Location Watch October 2024: New Arcades Celebrate Grand Openings

Welcome to Location Watch, a regular series of posts that curates news about recent arcade business openings from around the world, into one place. Our last Location Watch is from August. Thanks to our various readers for sharing information on locations, along with other news sites like RePlay Magazine and InterGame Online.

Turbulent business conditions appear to continue for many venues out there, where some have been reporting earnings being down and some places even closing. Amidst the turmoil however, new places forge ahead and we hope that this highlight can give a small boost out there. If one of these venues has opened up near you, then be sure to pay them a visit.

North America

Hometown Arcade NJ (Bloomfield, NJ)

Whether or not you call Bloomfield your original stomping grounds, this new retro arcade has that “home town” feel to it. Aside from a small lounge for console gaming, the floor as you can see is packed with classic staples: Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Final Lap, Frogger, the Pac-Man family of games, Q*Bert, Space Invaders, and more; then there are some games from the ’90s like NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, Revolution X, Tekken 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and some others. There is a selection of pinball tables, although this is where it is not in the classic realm, sporting new titles like Godfather, John Wick, Stranger Things, and a couple of others. Note that this is the second location for the company, with the first having been set up in Norwood, MA. Visit the website, here.

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Also thanks to S1ckH4nds on the AH Discord server for pointing this place out; he went and gave it a visit, shared some photos there.

Fun Spot Arcade (Trumbull, CT)

Normally, a new opening by Chuck E Cheese would go into the FEC links and other brief location updates – but not this time. CEC Entertainment are breaking with convention and introducing this new concept, although it does make things a little confusing given the existence of FunSpot up in New Hampshire (which used to be the world’s largest arcade, but is now #2). Still, this idea that is more game focused does bring CEC back to the ’80s when most of those locations were more of a “pure arcade”.

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Pixel Palace Arcade and Bar (Round Rock, TX)

The retro bar arcades just keep on coming, as this one in Texas that opened a couple weeks back really drives home its 1980s angle, with a pretty heavy focus on video games and pinballs from that decade including OutRun, Punch-Out, Track & Field, Turbo, Karate Champ, Tapper, Gauntlet, Galaxian and Galaga (although there are a few exceptions, such as Street Fighter II both in video and pinball form). Check them out on Facebook here too.

Time Rift Arcade (Bedford, TX)

Thanks to YouTube retro gaming personality The 8-Bit Guy, this suburb of Dallas now has a retro free play arcade. This would fall into a bar/arcade of a sort, given they do serve alcohol, although from the video below it isn’t set up like a typical bar. The game selection covers both old and new, with the likes of a newer Golden Tee sitting right next to an Atari Assault and Sega Zaxxon. This tour provides the best look, but you can also visit them online.

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Offworld Arcade (Detroit, MI)

This arcade has recently moved from a different spot and opened up a very nice looking location, merging both classic video games and pinball machines together in the same venue. They note on their website that they are “not a museum,” but they also function as a kind of art gallery – of course, I think you can argue that each arcade machine is an interactive sculpture. Some locations like this one do a better job at honing in on that idea however.

Clarksville Corner Arcade (Clarksville, TX)

Connected to an independent pizza restaurant that has been open since May of last year, Clarksville Corner Arcade is bringing some arcade action to the third Texan location in a row. This one opened very recently and there isn’t much more detail out there on it, but this photo sourced from the article just linked shows that they have a single Dirty Drivin’ (which is a lot less common these days) and Super Bikes 2 each, for starters:

Fun Unlimited Arcade (Ogden, UT)

This one was a bit surreal for me – as many of you know, from October 2020 to December 2022, I operated a second location in Ogden, UT at a place called the Newgate Mall. I ended up closing it down for various reasons, but this past September, I was in the area and stopped by the mall to see how things had changed. To my surprise, the game store neighbor known as Fun Unlimited, was sold to a new owner, who decided to move his store over to my old location, then where their previous store was at, converted it over to an arcade. I’m not exactly sure why they just didn’t use my old space as such a spot, although they do have a boxing machine and a pin at the front of said space. The party room I’d built was being used as storage, but I suppose a game store doesn’t have much of a use for a party room.

Over at the actual arcade space, they have games both old & new, and a pair of Skeeball games…which I really do need to get for my space at some point. Due to the narrow space of the store, the layout felt a little bit cramped due to the size of the newer games. Unfortunately, quite a few were broken down, which I can sympathize with. There was no attendant there however…perhaps that was my mistake in always having an attendant around. Having a Halo and a Dark Escape in the same space is cool though: I posted more pics in the AH Discord server in case anyone is interested.

