If you’ve never been inside a “real” arcade, it could be hard to distinguish one from say, oh, a Dave & Buster’s. Authenticity is a hard nut to crack, but there are a few hallmarks of the video game arcade of days gone by: first, they have video games. Lots and lots of video games, and (usually) pinball machines. They’re dark (so that you can see the screens better), and they don’t sell food or booze. You can make an exception for a lonely vending machine, sure, but full meals? No thanks. There’s no sign outside that says you “must be 21 to enter.” These are rarely family-friendly institutions, either. Your mom wouldn’t want to be there, and nobody would want her there, anyway. This is a place for kids to be with other kids, teens to be with other teens, and early-stage adults to serve as the ambassador badasses in residence for the younger generation. It’s noisy, with all the kids yelling and the video games on permanent demo mode, beckoning you to waste just one more quarter. In earlier days (though well into the ‘90s), it’s sometimes smoky inside, and the cabinets bear the scars of many a forgotten cig left hanging off the edge while its owner tries one last time for a high score, inevitably ending in his or her death. The defining feature of a “real” arcade, however, is that there aren’t really any left.
To say that Nolan Bushnell single-handedly created the arcade would probably be overstating it: coin-operated machines had been popular in America for decades by the time he got his start in the early '70s, and the pinball arcade had a storied (and notorious) spot in American history. It is also undeniable, however, that the video game arcade would not have happened without him. The video game arcade had its roots in 1971, when Computer Space, the first commercially sold, coin-operated video game, was designed by Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Though considered a failure at the time, the game was revolutionary, and formed the foundations of a new industry. It also marked the beginning of a long, illustrious, and world-changing career for Nolan Bushnell. In 1971, however, Computer Space looked anything but illustrious, and the idea that there would soon be arcades dedicated entirely to video games was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind — except for maybe Nolan Bushnell’s. To understand the ecosystem that Bushnell and his ilk injected themselves into to create the modern video game arcade, however, you have to go back a lot farther than the 1970s.
YOUTH GONE WILD
The arcade has always been aligned with the coin-operated amusements industry, and — since the birth of pinball — with youth. By definition, an "amusement arcade" is a place that houses coin-operated machines, and for the first half of the 20th century, that meant pinball. The first successful coin-operated game was called Baffle Ball, created by David Gottlieb in 1931. Gottlieb and Co. was founded in 1927 in Chicago, where most of the big amusements companies were based: ABT Manufacturing was founded there in 1924, Bally in 1932, Williams in 1943, and Midway in 1958. Bally and others originally made much of their money manufacturing slot machines. The coin-operated amusements industry, which developed jukeboxes, pinball machines, slots, gumball machines, and later video game cabinets, had its roots in gambling, a controversial industry in America. Most states had laws against or heavily regulated gambling, but the slot companies quickly found ways around the prohibitions. Gumball machines, for example, were used to sidestep state gambling laws against cash payout machines by offering gum as a prize, leading to widespread and long-standing distrust of vending machines by would-be regulators. From the beginning, pinball machines were a subject of municipal debate revolving around one main question: whether or not pinball machines were "games of chance," which by definition meant that they were gambling devices. As early as 1934, operators, game manufacturers, and distributors argued — most often unsuccessfully — that pinball was a game of skill, and not inevitably connected to gambling. It was true, of course, that some early pinball machines manufactured by companies like Bally and Williams did offer a cash payout and also that early machines, which lacked bumpers and flippers, were largely luck-based endeavors. Cash payouts were quickly abandoned as it became clear that pinball and gambling weren’t a comfortable (or legal) match.
