Arcades have always been about providing experiences you can’t get at home, but they’ve had to repeatedly pivot what those experiences are. First that meant playing games at all, before home consoles existed. When home consoles became a thing, arcades still had cutting-edge hardware better than what you could get at home. During the Street Fighter boom, arcades were a social hangout to play multiplayer. But now we have much better home consumer hardware, and we have the internet for multiplayer, so every game that can be played at home has no real need for an arcade.

There are still four things left you can find in arcades but not (common) consumer hardware. Gambling for kids, racing games with an immersive setup, rhythm games with increasingly wacky control schemes, and pinball. Modern arcade rhythm games are actually going through a bit of a renaissance right now and I’m here for it.