[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

There are at least 3 of these in my city and unfortunately all of them kinda suck for one reason or another.

Two of them are basically just noisy f'ing bars with a lot of arcade machines you have to pay for and the third, which operates as per your description, has a lot of slightly-broken cabs and uses emulation for several of them.

But what's worse is that when you don't have to pay for it, it turns out most arcade games really suck.

[JohnBooty]

    But what's worse is that when you don't have to 
    pay for it, it turns out most arcade games really suck. 

One disconnect, perhaps, is that early 1980s games tended to really be designed to be played for score rather than just "stay alive as long as you can"

Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in particular have absolutely sublime risk vs. reward scoring mechanics. They're deadly boring IMO if you simply try and stay alive as long as you can, but if you play for score it gets interesting.

This isn't true for every game, and by the mid to late 80s games had fully transitioned into "stay alive as long as possible" quarter munchers.

[coldpie]

That's not an unfair take.

One thing I really enjoy, as someone born in the late 80s and missing out on the arcade scene entirely, is experiencing the old games that I've heard so much about. I always try to hit up the local classic arcade whenever I'm out of town. It's fun to search for an arcade that finally has that game I've been hunting down to experience. For example just a month ago, I went to an arcade here in the Twin Cities for the first time, and they had both a Super Breakout (1976) and an Asteroids (1979). I've always heard about how eye-piercingly bright the weapons fire in Asteroids is, but never got to experience the real vector graphics machine until just last month. It was a treat! And Breakout has this huge, physical knob that you use to change game modes -- kchunk, kchunk. Great stuff, very memorable.

One day I'd really like to experience an original Pong :) But I think they're quite rare these days.

The shine does wear off if you keep hitting the same arcade, for sure. But it's fun to explore new ones in other cities, or new ones as they pop up in your hometown. And it's always great to bring along a friend who is new to the scene and show them the sights.

[JohnBooty]

     I've always heard about how eye-piercingly 
     bright the weapons fire in Asteroids is

Yeah! And the glowing phosphor trail! It just can't be described. And it really is a treat to be enjoyed while it lasts. Those machines (specifically the monitors) are all slowly dying and they ain't making any more of them.