The Lost Coin-Op: Clue 3
(Photo by, whassisname, Vincent)
Rasping voice: “Do you still hear the lambs screaming, Rachael?”
I’m back on the phone with The Collector.
I ignore him. “I’ve got over a million points here,” I say. “Now clue three. Pony up. You already told me the Mr. Do! is in an arcade.”
“Yes. Wait – I only told you it was in a public place.”
“Yes, you did. But now you just told me it’s in an arcade.”
He laughed. “Well played, Rachael, well played.
“Okay,” he coughs, “so to explain this one I need to explain why I sold the game.”
A story. He warned me there’d be stories.
“This isn’t a long story,” he started, “but it’s important. I love video games. I was the kid at the arcade who could get a whole afternoon out of a buck, while my mom went shopping or my dad went drinking. When I ran out of money, I’d give lessons to other kids. ‘Lessons’ meant shoving them out of the way or making them memorize paths out of my Pac-Man cheat book while I took their quarters and played. This was my childhood. Even after the arcades died in the mid-’80s, I still played coin-ops wherever I could find them. I didn’t want a Nintendo, because it looked like shit and it was too easy and anyway, the whole point was not to be at home with my folks, right?
“So skip ahead a few years. I get a good tech job and I make some money, and I start buying coin-ops. I hire someone to fix them, and I spend whole weekends cleaning them off. Have you ever cleaned burned cheese out of a coin return slot with a toothpick?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“I didn’t think so. So let’s just say this was more than a hobby for me.
“Anyway, I built an arcade in my basement. Friends came over all the time and we played games. And this was just something I enjoyed. I don’t have recorded high scores. I don’t buy and sell machines. I don’t even hang out with a lot of other collectors. I just loved the games.
“But then the bubble burst. The economy tanked – this was the last time, in 2000, and I was in debt, and my options were underwater. I lost my cushy IT job and then I lost my house. And you guessed it, I had to sell the games.
“Now, they can get me down but I’m not going to let them kick me, right? I sold them all, but I made sure they went to people who would actually take care of them. Because I spent all that time cleaning them and playing them, and I don’t want them to end up in some smoky arcade where the ceiling lights are too bright and everyone spills beer on them.”
“And that’s my clue?”
“Yes. That’s your clue.”
I mull. “I have to ask,” I asked. “Where do you live now?”
Long pause. “With my parents again. My mom and my step-dad. And sometimes my dad and my second step-mom. That’s just until I get my feet under me again. Which you and your friends are supposed to help me with, right? Now get me some more scores, and I’ll give you a clue you can really use.” And click.
Okay. Heard that? Keep ‘em coming, to the comments or to my e-mail, at snarl.pixel.vixen [ at ] gmail.com.
21/05/2009 at 4:31 pm Permalink
So, this essentially tells us it’s in an arcade, in the eastern half of the US, that takes REALLY good care of their equipment. Sounds like no alcohol or smoking allowed. He also mentions no bright ceiling lights, which suggests a darker environment (which doesn’t seem to jive with the lack of alcohol/cigarettes, to me). But it definitely sounds like it’s somewhere people would PLAY the games, since that’s something that meant so much to him, so not some sort of museum-like environment.
So this rules out places like Dave & Buster’s, Jillian’s, etc., as well as Chuck E Cheese/Showbiz Pizza and the like. Sounds to me like more of a genuine, standalone arcade than anything tied to, say, a restaurant or movie theater. But a lot of that’s conjecture.
Anyone else get any gut feelings?
21/05/2009 at 10:15 pm Permalink
I’m thinking it could be in a coin-op museum like the Classic Arcade Museum in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. They have a playable Mr. Do! unit (in fact, they’re the only museum listed on the Video Arcade Preservation Society database other than one in Texas), but it’s a conversion unit.
The arcade (Funspot) is actually having an International Classic Videogame Tournament from May 28-31…might be a great place to get some scores for the Collector, even if it’s not the location you’re looking for.
22/05/2009 at 11:00 am Permalink
See, that seems pretty feasible, since it does seem like they allow the games to be played. So it’s a place catering exclusively to people who would really appreciate them.