Monday, August 24, 2009

Spock to the rescue!!!

Zachary Quinto grabs a joystick for Save the Arcade campaign

With arcade gaming in danger of going the way of the dodo and multiple iconic arcades in jeopardy, Zachary Quinto appeared at Video West Arcade in Glendale, Calif., to take part in STRIDE gum's Save the Arcades campaign.

Quinto was on hand to raise awareness for the cause and keep the dream alive for gamers everywhere. He posed for photographs, interacted with employees and went head to head with local consumers on classic arcade games.

The event kicked off the Save the Arcades campaign, in which STRIDE is featuring profiles of four iconic arcades from around the country on its Save the Arcades website. Visitors to the site can play an arcade-style video game, with their points scored benefiting the featured arcade of their choice. At the end of the campaign, the arcade that has earned the most points, as determined by participating consumers, will be declared the winner and receive $25,000 courtesy of STRIDE gum.

To further kick off the campaign, STRIDE also recently saved an arcade. After STRIDE discovered that a Philadelphia-area arcade (Challenge Arcade) was within days of closing down, they decided to help by providing $10,000 to ensure that Challenge would stay in business.

[via SciFi Wire]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This may sound silly; but It's a noble cause beyond that which is obvious. Most of the writers on this blog had their teen years in the 1980's. No to say that time was without peril for young men; but perhaps that was a time when young men didn't face death around every corner. Please allow me to explain.

Most of us grew up on the south side of Chicago. And while there was danger; more or less, you found it; not the other way around.

At least then you knew that if you stayed off the tracks, your likelihood of getting hit by a train were low.

Back then, black, white and every color in between went to the arcade. Stoners, jocks, gang members, nerds all went to the arcade. We all had fun together. It was public, kids behaved and had fun together. Nowadays kid hurl vile anger at each other via headsets. The murder rate of kids in Chicago and around the nation is at an all time high.

Arcades provided an equal playing field for us all to share a commonality. Everybody had a few quarters; you didn't have to ask your parents to plop down $300 every few years for a system and $60 bucks for every new game.

Once again I'd like to emphasize it was public. Kids didn't go there disrespecting everyone. We were by far and away all polite. Oh, and we all did other things too. We played stickball on the street, or football. We played board games, and lots of other stuff.

No-one went to an arcade thinking, "Damn.. I hope I don't get shot."

I think arcades were good for that public fabric where we all were equals. We all respected that all we wanted was to have some fun.

Yeah, some kids had Atari, or an C-64 or Apple at home; but the home games sucked in comparison to the arcade. You had to go out in public to have the best fun.

Hell even if you didn't have many quarters; it was fun to watch the best of the best square off against each other... In public, in the level playing field known as the arcade.

How I wish the kids of today could relax and enjoy the kind of fun we took for granted.

Nelson said...

The reason arcades are going the way of the do-do bird is because of the home consoles. Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii have graphics that easily rival that of the arcades. They need to come up with something that you can't get on a console.

Anonymous said...

I agree a thousand percent.

Still, it's that anonymity that the home headsets provide that contribute to the antisocial, often over the top abusive language by young teens.

I've listened to young kids playing the current generation of consoles. more often than not it sounds like Al Pachino's character from Scarface - Tony Montana is repeatedly dropping bowling balls on his dick.

Malcolm said...

I completely agree. The anonimity of gaming online on consoles or PCs have added to the antisocial part of gaming. I've only tried to play a handful of games on Madden online. Every time, I have picked a lesser team, and when I have been up by halftime, they have suddenly quit. I only played with the headset one time. I turned him off after the kickoff. I can only take a little bit of profanity from someone that sounds like a 10 year old. But needless to say, I know for a fact that they would not have said any of that stuff if we were next to each other in an arcade.
I had plenty of fun in arcades playing Cyberball, NBA Jam, Arch Rivals (they even added the local high schools and their colors in our area back then). And if you have to look a person in their eyes before you walk away and quit, I'm pretty sure you don't have as much to say.
Last summer, the guys and I were in Lake Tahoe and decided to go to a movie. We had to wait for an hour or so until it started, so we dropped in the arcade next door. We had a ball trying games we never played and were not bitter at losing to younger people. I tried one crazy game and made it to the second level using all my trys, and then proceeded to watch a kid go to something like the 15th level without even thinking about it. He didn't talk trash, he simply gave me pointers and said, "Here's what you want to do in this situation....blah, blah, blah."
But that is just another old school gamers thoughts.

Malcolm said...

Oh, and to touch with what Nelson said about why arcades are disappearing, I agree partly. I think arcade owners, more likely arcade owners that jumped on the bandwagon, go a little money hungry in the mid 90's. I used to be able to spend 20 bucks and enjoy an arcade for the day. Suddenly in the 90's, all the games were taking between 3 to 6 tokens each play. Really???
If you think I'm exaggerating, go to a Dave & Busters or Gameworks. You'll find a whole lot of the recent games cost 2 dollars. I remember we were mad that Dragon's Lair was 50 cents each play.

Anonymous said...

Yeah Malcolm, I remember when Dragon's Lair first came out; I was NOT pleased. Yeah the graphics were sweet in comparison to what we were used to, but I wanted to play Galaxian, Galaga, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Centipede, Ms. Pac Man, (I'm sure I'm leaving stuff games for that time period) over Dragon's Lair.

The game looked great, but all you had to do was memorize where & when to tap the joystick; not one part was dynamic.

and sure, we talked smack when we were playing Atari (or whatever) growing up - but not anywhere near the crazed swearing they do today (it's not even talking smack these days.. it's just a string of bad words with no cleverness whatsoever), but we never just quit (we'd really be teased and made fun of if we were that much a poor sport)

I know tab and i would wait all week to play against each other. We really looked forward to our competitions whether it be at one of our homes or at the arcade. Today it's just taken for granted (for the most part)