I’ve spent a bit of today in one (for a job), and it’s… Honestly just kind of sad.
Everything is “branded” and based on some commercial IP. All the “independent”/quirky things I grew up with are gone, it’s fully cashless, much more expensive, and just generally… Super underwhelming. I’ve seen one pinball machine in the entire place. 😔
And still, the place is nearly empty. So if they’re trying to “appeal to different demographics” by pivoting to branded shittiness (fidget spinners! plants vs zombies! Fucking rabbids), it clearly ain’t working, lol…
Ah, I miss the 2010s, even compared to this shit…
Yeah, it's weird seeing pictures of what is considered arcades in Europe. It took me forever to figure out what the heck the coin pushers were. On the other hand, the term Arcade is from the shopping centers started in the industrial revolution with arches everywhere. The shops and others stayed in Europe, but the games expanded into the USA.
This video shows a normal coin pusher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACgZJg19jTs (the machine's name is a strange coincidence)
It's surprisingly hard to find a video with just a normal coin pusher. It's all just clickbait and ridiculous made up numbers on Youtube.
We have those in the states. There are also coin flick games that aren't found in the US.