PSA: New retro arcade in Athens, GA

[joshnickerson]

Figured this might be of interest to fellow DP-ers in the northern Georgia area. A new arcade, Flashback Games, opened up in Athens a couple weeks back and I stopped by tonight to check it out. The interesting thing about this one is that you pay a $8.00 cover charge to get in, and all the arcade units are on freeplay mode, so you can play to your hearts content without dropping any tokens or quarters! Lots of old beat-em-up classics, like Street Fighter, Ninja Turtles, X-Men and Final Fight, along with several Nintendo Vs. cabs, a Playchoice-10 unit, a room dedicated to space shooters, a couple of pinball games, and even some ancient vector games from the late 70s (the vector graphics are as bright and crisp as ever!)! A couple of the cabinets had a few issues (Donkey Kong Jr. in particular had a lot of glitchiness on the screen), but overall the experience was awesome. I had a brief chat with one of the employees and he said they plan on bringing in more games as they fix them up, so the selection should be growing.

Anyway, Flashback Games is awesome, and if you live close to Athens, you should check it out. I'll be the nerd swearing at the Vs. Super Mario Bros. cabinet on Saturday nights.

Website here!
http://flashbackgames.org/

[treismac]

Perhaps a road trip is in order...

[Hawksmoor]

Thanks for the heads-up Josh. Athens is a good hour and a half or so away from me, but I think I might make the trip to check this place out. I can't remember the last time I was in an arcade, at least one that wasn't filled with DDR machines and crappy ticket redemption games.

[Hawksmoor]

Perhaps a road trip is in order...

Pick me up on your way. ;P

[joshnickerson]

They're having their own version of Nintendo World Championships 1990 this coming Friday, with the big winner receiving a one month pass. Check their facebook page for more info: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Flashback-Games/427771420602526

[Jack7]

Pick me up on your way. ;P

come get me too. road trip sounds great.

[spman]

Retro Arcades are an idea that work better in theory than in practice. I've talked to people to still have routes and service arcade machines, and with a few rare exceptions like the Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga machines, the classics don't earn enough to even cover the cost of keeping them powered on. There is just zero interest anymore. The only way these businesses work is if they either come up with alternate revenue streams that bring in significant income, or they operate with very little overhead costs, in an area with very heavy foot traffic. It's too bad, I miss the days of the Arcades myself, but they're gone.

[LimitedEditionMuseum]

Retro Arcades are an idea that work better in theory than in practice. I've talked to people to still have routes and service arcade machines, and with a few rare exceptions like the Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga machines, the classics don't earn enough to even cover the cost of keeping them powered on. There is just zero interest anymore. The only way these businesses work is if they either come up with alternate revenue streams that bring in significant income, or they operate with very little overhead costs, in an area with very heavy foot traffic. It's too bad, I miss the days of the Arcades myself, but they're gone.

Well aren't you awesome!

[joshnickerson]

Retro Arcades are an idea that work better in theory than in practice. I've talked to people to still have routes and service arcade machines, and with a few rare exceptions like the Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga machines, the classics don't earn enough to even cover the cost of keeping them powered on. There is just zero interest anymore. The only way these businesses work is if they either come up with alternate revenue streams that bring in significant income, or they operate with very little overhead costs, in an area with very heavy foot traffic. It's too bad, I miss the days of the Arcades myself, but they're gone.

Someone's a Negative Nancy today...

[Flam]

http://limare.buzznet.com/user/video/12536/saturday-night-live-debbie-downer/

[joshnickerson]

They held the NWC tournament tonight, sadly not many competitors, since most people didn't come in until after the registration deadline and because it's spring break most college kids were gone. Still, it was an awesome time, I managed to get second place at 698,000, but one dude aced everyone with 1.4 million. Talked with the owners afterwards and if business keeps up they're hoping to expand into the nearby unit and house more pinball machines. From what they said, they're slowly getting more and more people coming in, so I'm hopeful they're here for the long haul!