History of video games/Arcades after the golden age

A number of classic machines on display at the American Classic Arcade Museum

Emerging Models of Arcade

Barcade

The Barcade emerged an extension of the strategy of placing arcade machines in bars dating back to 1971 when a Computer Space cabinet was installed at the Stanford, California icon, the Dutch Goose bar.^[1]^[2] The first bar to pioneer the barcade model was the 2004 establishment of Barcade in Brooklyn, New York City.^[3] Barcades gained popularity in the 2010's.^[4]^[5]

VR Arcade

In 1991 the Virtuality VR arcade machine is launched, among the first VR arcade machines.^[6]^[7]

By 1992 there was at least one VR arcade in New York City and Chicago each.^[8]

Major arcade games

Street Fighter

Street Fighter I was launched in arcades in 1987 and was followed up by the beginning of the more successful Street Fighter II series in 1991.^[9] The unauthorized modification Street Fighter II Rainbow Edition likely influenced later editions of Street Fighter II.^[10]^[11]

Mortal Kombat

Launched in 1992, Mortal Kombat is noted for it's intense use of violence compared to other fighting games of the time.^[12]^[13] Midway, the developers of Mortal Kombat, used real actors and digitized them for the game, and inserted dev team in jokes like "Toasty!" to the game.^[14]^[15] For at least a year following release, Mortal Kombat was in high demand in arcades, leading to versions for home consoles.^[16]

Dance Dance Revolution

Released in 1998, Dance Dance Revolution became a huge hit due to its unique gameplay.^[17]

Other Notable Games

Metal Slug

Launched in 1996, Metal Slug is renowned for both it's solid gameplay and it's excellent 2D graphics.^[18]^[19]

Silent Scope

The Silent Scope arcade machine has a gun controller with an additional LCD screen in the scope of the gun.^[20]

Timeline

2005

In 2005 North American arcades were still available in dense urban areas, though had mostly vanished from suburbs.^[21]

2020

Sega sells off it's arcades in Japan because of the COVID-19 pandemic.^[22]

Arcades across the globe

Italian arcades

In Italy arcade video gaming developed circa at the same time as in the United Kingdom and the rest of Western Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, although it always remained focused in holiday locations, especially on the seaside, where today the last remaining video arcades are found.

Japanese arcades

The 1970's saw the first Japanese arcade games.^[23] By 1995 Japan had 51,520 arcades and 831,369 arcade machines.^[24] As of 2019 the number of arcades in Japan were in decline but continued to be culturally important.^[24]^[25] The COVID-19 pandemic shuttered iconic Japanese arcades.^[26]^[27]

North Korean arcades

Due to the secrecy of North Korea as a whole, little is known about the gaming culture there. However occasional glimpses of arcade gaming culture have been witnessed and recorded.

In 2008 photos of a North Korean arcade were released, showing a rather bare bones experience of mostly 1980's era machines.^[28] A 2013 commercial from North Korea shows an arcade including then recent games from 2010, though it is unknown how popular such arcades are.^[29]