. Especially gamer or entertainment venue related businesses. There are plenty of options and plenty of profitable ways to go about it.

By rsteele1981

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 14:55:13 GMT

I operated a LAN center with various consoles, PC's, and arcades from 2010 to 2022.

We had everything from DDR to pool tables to NES/Dreamcast/Gamecube and PS5, Multiple arcades, extra seating and tables.

The only way I made it profitable was by diversifying revenue streams that were independent of one another. Electronic repairs, private event hosting, weekly all night events every Friday and Saturday, concessions, retro video game sales.

I was on the front page of reddit and imgur several times that alone was worth approximately $10k in sponsorships from brands like Steelseries, BAWLS, Domino's, and others.
I never paid for ads, I rewarded customers for bringing in new people.

We sold high end retro games. It was normal for collectors to spend $3k-$5k in one visit.

My point is small business is hard. It's even harder if you put most of your eggs in one basket. I see the local places open now and they slowly add in services and things to sell to try to stay open. It's hard but that is true of all small businesses. Entertainment venues are not difficult places to operate. If you get your bookings right you are no longer depending on walk in traffic. You offer repair services for the type of equipment you are already responsible for maintaining your own.

There were months were I never opened to the public during peak booking hours on the weekend. Sometimes we didn't have open hours Friday-Sunday.

I am happy to answer any questions in regards to making this model work. How I did it, how I have seen others do it, and how I have seen other fail to. It is not a difficult model and there are plenty of places that do it very well. I saw several come and go in my city while I was in operation.

By rsteele1981

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 14:49:09 GMT

@La5734 My town got a new high street and shopping centre (entirely owned offshore of course). Our only local games shop tried to renew their lease but were actually denied by the landlord.

They don't even want the indies around. All the indies exist around the perimeter in property not owned by the corp. All they want is beige chains. And now they are desperately seeking a buyer.

Just another case of sociopathic, sycophantic parasites that leech communities and pass the blame when their idiotic ideas fail.

By Digglerdig

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 14:43:16 GMT

@NinChocolate Our entire lives have been squeezed so others can get rich. A cross between Black Mirror, Cyberpunk , and Ready Player One is what awaits us all....

By Digglerdig

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 08:35:25 GMT

Arcade Club is £15 all day and has a much more interesting selection. (At least the one near me). There are none free play Arcade’s in the city centre but I haven’t been interested. (Although they might be better maintained).

By h3s

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 05:57:49 GMT

No the issue isn't the idea the business model, i don't think it's even the pricing. It's not just F2P arcades that don't survive. Great independent restaurants do well for 3 years then they all close up even when they are thriving. Small interesting interesting coffee shops don't survive. Small interesting snack food don't survive. Stationary and arts stores don't survive. In the UK, and this IS A UK problem (EU has far more variety.) the costs between business rates AND RENTS is too high. In the UK it's all about property value, and large portfolios have massively over invested. There is a bubble that noone wants to burst, which means it needs to keep inflating. But offices and high street are just not worth that much. Near me even the busiest medium size minimarket chain closed up because of rents apparently. The quality of life in UK is frankly dismall because of lack of variety. If your not into chain Italian, Nero Coffee, or Greggs, Indian curry your plumb out of luck. You won't find 'artisan' anything. Patisseries, Donuts, Creperies, small Lebanese, real bakeries (greggs doesnt bake sht) hobby/enthusiast shops like Table top gaming shops, comics, arcades, even gaming cafes. Even fish and chips now fails unless it's part of a huge chain selling mushy over frozen fish. Think about it? What is there near you that is 'unusual' or 'niche'? Nothing. I can bet on it. That is only normal in the UK.
These things can't survive if they aren't MASSIVE volume chains with the power to negotiate half decent rents, and they struggle too. There is nothing in the UK. If you go to America it's totally different. Japan totally different. France, italy Greece, totally different. They all have Amazon too. Costs are too high here. There needs to be s commercial property crash, which needs to then stick. There need to be tax adjustments for small businesses, paid for by large businesses. UK basic standard if living in 'variety' is dismal. If you rave about greggs and nandos, shame on you frankly. It's garbage and you don't even know it because that's all there is. You've probably never tasted a real cornish pastie. You like sausage rolls instead because the Cornish pasties you 'can' get are just awful.

By La5734

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Wed, 28 May 2025 02:27:36 GMT

I feel like the real smoking gun for these is not having Scud Race. Throw an R360 in there too and I'd be there every day!

