Are Arcades Dead?

Well are they? I remember back when I was younger, one of the things that I loved to do, was go to the arcade with my cousin and my dad. Eventually this would become my 2 cousins and my dad. Then it became my 2 cousins, my dad and occasionally another person, either another cousin or sometimes even an uncle and another cousin. But that doesn't really matter. All that did matter was the fact that going to the arcade was fun. One fond memory would be this arm wrestling game. I remember my cousin, my dad and I would team up and we beat the arm wrestling game together. Yea, it's technically cheating but still it was fun. Also the tickets you got from playing some of the games was also pretty awesome. You could get prizes afterwards. I don't actually remember using any of the tickets because we would always say, we'll save them for that big prize that's worth a whole bunch of tickets. Also, it was awesome to see your initials at the top of that list and then when you come back after a month or so, your name is still up there but the names underneath yours were different. That was always satisfying (^-^)

However, nowadays, the only arcades I see are those tiny little ones with about 4-8 machines in them. I don't know why but I think the idea of an Arcade is gone. People would rather play the games like Halo 3 or something on their X-Box 360 rather than go out to an arcade and spend money. Although I can see the appeal of not having to spend what used to be 25 cents just for one play. It's just not quite the same as an arcade. The atmosphere is different. You don't hear the numerous different machines playing their own soundtracks at the same time. One thing that I liked about arcades was that you could go with friends, instead of sitting in a room.. alone. Sure you could have friends over and they could play at the same time, but it's still not quite the same. I think it's more fun to spend time with your friends outside of the house rather than inside one. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy spending time with my friends no matter where we are, I just think there's more variety of things that you can do outside of the house.

Oh well, I guess if ever I want to visit something like an arcade, I'll have to go to the theaters. (-_-)