One thing about having a small child is that you end up going to lots of birthday parties, I have lost count on how many times I have been to Chuck e Cheese in the past few years. I used to love going when I was a kid, so its great that I can experience that again… But something is different!
Every time I am there I start asking myself the same thing, “Why did they stop with the arcade style games?” … I mean really, the games they have now are basically designed to take your token and spit out tickets. There is no skill to most of them, just chance (So basically its a casino for kids!) …not that this is a bad thing and I understand they need to get with the times, but I still feel there is a lack of good old fashioned coin ops!
Pinball, Pac Man, Donkey Kong and Q-bert… they were the stars of my day. Sure Mario and Sonic took over the 90’s and now we have all the first person shooters and guitar hero, but retro is coming back and people still enjoy the classics. Even if they had a just one or two of the classics sitting in the back corner, totally devoid of kids. Or even better put them where the parents sit, I would love that feeling of playing Donkey Kong well scarfing down pizza and pop.
Perhaps this is more of a marketing issue and license problem, or maybe that they just make more money from kids trying to gather a billion tickets. The environment is still the same, the pizza and the mouse is still the same! So maybe its not really a problem, just more of an observation.
Brian Pudden