Arcade Games

The Avalon arcade has been in my life forever. When I think back to my childhood at the arcade, what stands out?

• Saving enough tickets with Alex for a Zippo lighter that we didn’t know how to use.
• Dropping a $20 in the sewer on the way there when I was 7 and saying “No problem, I’ll just get another one”
• Crying because Jeff let me spin the wheel when he got a high score in skee-ball, and when it landed on 1000 tickets he didn’t give me any of them (this is a whole post unto itself, should he have?).

But what memory stands out the most? Breaking the consecutive kills record in Target Terror. When I think of my favorite games from the arcade, Target Terror, Area 51, and House of the Living Dead, etc. all come to mind. What do all these games have in common? Guns.

The Avalon arcade currently has ZERO games with guns. They got rid of them all.

I have to imagine this is because arcades are shifting away from shooting games. Is that possible? And if so, should that be a thing?

I could possibly see some correlation between kids playing gun games and wanting to shoot people later in life. Does that warrant removing the games?

As a kid whose prime arcade years were the 90s and 00s, that upsets me. I loved those games. Quit being so sensitive and let your 9 year old shoot some aliens in the head with a machine gun! Is the argument really “If this increases the likelihood that even one kid decides to be a school shooter, then we should remove these games.”. Might as well remove Cruisin’ USA too because it teaches them reckless driving!

But if a generation goes by with no guns games, and kids today grow to love other stupid games as much as I love those gun games, is it such a loss that the gun games are gone? Am I the grumpy old men yelling that society is crumbling because my kid can’t shoot a rocket launcher at a truck full of Zombies? I don’t know, but I miss my games.

Maybe this opens an avenue for an 18+ arcade, where you have ultra-realistic gun games, porno-skee-ball, can-you-pass-a-sobriety-test, drug dealer games, etc. I would go to that if it opened on the Avalon boardwalk. Investors?