Why do/did you choose classic arcade games? Did you grow up playing them or is it something you have just taken up in recent years?
I'm probably one of the youngest members on the forums, I'm not sure what attracted me to arcade games. I played some when I was very young but only because my brother took me, I missed the end of the SF2 resurgence era by a few years. I think I really enjoy the technology the most, and the games are sort of secondary. It blows my mind that forty years ago people were getting some of these games out of the hardware of the time. I like fixing and tinkering and knowing friends with games will give you a lot of opportunity to troubleshoot and repair if you want it. I was intrigued by King of Kong and my first game was a DK. I stupidly sold it and have been trying to atone since.
Why do you prefer CAGs over modern games? Do you play modern games?
I very rarely play modern games anymore. Modern consoles are too expensive for me to justify owning them for the one or two games a year that come out that interest me. CAG games are easily emulatable and you can play basically anything from the last 40 or so years of gaming, which I think is cool. I continue to play CAG games because I've been introduced to a lot of great people through this hobby. People like Steve Wagner, Ben Falls, Michael Sao Pedro, Martin Bedard etc who are much better at these games than I'll ever be but are never annoyed by my incessant questions about how to play various things.
How long have you been playing CAGs?
I've been playing them 'seriously' for probably about 2 years.
Do you have "real-life" friends that play CAGs too? What do your non-CAG friends and your family think about it? Do they know?
I am friends with a lot of local collectors of classic era games who don't compete but enjoy restoring and owning games. My family know and are vaguely interested, and I have a few friends that are into more modern games like 90s shmups and fighting games but most don't really care for classic games.
Do you think arcades will ever make a resurgence in any significant capacity? Why/why not?
I think we're living it right now. Between mega-cades like Dave & Buster's and independent barcades/museums and so forth there hasn't been a better time in recent memory to play arcade games. If anything in five or ten years the last generation of people to be organically exposed to the arcade environment might get old and stop playing and the resurgence will die off again.
And lastly, if you had to choose just ONE (1) game to play for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
If I had to choose one game period it would be Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. It's fun at all levels of the game and like CAG games has introduced me to a lot of really awesome people. I could play it for hours a day and never get sick of it. It tests reaction time and planning as well as overall knowledge of the game like very few other games do. I love the music, I love the art. It's a wonderful game.
If I had to choose a CAG game, currently I think it would be Robotron. The Williams aesthetic is really cool, and the control you have over the game is so satisfying. The unique control scheme really fits the game well. It also helps that I'm still improving on it, I guess it might lose its luster when I can marathon it. I tend to like games that are brutal but fair, and make you instantly want to try again when you die, and Robotron checks all of those boxes.
Excellent thread idea.
