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The coin-op market: Where is it thriving, and what companies support it?

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9 comments, last by Brain 9 years, 3 months ago

The only place I see paid coin ops here in the UK is at the cinema.

If you go to the coast, you'll find tons of old arcade machines in some of the coastal towns in seaside arcades.

Some are run-down sorry excuses, with 80s and early 90s arcade cabinets on their last legs, missing buttons and peeling facades. Others are very well cared for, as new, and all of them still receive new machines. I've noticed though that a lot of the newer machines seem to be gambling oriented ones, e.g. fruit machines, or ones that vend tokens to turn a profit for the "prize booth".

If you ever visit mablethorpe on the east coast of the UK, look right near the seafront in the arcade cloest the beach that looks like a warehouse inside. They have some very carefully, faithfully preserved early 1900s to 1950s pre-transistor arcade machines, these are mostly pinball and "flip the ball into the chute" type wooden affairs, much like this one:

WIN%20A%20CHEW.jpg

They are still fun to play for the nostalgia and well worth a visit. You can still play them all, they arent just fenced off as museum pieces.

Edit: There also used to be an actual offical NAMCO arcade here in Nottingham city centre. Last time i set foot inside it, it had lots of "Dance Dance Revolution" type machines and a lot of gambling oriented devices. It closed some time in the last decade if i recall correctly.... :(

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