One common theme shared amongst the arcades
we've visited is that most of them are only notionally arcades. They're bowling
alleys or fun-fairs quite often, but the idea of a building dedicated to video
games is as alien to Scotland as it is exciting to me.
The upshot of this is that the places you
find video games often seem pretty confused about what to do with them. Elgin's
Bowl 2000 only had two games during our visit, one of which was Ford Racing
(ugh), awkwardly placed right next to the children's play area making any
adults who want to play it look really creepy. Putting aside that wanting to
play the charisma-free Ford Racing: Full Blown is actually kind of
creepy, what's the message here? These games are for children? Are they for
families to play or groups of people out together? The placement and selection
of many of the games we've found seems to suggest that arcade owners aren't
really sure.
