The arcade boom in Madrid and other Spanish cities

The recreational have come back to stay. The neuralgic center of meeting so many young people from the eighties and the nineties seem to ride the wave of nostalgia, and they are more than a curiosity, or temporary exhibitions to rediscover the classic games. Throughout Spain, and especially in Madrid, they are emerging from arcade theme bars to associations that make their background available to visitors, and that guarantee a nostalgic zambombazo … and discovery.

Madrid, Mecca del Arcade. Although they begin to abound throughout Spain, without a doubt the main core of recovery of recreational is in Madrid. The relocation in Vallecas of The Arcade temple (which is also an association in the southern Madrid area dedicated to the dissemination, preservation and restoration of Arcades and Pinballs) has caused this type of premises to speak again, which in most cases are arms of associations of friends of the retroinformatics (for example, NEXTAGEconsecrated to the recovery of dance machines). It also happens in Retro Factory From Alcorcón and Parla, which, like the Arcade Temple, includes in its facilities a video game memorabilia museum.

But there are more variants in the capital: in Zoo arcade They are also dedicated to the repair and conservation of old machines, in a business parallel to the premises that allow players to test the recreational. And finally it is Next Levelthe most accessible of all these projects: bars with machines of all kinds that already have two very central stores in Madrid and have just opened an additional one in Barcelona.

Retro Spain. Although they abound in Madrid, of course they are not the only places where retro recreational machines can be accessed. Some examples, apart from the new Next Level store: Arcade Planet and Check Point Arcade Bar In Seville, Arcade Levels in Zaragoza or Pixelandgames In Logroño. To all of them are added video game museums that usually include machines to try, such as the Muvi of Cangas, the Vintage Arcade Museum from IBI (Alicante) and the recent Video game museum from Madrid.

Do you have change? As for the way of accessing the games, all these proposals work very similarly: in no machine you have to take coins, but the games are open to infinite credits. In some of these stores you have to pay a rate for spending all day (as in the specialized in Japanese machines Arcade Rebirth) or for a limited time (usually one hour, in most cases). And on the other hand there are bars like Next Level, where a consumption is required to play.

Disseminating spirit The interesting thing about some of these proposals is the disseminating spirit that leads to riding something that works economically, but also disseminates the culture of arcade. Manuel Vargas, from The Arcade Museum, tells us that “I had been thinking about making an association with several colleagues”, and apart from the aforementioned exhibition, between their walls they have “105 arcades and several old consoles that can also be played. The space is about 600 meters, and we have a conference room for magazine presentations, books and games.”

On the other hand, Curro Quevedo, from Zoo Arcade, tells us that they also related to that spirit, made “a chronology of the arcade world from the former like ‘Space Invaders’ to the last dance or augmented reality machines.” He also tells us that in his 42 machines “we have sought that each machine is unique and has different types of hardware and different controls to be able to see their evolution a bit.” Referring to the competition that has emerged in recent times between similar premises, he affirms that, related to that spirit of wanting to spread historical games, “nobody thinks of competitors, since they are not very profitable businesses, it is more about being able to share a passion”

How does nostalgia work? By cycles: We return again and again to claim fashions, successes and trends from past decades (or decades as a whole, in fact), and then tired, declare them “burned” and let some time pass before The next generation decides to rescue that point from the past again. The eighties, after the absolute saturation we have lived with products such as ‘Stranger Things’, now go through that Phase of tiredalthough recreational rooms, for what is seen, seem to have dodged that trend. They are more active than ever.

Fever for recreational. The recreational machine rooms were in the eighties A unique meeting point for the youngest: Not only the video games that were in them had a visual quality and a spectacularity far superior to the eight -bit consolers and microorder in the houses. They were also sites where relationships were developed and generated their own fauna that then did not translate with any subsequent environment: hence the powerful nostalgia effect they arouse. Games can be recovered through emulation (or even with Own Machines at home), But the atmosphere is not. That is why they sprout as mushrooms, a multitude of bars and recreational premises (removing the neighborhood danger plus that the rooms had a few decades ago, of course).

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