A little over a month ago I made a very impulse purchase and picked up a Galaxian cabinet off Marketplace! Me and my family just moved, and the space for an arcade machine was finally feasible. I picked it up from a very kind family which obtained it from a storage unit clean out, they even hauled it to my house for free!! The character on this cabinet is unreal. It’s beat up but it’s all there. The cabinet had a 48-in-1 installed at some point during its life, while it is unfortunate I don’t get the original game boards, it is nice to have multiple games since I only have the space for one cabinet. I got the cabinet for 500, maybe I could’ve gotten one cheaper but for my area fully working it was a good deal. Im overjoyed with the thing, so it’s justified in my mind. My only big problem with the cabinet is the joystick. It’s an 8-way, and I think that’s messing with the inputs on Pac-Man. It’s tough to play properly. If anybody has any suggestions where to get a replacement part or any advice I’d love to hear it! I’m really excited to learn about the maintenance and technical aspects of these games. Mandatory cat photo at the end.

When I started out collecting arcade games in the 1990s a local operator would throw out piles of stuff including PCBs, monitors and PSUs. I had read u/randyfromm article in STG about how easy Peter Chou power supplies were to fix so I grabbed every one they tossed.

Fast forward to 2026 and the only new ones you can find at a reasonable price are the sketchy BLEE 9916s or its clones. Glad I saved these from the landfill.

Shedcade coming together.

Guessing this screw fell out of a pinball playfield and ended up blocking the token counter opto.

Wasn’t entirely satisfied with how Pigskin was illuminated, so went back to the drawing board and figured a way to back light the orange football mini marquee and added a light to the light up the Pigskin logo. Came out much better. Hopefully Brian Colin aka GameRefugeInc gets a kick out of this!

This is a seldom seen title. FB Marketplace find picked up this weekend. The player two joystick is flaky but it otherwise plays fine. The search is on for sideart.

Each episode we speak to an industry guest about 3 arcade games that had an impact on them.

Recently was at a great arcade and it was basically perfect except for the audio aspect. Certain machines drowning out all the others. A couple times I dropped tokens into one machine while playing another, just to get the idle machine to stop looping the same audio at max volume.

One of the best parts of the arcade memories from my youth is the soundscape of arcades. All those various sounds merging into a unique form of white noise. The machines would typically all be around the same sound level, such that when you were leaning into a machine to play it, that is the main thing you would hear and the rest would be background.

In modern era, this seems to have changed. Most arcades I've gone to for the past ten years have the same issue of certain machines having their audio so loud that it drowns out all the other machines. Why is this so consistent? Is there another factor beside technical complications that would make an operator set certain machines to drown out all the other ones? Even if the audio isn't working on some machines, why would certain ones be set so loud that you can't even hear yourself think around them?

Does anybody know if you’ll still find this game in any commercial arcade/restaurant? Or is it a game you essentially have to buy now. I’m in the Atlanta area.

Hey everyone,

A few of us operators have started putting together a Discord community specifically for arcade operators, technicians, and people working in the amusement/arcade industry.

The idea is to have a place where we can:

- Share maintenance and repair knowledge

- Troubleshoot weird machine issues

- Swap tips, tools, and resources

- Talk about running and managing arcade locations

- Share interesting machines and setups

- Discuss parts, vendors, and sourcing

- Help each other out when something inevitably breaks 😅

We’re also putting together some useful resources for operators and techs, and we'd like the community to become a place where people can contribute their own knowledge and resources as well.

It’s brand new, so we’re looking for some operators and techs who want to help shape what it becomes.

If you’re interested, come join us:

https://discord.gg/4Z2MVkh6MH

Would also be interested to hear what you'd like to see in a community like this!

Hey guys! Soooo

1° game: it's pretty "old", in this game you could choose between some heroes (an archer, warrior, dwarf I think, ecc) and you have to advance horizontally! I just remember the first boss is like a green orc with two spiked iron balls that he throws with a chain, and I remember the trick was to stay between them!

2°: it's more recent, you're like an agent that has to beat the shit out of every terrorist on a boat (a boat if I remember correctly). The game from what I remember consist in: enter the room, beat everyone, next room. What I remember to help you is that you could pick items on the ground, food to heal and weapons to fight, and I remmeber there was this like iconic huge laser gun that you would use to defeat everybody!

I dont know if I explained enough but hope you ll manage to help me!

Steam | Announcement-Trailer | Kickstarter | M.A.S.K. prototype-Trailer

Perhaps some of you have played the pretty unique Lucky & Wild arcade back in the day. I proposed something quite like it for the 80's M.A.S.K. cartoon to Hasbro a while ago. Seems I failed to convince them to turn it into reality.

Since I can't make M.A.S.K. without a license, I'm now trying to turn this into a more over the top co-op arcade experience that fuses the precision of on-rails shooters with the rush of retro racing. Or imagine Outrun meets House of the Dead.

If that seems interesting please check it out, and have a nice day.

I’ve got an original Area 51 arcade game where the green color stopped working. I swapped out the transistors but it still isn’t working. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Half question/half vent, but why do so many arcades with a Guitar Hero cabinet have controllers with issues? Especially on the player 1 controller, like are these super easy to break? They seem heavier than the ones for consoles so I'd assume them made more durable (since they would usually see more use); and the only problem my friends and I have ever had with console controllers is my whammy bar spring eventually decompressed a little, and that part isn't even on the arcade controllers. I've only been to one arcade (thankfully it's one that's not too far away) where the controller has no issues. I've seen buttons that either drop or are outright unresponsive and unresponsive strum bars (up, down, or sometimes both). It's just is surprising how common that is, so I'm curious why that seems to be such a common issue with that cabinet specifically?

P.S. Apologies if the flair doesn't apply, it seemed most closely related to the topic.

I had the opportunity to visit the Starfighters Arcade in Mesa, AZ a year ago with some friends and had a great time playing retro arcade games. I posted a photo gallery of pictures I took there here:
https://stevethefish.net/life/life149.htm

The main entrance to Time Extended - House Rules sign by Szabo’s Arcades. Finally got around to hanging these signs. SoCal is really hot and humid, so wasn’t much fun.