By Tom_Gamer

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 23:57:34 GMT

People get bored of arcades. Everyone that I've known that collects machines or that builds emulation setups stop playing. It's more about the setup and maintaining a collection than the games themselves. I've got a basement full of modded Arcade1ups that look awesome but collect dust. But what I do play, is a growing collection of pinball. When I go to Past Times arcade, which has 500+ pinball machines and something close to that in arcades, the arcade side is pretty empty. Pinball is where it's at if you want to run an arcade. The retro arcade machines are set dressing to either a really good bar or pinball parlor. Pinball is growing again, and new machines are always coming out. You can only play tmnt so many times.

By frogopus

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 23:44:43 GMT

Arcades like so many great things are a thing of the past. Atleast for the next 10-20ish years, until the internet has finally hit bottom and became nothing more than a ad bloated money sucking vacuum where it cost money for everything and the console games have became so locked down and expensive that players become fed up with the ads, restrictions, and cost that they rediscover these classics and take interest in them again.
Those that have managed to hold on to these working machines in man caves and basements will be sitting on very valuable items and small fortunes as so many of the original arcade games have been destroyed and no longer exist.
Just look at how much a working original Nintendo or atari with working games sells for currently.

By BoredatHome

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 23:21:14 GMT

Many problems why it failed:

All arcade machines are set to freeplay when they should had follow the old model of one coin per play
Too many old games, these are games that customers could just easily download online to play on MAME. Get some Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6, Super Mario Kart Arcade GP3, etc., to get customers excited.
No other form of entertainment (crane, pinball, gatcha, poker, wrestling, dancing, singing, pool, etc.) or offerings (pizza, bar, restaurant, barber, etc.) other than playing the arcades.

By Serpenterror

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 22:37:26 GMT

I think that the arcade should be secondary. You need another option like a cafe or small taco stand type deal to get regulars to come for lunch or something. I wonder how bowling alleys do it? Do people really have more time for bowling than arcades?

By Llia

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 21:46:12 GMT

I love that he gave it a go but it's incredibly hard for any arcade to stay open. One of my favorites in Aberdeen (South Dakota not Scotland) shutters for the summer months because they don't have enough people coming in. I can't blame them as the cost of electricity let alone rent would eat you alive. I patronize them every chance I get though as they have a working Baby Pac-Man and that's so rare to see!

By MegaManFan

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 20:47:34 GMT

@Tasuki people are a lot less sociable even versus just 5 years ago. Covid changed a heck of a lot!

By nocdaes

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 20:33:09 GMT

Sad to see this, but I can't help but feel that the location is a factor. No one goes to Portland to play video games, its the wrong crowd. Bournemouth and Poole combined is the 9th biggest urban area in the UK and it's just down the road with a higher turnover of tourists. I hope the guy can make some changes to make this work.

By AppleCrumble

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 20:21:19 GMT

Most freeplay arcades are "barcades" so the cover is just a cherry on top of beverage and food sales.

Running it as a straight up free play arcade is a bold move. Looks like its not paying off.

By gojiguy

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 18:40:01 GMT

@Martin_H I would hazard a guess that this was the affordable place for the owner to make a go of it if you're not rolling in start-up capital. It's always going to be a balance between footfall in a major town (much higher rent) or a cheap location (hardly any passing footfall).

Ultimately we seem to have a fair few people here (not yourself) bashing the owner who has given it a good go with presumably the minimum risk affordable to him, it's very easy to fling business advice at people when you're not the one taking the risk in the first place.

By ch37x

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 18:30:17 GMT

The problem is Arcades just arent the magical place they were in the 70s to 90s.

Once consoles like the Dreamcast came out delivering games on par with the Arcades there was no need to go to an arcade. Why spend $50 bucks an hour fighting playing Soul Calibur when you can get the game for the same price and play it whenever you want and own it for life?

Not only that but now you have emulators which people can download on just about any device including their phones and play games whenever and wherever they want no need to go to an arcade.

Not to mention ports to modern systems like the TMNT Cowabunga Collection, various Atari Collections, Midway Collections, Neo Geo Collections etc, etc there is no need for Arcades.

While I get the owner is doing it more for the social aspect people are alot less sociable these days as they were 30 to 40 years ago.

By Tasuki

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 18:16:18 GMT

@nocdaes No we definitely don't need inflation more today thank you.

By slider1983

Re: "It's Just Not Working" - FreePlay Arcade Will Close Its Doors Later This Month

Tue, 27 May 2025 17:57:13 GMT

What a shame. I do question, however, if an out-of the-way industrial estate, in an out-of-the-way place (Portland), in the largely seasonal (and hence sleepy) part of a fairly sleepy county (Dorset) is really the right location for such a venture.

By Martin_H