DARK PIZZA PLACES! Or: the death of nostalgia!

[MattSullivan]

Ok. This is going to be a wierd topic. Bear with me.

The other day, I passed by a Chuck. E. Cheese Pizza place, and peered inside. All I saw was a perfectly SQUARE interior, with shiny plastic slides, and illuminated to near-blinding effect, by a thousand or so halogen bulbs. Everything looked just so....sanitized. There weren't even any video games! Just things like WHack-A-Mole and SKEEBALL.

Where am I going with this you ask?

I am 33 years old. I grew up in a time when places like Chuck. E. Cheese ( then called Showbiz Pizza in our city ) were dark, scary, smoke filled, adventurous places! You could get lost just ducking behind a row of video games! The same went for arcades. They USED to be dark, and scary, and filled with teenagers playing hookey. They were run by big fat guys who wore wife beater t-shirts! Now there arent any more arcades...

( An arcade, for those of you under the age of 20, is a building that was once filled with stand-up video games )

NOW, for us adults, there used to be many dark, dark dark pizza joints, and they ALL had a video game or PINBALL machine in the corner. They were friggin great! Some were so dark, you could barely see your food! The darkness was partof an overall atmosphere, that seems to have disappeared from the country.

Now, my point. Do any of you miss that atmospherer? Am I just pining for the old days? because it seems like everyhting these days is so sanitized for our protection, that these places just have no life anymore?

whatta you guys think?

[Vuldari]

A little.

The arcades that used to be king around here (back in the day... late80's-early 90's) were called "Circus Circus / Circus Pizza", and they were generally HUGE places crammed so tighltly with every kind of game you could think of that there was barely room to squeeze around the people playing them to get in line for the game you wanted to play.
(Rows and rows of Pinball and Skeeball, etc. along the walls included)

There was music playing at the family stage aria where they had an anamatronic stage show every 20-minutes or so, the smell of pizza was everywhere, and the whole building roasted like a sauna just from the body heat of all the people crammed inside.

My parents hated the place, but I loved it. Back then, "The Arcade" was the place to be. Video Arcades were big buisness back then, and they had no shortage of income, so the game machines were almost allways in prime working order due to constant upkeep and repair. (not like the busted old forgotten cabinets in the corner of the room you see today).

Games like StreetFighter, Virtua-Racing, "The Simpsons", Mortal Kombat and anything that moved when you played it were King. The volume on all the games were allways turned up so loud you could barely hear yourself think. ...and yet, you could allways pick out the sound of guy's cheering on the local gaming guru who was whooping the *** of his latest victim on the fighting game of his choice.

It was stuffy...smelly...crowded...hot...and painfully loud...

...and I never wanted to leave.


No one cares about video arcades any more. All the exiting matchups happen online now with each player isolated in thier dark quiet room with only thier half-eaten bag of dorritos to share thier exitement, frustration, victory and losses with them. All the exiting new games are on the home consoles and PC now, while new arcade games (like F-Zero AC, and the countless "Capcom vs. Everything" fighers) go mostly unnoticed.


Just like watching films on the Big Silver Screen, vs. a really nice home theater, a part of me feels that no matter how good home-system games become, they will never be able to recapture the thrill and fun of the experience of gaming in the golden years of the Video Arcade.

To all of you too young to have experienced it...you don't know what you have missed.

[Figarou]

There are still places where you can have food and play lots of video games.

One place thats VERY popular is Dave & Busters.

Take a look.
http://www.daveandbusters.com/

They serve more than just pizza. Look at their food menu.

There is also a bar. (Try and find THAT at Chuck. E. Cheese's)

[MoonKit]

( An arcade, for those of you under the age of 20, is a building that was once filled with stand-up video games )

That line was so funny. "Stand up video games."

But Im under 20 and I do know what an arcade is. But I know what you mean. The one we had where I lived became well lit and they put in a carosel for the kids. It wasnt fun anymore. And now they tore it down and put up a Chinese Buffet.

Havent been in Chuck E Cheese's in awhile...maybe I should go have a look and see what you mean.

[Vuldari]

Oh, I know they are still around. There is a Big one downtown around here that I have never been to.
(GameWorks - Block E - Minneapolis, MN)

It was a good try, and the closest thing to the old golden years around, but it's just not the same. It's not the same crowd any more...the mood, the atmosphere, the games...I'm just not feeling it.

Also, I don't drink, so a bar is actually a turn-off from my perspective.

Drunks playing Skeeball and DDR?...oh joy...

