Abandoned arcades, decaying arcade machines - Make Arcades GREAT Again!

[parallaxscroll]

https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/04/22/abandoned-arcades/











































Lets make arcades Great Again!

This Ad. was payed for by Donald Trump.

[Emperor Megas]

Well, that was depressing as hell.

[celerystalker]

Well, that was depressing as hell.

Very much so. I didn't read the linked article, but those pictures are sad.

[Niku-Sama]

I think its interesting how they are actually melting into the floor.

man MDF sucks...

[YoshiM]

[Tanooki]

So many nicely recoverable marquees is what I'm seeing, and those 2 shots in the middle where the room hasn't eaten the machines alive might have something very salvageable in there too.

[CRTGAMER]

So many nicely recoverable marquees is what I'm seeing, and those 2 shots in the middle where the room hasn't eaten the machines alive might have something very salvageable in there too.

THIS. Even the Arcade Controllers can be converted for home consoles and PCs. I spotted the Zaxxon Controller in the first picture right away; I bought that same controller from an Industrial Liquidator and did the mod using an impact printer sound box for an enclosure.

[Tron 2.0]

Pictures of that abandon arcade are depressing to see i miss arcades in general.They were more social that's for sure.

[Gameguy]

This reminds me of when someone rescued an arcade game from an abandoned building, and almost got arrested over it when the building's owner later found out. I can't remember where I first heard about this, it could have been posted earlier on this forum.

https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/06/03...nics-sundance/

Basically if you rescue a machine from an abandoned building that's been left to rot, don't tell anyone about it.

[Niku-Sama]

yea no kidding

I read that the other day actually. moral of the story is money makes everything better it seems

[CRTGAMER]

This reminds me of when someone rescued an arcade game from an abandoned building, and almost got arrested over it when the building's owner later found out. I can't remember where I first heard about this, it could have been posted earlier on this forum.

https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/06/03...nics-sundance/

Basically if you rescue a machine from an abandoned building that's been left to rot, don't tell anyone about it.

Well it is stealing no matter if the machine gets rescued. This is the way I felt about all the cabinets pulled from that ship and went to private collectors, were they actually paid for?

[retro junkie]

It is sad that Arcades no longer have the prominent place that it had many years ago, late 80's, early 90's. Waiting for that hot game to be ported to your favorite console was anguish. Arcade's early influence on video game consoles paved the way to the place video games hold today in our entertainment culture. I lean toward arcade flavored gaming which is difficult to find any more. The main reason I am a retro gamer at heart. Presently the gaming market has evolved from early arcade influence, computer gaming impact, into a life of its own. I have lived through it all.

I miss those early days so much. Loved those horizontal and vertical shooters.

[Greg2600]

FWIW, go onto KLOV.com, and it's quite obvious MANY machines are still out there and well taken care of. Within an hour's drive, I have at least 10 arcades that I can visit, fairly well-maintained, so they're still out there.

[Tanooki]

That Sundance story is a great read. He should have never snapped it up, but in the end it all worked out. The most damning part wasn't him getting it as he was cool all around, but all the shitheels and scumbags attacking the guy like a bunch of entitled manbabies butt hurt they didn't just snap it up first (and either clam up or be public about it.) At least it was rescued (and paid with a Disney trip) and recovered/restored by the new museum owner. So it's a win all around. Many scum were exposed as rats and children, and good people got something nice out of it including the former owner. Fact is you don't just go in and take something if it's on private property no matter how f'd up the place is, and if you feel you have to (don't be a moron and report it.)

[Gameguy]

Well it is stealing no matter if the machine gets rescued. This is the way I felt about all the cabinets pulled from that ship and went to private collectors, were they actually paid for?

I read about those games from that ship last night actually, the owner was contacted and everything was paid for. Pulling 50 cabinets off a ship with a rented full size crane would be hard to keep unnoticed.


As for that Sundance, it was hard to actually locate the owner. Apparently the only address that could be found was a PO box, and he didn't bother to check that box for 2 years so nobody could reach him. He owed a lot of people money so he purposely made it difficult for anyone to find him. He was only found because so many people contacted just about everyone in that town to find him or any relative of this person, even officials and employees of the town were contacted for this. And the building it was in was actually used as a crack house previously, it was totally abandoned and left to rot. If the owner actually cared about his property and valued it, he would have maintained the property or at least removed the items of value so they could be properly stored. The only reason the machine was saved, and even legitimately paid for, was because people trespassed on that property and found out what was stored there. I'm sure the owner didn't know what he had and didn't care about any of it, only caring at all when he found out it was valuable. I'm sure to the owner the only thing he really considered valuable was the land itself.

As for abandoned property, look into "squatters rights". Under certain circumstances property can legally become someone else's, if it's abandoned long enough and someone else uses it long enough without being asked to stop. A bit different to just picking up an abandoned item on someone's property, but basically the legality of ownership is similar to owning prototype games.

Seeing old items left to rot unappreciated is offensive to me. It's like seeing a chair used by George Washington just kept in a field behind someone's house, used as target practice.

[Tanooki]

Feel the same about abandoned stuff. I can't fault the dude from rescuing in from a deteriorating into the elements crack house. His major crime (other than the actual trespass and removal) here was opening his dumb trap on the internet and getting raked over the coals by a bunch of self entitled babies hot they didn't have the balls to do what he did first if they really did in fact know it was there. If someone is that far gone off the grid not wanting to be found, they didn't give a shit about the building or its contents. Had he shut up, quietly restored and repaired it himself, and never showed it off and kept it to himself only to maybe a few years later admit he has one and not give the backstory he could have been fine. You can't trust people on the internet to act like adults and not seek revenge or whatever else. There was tiny arcade cabinet wood envy going on, a raging nerd boner over that find and that story covers the fallout well. I imagine the property owner probably didn't even know or remember he had a dead arcade game there and had no cares either until whining, bitching, and digging rustled him out of his hidey hole to want to get a paycheck after finding out what was sitting there in plain sight. I'm not saying it's right to steal but along those squatters rights ideas you threw out there, something like that. That whole of everything there was straight up abandoned by a crook dodging paying off debt.

[FrankSerpico]

Computer Space....Good Lord, if only that poor sap had taken care of that cab he could probably send it to a museum and afford to send a kid to Stanford

[Niku-Sama]

i'm sorry if I ever come across something like that I wouldn't tell any one how I got it. probably wouldn't tell any one I even had the thing.

[Tanooki]

That's what I said, it's the smart thing to do because if you can't find or locate an owner and something is so far abandoned for decades and abused, as far as most probably would be concerned it's finders keepers though in some cases obviously the police wouldn't agree IF people got mouthy and vindictive pushing them to investigate and do their job as they really wouldn't give a crap (especially in that crack den example.) I've picked up little things before off the ground like a dropped gameboy game once or twice, didn't say a damn thing, just kept walking. I've got better things to do than post a wanted sign or return it to the police for their hard investigation into a video game. If someone cared enough they'd have come back for it.

[jammajup]

You would be lucky to even salvage anything for retro game room wall art from any of that, so sad