The first full-fledged and highly publicized legal attack on pinball came on January 21st, 1942, when New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned pinball in the city, ordering the seizure of thousands of machines. The ban — which would remain in effect until 1976 — was the culmination of legal efforts which had started much earlier, and which could be found in municipal pockets all over the country. LaGuardia, however, was the first to get the job done on a large scale. A native New Yorker of half-Italian, half-Jewish ancestry, LaGuardia despised corruption in all forms, and the image of the stereotypical Italian gangster was one he resented. During his long, popular tenure as mayor of New York City, he shut down brothels, rounded up slot machines, arrested gangsters on any charge he could find, and he banned pinball. For the somewhat puritanical LaGuardia, pinball machine pushers were "slimy crews of tinhorns, well dressed and living in luxury on penny thievery'' and the game was part of a broader "craze" for gambling. He ordered the city’s police to make Prohibition-style pinball raids and seizures its "top priority," and was photographed with a sledgehammer, triumphantly smashing the seized machines. On the first day of the ban, the city police confiscated more than 2,000 pinball machines and issued nearly 1,500 summons. A New York Times article of January 23, 1942 informed readers that the "shiny trimmings of 2,000 machines" had been stripped and sent off to the country’s munitions factories to contribute to the war effort.
New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was photographed with a sledgehammer, triumphantly smashing the seized machines
Though probably overstated at the time, pinball’s relationship to organized crime certainly existed. The end of Prohibition didn’t bring an end to the mob, but it did require the diversification of portfolios, adding the distribution of vending machines, cigarette machines, jukeboxes, and pinball to the "amusements" of booze and prostitution. LaGuardia’s mission gave voice to sentiments which hearkened back to the moral outrage of the Prohibition era, too, most of which had nothing to do with organized crime. Pinball, a "pointless game," was attractive to children, and this worried parents and "concerned citizens." Seth Porges, a writer and expert in the history of pinball, says there were "off the books" justifications for the banning of pinball in addition to those that were actually used to make it illegal. On the one hand, he says, "they successfully made the case that pinball was a type of gambling," but under the surface was a much more temperance-fueled, nearly religious belief that pinball was a tool "from the devil," which corrupted youths. Newspapers across the country essentially nodded their heads in agreement as games of all sorts — billiards, and even "old ladies’ bridge clubs" — were held up to scrutiny. At the time, it was easy to make the case that pinball was morally corrupting, at least insofar as it was a gateway to gambling, as well as a complete waste of time. Many large cities followed in New York’s footsteps, including Los Angeles and Chicago (San Francisco is one of the only major cities to have never banned the game), and pinball bans became fairly commonplace across the United States.
PINBALL INNOVATIONS
1933 Mechanical tilt
1947 Flipper
1953 Two-player machine
1956 Multiball
1974 Digital scoring
1975 Solid state electronic
The pinball manufacturers proved highly adaptable and innovative, however. The invention of the flipper by Gottlieb in 1947 helped to launch pinball more firmly into the "game of skill" category, and manufacturers began to aggressively pursue a family-friendly image. Of course, that didn’t matter to much of the country where pinball was illegal, forcing machines into even seedier locations like porn shops and dive bars. New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood became a haven for backroom pinball machines. Like so many things which are illicit, though, the attraction of pinball only increased in the prohibition years following World War II, and, by the 1950s, the quickest route to proving your rebel status in America was to be seen within a few feet of a pinball machine. That cliché would later be reinforced in the form of the leather jacket-wearing, authority-bucking pinball wizard The Fonz from Happy Days. In many municipalities and towns where pinball was not illegal, a required paid licensing system (which made the machines taxable at rates of up to 50 percent) was put into effect, limiting the number of machines in one location.
Most machines now bore an ominous sign reading, "For Amusement Only," to make it clear there that the money changed hands in one direction only. Amusement parks began printing custom tokens which couldn’t be confused with legal tender. Pinball flourished where it could, even while its reputation with the concerned citizens and parents of America was overwhelmingly horrific. Mothers and small PTA groups formed bands which demonstrated at candy stores and tiny arcades where their young ones were whiling away hours and cash in lieu of doing their homework. Much like their later counterparts with video games, parents feared "zombified," disconnected children unable to "think logically" as the pinball racket "bleeds millions of dollars from youngsters each year." Parents, warned Better Homes and Gardens in October of 1957, should "act now to keep your child f