Final Report

A room full of dedicated enthusiasts probably isn't the the best indicator of the health of arcades. A healthy gathering of people who have travelled specifically to play pinball and classic video games wouldn't necessarily translate into healthy footfall for an arcade, but it does suggest an evolution of arcade gaming that won't necessarily require traditional arcades to exist. The Scottish Pinball and Arcade Expo, held in Kilsyth, may have been a celebration of gaming's history in many ways, but it was also an encouraging glimpse into a more independent, grass-roots way of enjoying and preserving arcade games.

We've seen countless examples of arcades who don't know or care enough about their roster of games to keep them in good order in recent months, so it was heartening to be around well maintained cabinets and pinball machines including the original Outrun and games as old as Missile Command and Galaga. As great as these are, they are essentially a reminder of a bygone era and not particularly indicative of where arcade gaming currently is or where it's likely to go. The candy cabinets on offer, however, suggest  an alternative recent history and future for arcade gaming.

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Hilton Coylumbridge, Aviemore

There was no specific plan to visit the Hilton Colyumbridge in Aviemore at this stage of the YouArcade journey, but it certainly worked out tidily from a narrative perspective. Seeing the selection of games on offer here was a little depressing, but not in the way many of our previous visits have been. 

Hilton’s Colyumbridge’s arcades aren’t depressing in terms of washed out screens and shattered light-guns or swathes of fun-time real estate given over to slightly seedy fruit machines. Instead, the selection of games available in Aviemore was a blunt reminder that the days of OutRun 2 and Crazy Taxi being arcade kings was over, and the days of Golden Axe and Shinobi were prehistoric. This isn’t necessarily a slight against the cabinets on offer there, but is a little painful to see that Sega’s arcade golden age has ended in such harsh terms.

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Elgin, Arbroath, not Lossiemouth but almost Nairn

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.

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M&D's (Motherwell)

From the perspective of a blog seeking out Sega arcade games throughout Scotland, M&D's is frankly disappointing. Two Sega games in a complex as large as M&D's couldn't be anything but disappointing, especially considering that the main arcade area is mostly dominated by fruit machines. That's not to say it wasn't great to find and play good condition Scud Race and Daytona USA cabinets in the bowling area (indicating to me that increasingly, arcades perhaps aren't the best place to find arcade games), but it did mean that M&D's had a pretty flimsy roster of Sega games.

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Beach Esplanade, Aberdeen

It's not unreasonable to expect a fifteen year old arcade game to be a little worse for wear. A lot of
them are visceral experiences, with pedals to be stomped, shotguns to be pumped, not to mention
those arcade machines that are literally designed to be hit. It's also not unreasonable to expect that
an arcade game that has been stomped, pumped and hit into a pathetic state should perhaps be
repaired and it's certainly not unreasonable to expect that most games should at least have visible
displays and and have means of accepting money to allow us to play them.

Both Sunset Boulevard and The Boardwalk at Aberdeen's beachfront leisure complex have some
pretty impressive games on offer, but are sadly marred by the fact that so many of them are in such
a sorry condition. I can sort of understand why Sunset Boulevard's Manx TT Superbike cabinet was
showing some cosmetic damage, as it's almost old enough to enlist in the armed forces, but why is the excellent Sega Rally 3 from 2008 in the same arcade suffering from a washed out
screen and absolutely destroyed seat mechanism? Even more galling is the state of 1997's The Lost
World: Jurassic Park on offer. Even though an employee had to help a pair of players activate their
credits during our visit, when we tried to play it later, the same problem struck again.

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Portobello Beach Arcades, Edinburgh

How weird are arcades?

No, listen, how weird are Scottish arcades?

There's something unique in the way illicit-feeling, mundanely 'adult' activities like bingo and slot machines are soundtracked by Daytona USA's indelible opening theme and crunch and thud of beat 'em up attract sequences, or of how the palm tree lined, perma-summer worlds of Outrun or Crazy Taxi offer only brief escape from the most likely dismal Scottish weather. Unfortunately, due in large part to increases in home console technology, many arcades seem to be committing less space to video games and games that would have once been arcade blockbusters like Mortal Kombat or Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds are sadly foregoing arcade releases completely as arcades appear to concentrate on a small variety of proven genres like racing and lightgun games.

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