Gone but not forgotten

I've noticed over the last few months arcade machines appearing in adverts and other popular culture, which seems odd given the rarity of arcade machines now. For example, kids' TV channel Disney XD keep showing a brief clip of a boy celebrating after beating a game in an arcade, surrounded by his high-fiving friends. The arcade they show looks like something from the 80s and certainly not somewhere kids would go to game these days. And one of Disney XD's top shows, Phineas and Ferb even featured an arcade in the episode, Ain't no kiddie ride.

They're not the only examples, let's have a look at some others. First up we have a video for dubstep supremos, Nero, which riffs on Sega, Tron and Final Fight among others.

Next we have an advert for the new series of Dynamo: Magician Impossible, which sees the extraordinary street magician walking down the high street making electrical equipment go haywire as he passes by, including a bunch of coin-op machines in an old arcade. What's interesting here is that they clearly show Bally Midway's classic Theatre of Magic as a reference to Dynamo's abilities.

Next, an ad for the new Orange San Diego mobile phone, which uses a bunch of old arcade and pinball machines standing in the desert as a metaphor for the phone's gaming capabilities, which is odd given the portability and touchscreen controls of smart phone gaming is almost the antithesis of the dedicated hardware of an arcade machine.

This isn't the first time Orange have referenced arcade gaming in their adverts, as this 2010 commercial for their two-for-one movie ticket service, Orange Wednesdays, shows:

So it seems, as rare as arcade machines are these days, there is something about them that is etched in the popular subconscious. Much like the sound of a vinyl record being scratched has no place in modern culture, but still gets used all the time, arcades may be gone, but they are not forgotten.

MTW