Yume Arcade (Ontario, Canada)

Not to be confused with YuMe World in the UK (which is a different proposition altogether, though was planned to be Japanese-themed), Yume Arcade claims to be Ontario’s first ever import location. It has a ton of rhythm games that you usually see at arcades of its ilk, but also some titles that are rarely ever seen out West like Sega’s Kancolle Arcade. That alone gives it some added novelty, and the place seems to be very popular off the bat:

FEC Openings & Updates

Dave & Busters Open In Lombard, IL

D&B Revamps Daytona, FL Location

Another Former Round1 Becomes A Tilted 10 In Peoria, IL

Genda Closes Sale On NEN

Betson Installs At Cloud Peak Lanes, Sheridan, WY

Betson Also Reopens Pizza Ranch FunZone In Iowa

New Andretti’s For Fort Worth, TX

Palmeras Entertainment Opens In East Brunswick, NJ

FunQuest Lynchburg, VA Reopens After Renovations

California Urban Air Park Soft Opens With A Mini Arcade

Europe

NQ64 (Leeds, UK)

Post-pandemic, a few arcade companies in the UK really started picking up pace. One of the biggest of these has been NQ64, their nationwide retro barcade chain. Granted, that has slowed down slightly over the past year, with them focusing more on repeat engagement with events and new additions such as laser tag, but they have had a new location in Leeds to their name since late August. This one is jostling for attention between a couple of other pre-existing places there, including Arcade Club.

Sega Prize Zone (Aldershot, UK)

Sega Amusements and Superbowl UK’s expansion continues, as they have made quick work in opening this latest Sega Prize Zone location in Aldershot near London after announcing it just a couple months ago. For the Sega games, this one has Mission Impossible and Daytona.

Electric Social (Berlin, Germany)

Competitive socialization is really booming in Europe right now, and driving a lot of out-of-home entertainment openings there with a heavy emphasis on arcades and bars. For an instance of that, here is what has been dubbed Berlin’s biggest arcade, marking another of their new generation locations after Germany’s restrictions became less intensive. Find a tour here.

Levels (Prague, Czech Republic)

Another example of the ‘social-tainment’ center trend is Levels in the Czech Republic, a country that doesn’t get mentioned often here on AH. It also has a bit more than just the arcade area and selection of themed bars, as it features billiards, karaoke and mini golf too.

FEC Openings & Updates

Bandai Namco Amusement Europe Furnishes Swingers London With Specially Branded Carnival Games

Elsewhere In Camden, London, Lane7 Open Their UK Flagship Location With Another Pump It Up Phoenix

Hollywood Bowl Reopens Tunbridge Wells, UK Location

Butlins Starts New PlayXperience Centers With Simulators

Fire & Ice, A Club With A Barcade Area, Opens In Newport, Wales

Genda Opens Genda Europe In The UK For Future Expansion…

Planet Play Malta Gets A Sennox Management System

Asia/Middle East/Oceania

GiGO Main Store Dotonbori (Osaka, Japan)

Back in September 2023, GiGO made waves with a huge new flagship location in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, to fully replace the big old Sega one that famously closed in 2021. One year on from that they have now got another main store in Dotonbori, Osaka, which is apparently around where a Club Sega used to be until the late 2000s. The first two floors are all about those cranes, but the top one is at least devoted to a decent amount of rhythm games, racers, battlers and more, including a big display for their own Breaking Down punching machines we covered earlier this year.

GiGO have also recently opened new locations in Sannomiya Kitaguchi and Hiroshima Alpark with a healthy amount of games other than cranes too.

TimeZone (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

A number of companies have set their sights on opening more arcades in Vietnam of late; GiGO is one of them, as has been mentioned in a previous LW, but another is TimeZone. They have most recently opened two more locations there in Ho Chi Minh City, including their largest so far in Parc Mall District 8:

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Paradigm Zone (Adelaide, Australia)

A new name here is Paradigm Zone, who have recently opened their first location in Adelaide, South Australia. Remarkably, this business has been started up by a mere 19 year old entrepreneur, and is modelled on the futuristic ‘new wave crane’-heavy facility concept that has emerged from China. There is a lot more to it than just that though, with rhythm gaming action provided by several cabinets from Konami and Sega, as well as karaoke, photo booths, VR simulators, and a big light matrix game room.