Morro Bay High School Student William Krause at the controls of Dragon’s Lair game in the Morro Bay Arcade. Krause is the current champion, and has his name posted on the machine.
September 13, 1983
When I was was in the prime demographic for video games they were not very good. Electronic pinball machines were more reliable than the ones with dials but they did not give the wonderful shaking feeling when you made a high score. Pong, Asteroids, Defender, Pac-Man all pushed to the front of the arcade when I still spent my quarters on games not parking meters. Things changed rapidly after I graduated high school. Video games exploded in the early 1980′s but by 1983 video arcades were beginning to fade as home units came on the market. Why empty your pockets when you can play all day at home? Kids from an earlier era hung out at the pool hall.
Quoting the story by Tim Ryan published over a month after the photos were made on October 21, 1983:
Video Arcades
Games aren’t what they used to beAsteroids has been shot down. Eliminator all but forgotten and Pong ancient history.
In the flickering world of video game popularity, even favorites like the 2-year old Pac-Man are becoming endangered species.
The video arcade industry, which electrified adults and kids alike since its boom in 1980, is losing juice.
Arcade owners in San Luis Obispo County declined to talk in specifics about profits or losses. But most agreed that video game playing this summer, for several reasons, is less than they expected.
And what hurts the big boys filters down the the little guys, said Al Martini, who owns three arcades in this county.
Experts in the video game industry say the slump may be due to the increase in home video game sets, several blockbuster movies, the lack of challenging new games and the city ordinances that limit the number of games in arcades.
Almost no business has grown faster in the past few years than the video game industry. Sales of Arcade video game machines grew from $50 million in 1978 to about $900 million in 1982.
But a softening market and higher retail costs have resulted from increased competition. This year almost every major manufacturer of home and arcade video games, including Bally, Coleco and Atari have reported profits far less than anticipated.
In fact, Atari, owned by Warner Communications Inc., is moving its video game manufacturing plant overseas to save production costs.
The story went on to cite the expense of the units, about $2,500 to $5,000 for the advanced laser disc machines. That is 10,000 quarters before the machine is paid off.
“One guy down here can play Centipede for 24 hours on one quarter,” said arcade owner Al Martini.
The hot new game was the expensive but technically advanced Dragon’s Lair. But the downside was it cost 50 cents to play. If you never played, a sappy looking knight named Dirk the Daring must search the castle to rescue Princess Daphne from the Dragon. The game was new because there were 38 possible situations requiring up to 200 decisions depending on the player’s choices. The new laser disc technology contained 22 minutes of animation and cost $1 million to produce. A complete game took about 6 minutes of playing time.
I’ll wait for the pinball machine.
Photos were by Wayne Nicholls
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I grew up with video games (I’m 33 years old). Nothing could beat a good video arcade back in the day. In the early to mid-80′s, they were like pool halls. Dimly light and full of activity. As the arcade boom began to subside, more and more of them turned into family-friendly kiddie fun zones. It wasn’t the same.
And I remember watching a guy play the entire way through “Space Ace,” the sci-fi based counterpart to “Dragon’s Lair.” I believe I was six at the time. I couldn’t figure out those laser-disc based games and the 50-cent price point was too rich for my blood. Still, it was cool to see that dude get all the way through.
The video game arcade might have been a brief but brilliant fad, but it inspired some great movies including “Tron” and “WarGames.”
The long-awaited sequel to “Tron,” “Tron Legacy,” comes out in theaters next December.
If you can’t wait that long, I recommend a trip to Ground Kontrol in Portland, Ore., easily one of the most awesome places I’ve visited in a while. There, you can play old school video games and pinball machine while drinking a cold one. What a concept!
previously when you clicked on a jpg it would expand the picture. now it only clicks back to the same page, so we cannot view the awesome pics in a larger view. is this on purpose or an accident?
Thanks for the comment James.
I have changed the way images display after about ten instances of people ignoring the copyright notices and swiping photos.
The everything is free on the web ethic means trolls don’t link to the page or attribute the image as required. When contacted the responses have ranged from contrite and helpful(rare) to “I don’t know what you are talking about”. (common)
I can make the image sizes larger on the page to help out.
I can post news pages the old way to be easier to read.
If someone has a better trollproofing idea I’m open to it.
Thank you for the reply. Larger images would be nice. I check your blog nearly everyday, I am a bit of a SLO history buff.
I don’t know how to stop the trolling, good luck with that.