Quoted from The Loafer

-     There was another arcade, don?t remember the name,  it was located on Bank Street not far from Somerset I think.

That arcade was called "Wizards" .
Long and narrow, with games along both walls.

There was another "Wizards" in my end of town,
at that Shoppers City East Mall.

Quoted from The Loafer

-     There was a Games Room located on bank not far from this little arcade, but although I visited once or twice, nothing sticks in my memory of it except for the various pool tables.

Went there alot,  had a Robotron that no-one ever played.
Would go there with 50 cents and play for 2 hrs !!  


There were also alot of "Mister Arcades".
The one at the Corner of St-Laurent and Montreal Rd. is now a Mattress Mart !   sigh....
That's where I first saw a head-to-head Joust Pin...

...God, I feel like I'm 16 again reading this thread !



Steph

Quoted from SquidVicious

I also remember the 'private' arcade at Jane and Wilson .. you were required to buy a membership (something like $5 and then you had a card that you had to show to get in) but I can't remember the name of that one either

Ok at Jane and Wilson there was the North York Sheridan Mall. Downstairs there was a movie theater and on the left there was an arcade.

They had a Highspeed in there.

Vids I remember.

Defender
Tempest
Spy Hunter
Gorf
Crystal Castles
Quix
Galaga
Some driving game that had a projected image, EM big thing. When you hit a car a big red fireball was projected on the screen.

a bunch more that I have forgotten.

Before that mall existed there was a pool hall/bowling alley. The middle of that Mall was actually a street and in that narrow street there was the bowling alley. I used to call it  "Billards Bowling" when I was little and get my Dad to take me in to play the gun game. I thought Billards was the name of the place because I never heard of "billiards" before.

That probably predates my pinball experience actually. I am certain it was this game in fact. Awhile back I was looking for one. Still am.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

I am certain it was this game in fact. Awhile back I was looking for one. Still am.

I love this quote on the flyer :

" Compact  73 x 33 x 31.5 "   !!!

I'd hate to see the full-size !  




Steph

Most guys into collecting stuff like this like the nostalgia.

Crap if I had some room I would buy this. It's not 1950's it's a 1968 and I remember this one too.

Anybody want to store stuff for me??


http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-buy.....me-W0QQAdIdZ37544091

Quoted from The Loafer

... and a few of the first arcade games (in the late 70?s) such as the 2 player driving games, the submarine game with the scope controller, etc.  I may have played ?Night Rider? or whatever that racing game is called where all you see is a dark road but with the little white posts going buy.

Sea Wolf and Night Driver or 280 ZZZAP...  

There ya go, that's the names of them all right!

Well, my first official encounter with an arcade game was when I was almost 5... I still remember it, albeit vaguely. 1978... My mom took me to a shopping mall in Laval (Centre 2000... demolished LONG ago...) and there was an arcade in the mall. My encounter was brief, but I was completely mesmerized by a driving game... to this day, I cannot identify it (mind you, I didn't look hard...) but it was almost like a Chicago Coin Speedway (projecctor game with an 8-track sound...) but it was a sit-down. My mom gave me a quarter and I tried it. Of course I lasted but a few seconds but I got hooked.

2 years later, my parents bought a camping trailer and set it up in a campground which had a clubhouse with a few games... I still remember them:

Wizard of Wor cocktail
Flash Gordon pin
Lectronamo pin
Kiss pin
Silverball Mania pin
Big Game pin
Space Zap cocktail
Targ cocktail
Battlezone upright
Defender upright
Polaris upright

And the drive-in theater beside it always had 2 games... that summer, they had a Nitro ground Shaker pin, and a... DEATH RACE VID!!!! I still remember playing it! They had it on site for 3 years!!! Beautiful game, and always a crowd around it. It broke down after a while and never came back.

I remember going to Atlantic City (78 or 79?) and a new arcade had opened on the boardwalk near the amusement pier.  It was a very large place and when you wallked through the front door there were four long rows of games.  The cool thing was the first two rows (over 20 games per row) were all Bally solid state pins - no EM's, no Williams, Stern or Gottlieb - just Bally's as far as the eye could see.  I think there were 4 or 5 Eight Balls right by the front door.

We went back the following summer and I couldn't wait to go visit this arcade (there were several others on the boardwalk but this one was the best).  I walk in the door and the entire first row had been replaced by Pac-Man machines.  Not only that but I think every store on the boardwalk had a Pac-Man or Galaxian in it.

Years later (1999 I think), I was in Atlantic City on business and I actually met the guy who managed that arcade 20 years ago.  We got to talking and he told me they had bought 24 brand new Pac-Man machines at $1100 each.  The first summer they were in the arcade, every one of them made $200-250 per week.  Since they owned the location they didn't have to split and the games were paid off in a little over 1 month.  He said by the time most were replaced they had rolled over 100,000 on the coin meter.
Not a bad return:
Pac-Man cost $1100
Earnings:  100,000 x 0.25 = $25,000
I guess that is why they called it the golden age.

That's 25k per machine?  Holy cow, that's a lot of dough, $600,000 from an investment of $26,400!!!