A Quarter in Denver

When I handed the reigns over to Peter for our annual retro issue, I was planning on escaping into the mountains of Colorado for some much needed vacation. While my planned respite did occur, I didn’t make it out of the office without a homework assignment. Peter’s idea was was simple. Try to find an arcade in the Denver Metro area where I could play a game for one quarter. We both agreed that it would probably be difficult, as we assumed that inflation had affected the video arcade market like everything else.

It turns out, we were quite wrong. The video game arcade is alive and kicking. Although, to find it you may have to look further than your local shopping-mall.

I started were I begin all my research: Google. The search engine had a total of 626 listings in the greater Denver area, and I hesitantly jotted down a few addresses before hitting the road. I assumed I would find nothing but dollar-a-play arcades; therefore I didn’t think searching more than a few would be necessary.

Unlike most ventures in search of long lost treasure, I hit the jackpot immediately. Pulling into the parking lot of the Nickel-A-Play arcade in Aurora, I thought to myself, “They can’t possibly mean five cents. They don’t even make machines that accept nickels.” Again, I was wrong. Well, almost. The Nickel-A-Play arcade (there are three in the state of Denver) was established in 2000, and their business plan is simple. Customers pay $2.50 to get in the door, and from then on out every game costs between 1 and 6 nickels. So there’s the catch. I was on a mission to play a video game for a quarter. Although I had found a gold mine of cheap gaming, I did have to cough up almost three bucks to get in the door. This wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but the setup was compelling. The arcade was above average in size, and it included a dizzying array of both classic and modern titles. The back row, where the ancient screen-burned games live, didn’t even cost a nickel … they were free!

After spending an hour sampling the wares (DDR? 6 nickels), I decided to head to the next arcade on the list. Since I had already predetermined to dub this article “The video arcade is dead,” I was sure that the oddity of Nickel-A-Play would be my only success of the day. Once again, I was wrong. I traveled to a number of independent arcades and found the quarter games alive and well. Each of my stops held a few twenty-five cent treats of all kinds, from classics like Gauntlet to neo-classic fighting games.

After spending a day in the city, the verdict came back loud and clear. Just like the arcades of my youth, the modern arcade scene offers a bevy of game time for a pocketful of quarters. If you are lucky, you might even spend all day with just a pocketful of nickels.