[Moon_Lover]

In my hometown, there was also a place like that. Godfather's Pizza. It was a small town, and the pizza place was a relatively appropriate size. There were a few games, but they weren't too loud. If you stepped a ways away, you couldn't hear them anymore. It also had that darker atmosphere. But unlike the other two mentioned, it was pleasantly quiet. That was one of the things that I enjoyed the most about it. While I did live in a small town, my family made more than enough noise for a city. Places like that were pleasant in the fact that it was one of the few times that they would shut up.

[Figarou]

There is an arcade called "Diversions" here where I live. (No food, just video games.) I knew the owner. He sometimes let me play games for free. I loved pinball games. The problem with those is that its always broke and parts are expensive. It got to the point where pinball machines are no longer being made.

[Vuldari]

Ahh...Godfathers Pizza. I clocked in more than a few dozen hours (and hundreds of quarters) into BattleToads, RoadBlasters, Pac-Man, and "The Simpsons" game at that place.

Yes, that was a very different environment. More a restaurant than an arcade, the games were (and still are, last I was there) allways a constant temptation, and my preferred way of passing the time while our pizza was made. As the years go on though, it's still the same old games, and the machines are "out of order" more often than not. ...sticky, neglegted and forgotten in a musty corner room of the building where they store the extra "take home" boxes along the opposite wall.

Still...happy memories there...and not half bad Pizza either.

*Suddenly has a Craving for Godfathers Pizza*

[MattSullivan]

OKay. But what about the dark???

Oh, and Dave and busters doesnt count. It's a "family fun center" not an arcade :} There's a difference. "family fun centers" are monitired by video camera and are brightly lit. Arcades ( and the pre-mentioned pizza joints 0 were dark and there was always the potential you could be kidnapped on the way to the restroom :}

Yes that was a good thing! it made the place exciting!

[Moon_Lover]

As far as the dark, it was one of the reasons I liked the place. I have always had a preference for the dark, as light hurts my eyes.

[Vuldari]

Arcades ( and the pre-mentioned pizza joints 0 were dark and there was always the potential you could be kidnapped on the way to the restroom :}

Yes that was a good thing! it made the place exciting!

Umm...okay, that's just creepy and disturbing.

All the arcades I ever visited (including the dirtier, seedier ones) were allways so full of flahing bright game screens, neon lights and occasionally moving colored spotlights illuminating the floors, cieling and walls (like some mad rock concert) that I usually didn't think of them as "DARK". ...More like Blacklight Party Psychedelic...

Only the corner-bar arcades were dark like that...and the games they had usually sucked anyway. (Sticky, scratched glass table version of Mrs. Pac-Man, Contra with boken player-2 joystick, Electronic Darts and TRON anyone?)

No...I don't miss that at all. I stayed as far away from those kinds of places as possible.

[Figarou]

OKay. But what about the dark???

Oh, and Dave and busters doesnt count. It's a "family fun center" not an arcade :} There's a difference. "family fun centers" are monitired by video camera and are brightly lit. Arcades ( and the pre-mentioned pizza joints 0 were dark and there was always the potential you could be kidnapped on the way to the restroom :}

Yes that was a good thing! it made the place exciting!

O'RLY?

As for "Dark," I was thinking "dim lights." Not a place where bad people hang out.

I don't go to places where the chances of getting robbed/kidnapped is high.

Count me out. BLEH!!

[geekboy1500]

In my hometown, there was also a place like that. Godfather's Pizza. It was a small town, and the pizza place was a relatively appropriate size. There were a few games, but they weren't too loud. If you stepped a ways away, you couldn't hear them anymore. It also had that darker atmosphere. But unlike the other two mentioned, it was pleasantly quiet. That was one of the things that I enjoyed the most about it. While I did live in a small town, my family made more than enough noise for a city. Places like that were pleasant in the fact that it was one of the few times that they would shut up.

thats like REALLY REALLY WEIRD

i live in a small town in minnesota with godfather's pizza, i know the son of the guy that runs one of the branches.

[Vuldari]

In my hometown, there was also a place like that. Godfather's Pizza. It was a small town, and the pizza place was a relatively appropriate size. There were a few games, but they weren't too loud. If you stepped a ways away, you couldn't hear them anymore. It also had that darker atmosphere. But unlike the other two mentioned, it was pleasantly quiet. That was one of the things that I enjoyed the most about it. While I did live in a small town, my family made more than enough noise for a city. Places like that were pleasant in the fact that it was one of the few times that they would shut up.

thats like REALLY REALLY WEIRD

i live in a small town in minnesota with godfather's pizza, i know the son of the guy that runs one of the branches.

You are in Minnesota? (...whatever happened to that map thing anyway, that showed where all the Pack Members Were?)

I live in "The land of 10,000 lakes" as well...born and raised...and have been going to Godfathers Pizza for years, as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

...very interesting...