Retro Arcades and Beer: Barcade Starting a Trend?

Reuters is running a stats piece on retro arcades, using Brooklyn stalwart Barcade as its lede. Barcade’s game selection is nice and everything, but really we stay for the beer; they’ve got one of the best tap selections in New York. In contrast, most of the New York arcades have up and died. Even the relatively okay Times Square arcade gave up the (flashing blue) ghosts. (A Dave & Busters opened up across the street on 42nd, but I don’t really consider D&B to be an arcade, since they never seem to actually give a crap about installing good games.)

But according to the article, at least 1,000 new arcades have opened up in the last four years, presumably a large chunk of which are retro arcades, filled with games of Pac-Man and Galaga vintage. I like retro arcades fine, but frankly I get a much better kick out of a fully-stocked, probably unprofitable arcade full of ridable and interactive games that are too unwieldy to be played at home. I’d give up a dozen Root Beer Tappers for one Taiko Drum Master. Or golly, just some good pinball machines.

Old-school games in “barcade” renaissance [Yahoo/Reuters]

(Photo: Linus Gelber, who just so happens to have been the person who took my favorite Flickr set of the day, women in their underwear paying games at Barcade. That is a beautiful thing.)