Sorry Chandler, I don’t carry quarters
Today’s installment of “Father Knows Best?” comes from a question submitted by Andrewjh.
When my brothers and I were youngsters, when we’d go to restaurants, we’d constantly pester our dad for quarters to play the video games. (Fuddruckers stayed in business because of our Wednesday night visits.)
What monetary denomination will Chandler be asking for? Or will traditional cabinet-style video games go the way of the payphone bank at the hands of the personal portable gaming devices? (Or have they already?)
Ready, Go!
–Andrewjh
This is a really good question. Growing up my sister and I spent most of our days at my dad’s business. He owned an indoor batting cage facility. Pretty awesome. As a result my sister and I were baseball/softball stars in our childhood. She went on to be a successful college player and is now a coach. My skills kind of petered out sometime after high school.
But after hitting approximately 9,687,453,937 pitches in a summer we got a little tired of the batting cages. On the second level of my father’s building was a pizza restaurant called “Original Pizza.” (The best pizza of all time. Don’t get me started.) Littered all around this fine establishment were arcade video games.
These weren’t just any video games. These were the best video games. They had the TMNT 4 player arcade game (I remember how annoying it was to try and kill all those duplicated Shredders!). They had Mortal Kombat and then the Mortal Kombat sequels (FINISH HIM!). And my personal favorite was Bad Dudes.
Every day we would eventually come to that point when we were tired of hitting and we REALLY wanted to go play video games. “Dad can we have some quarters?” We would usually use my sister to obtain our gaming fuel. She was much cuter and dad always had a harder time telling her no. Other times we had to work for our video games. Dad would give us odd jobs around the place. Things like crawling under the batting cages to get balls that had gotten away. Dusty, but totally worth it for a chance to play a few rounds as a Ninja Turtle or a Bad Dude.
Nowadays it seems like you can’t play any video game for just a quarter. In fact a lot of video games are now accepting credit cards. When I first saw this new trend I was kind of disgusted by it. Video games should require quarters. That’s the only way. The more I think about it the more I realize this is a good thing for Chandler. I never carry any kind of change with me anymore. If Chandler were to run up to me and say, “Dad! Dad! Can I have some quarters?” I’d have to respond with, “Sorry dude, I don’t carry quarters.”
Of course, that’s what change machines are for. I remember that glorious sound of a dollar bill being magically transformed into four quarters and the jangling sound they made as they fell into the metal cup. Soon those sounds will be obsolete as more and more games will require a valid credit card and your four digit PIN.
But how long until arcade games are obsolete altogether? I’m already seeing kids in restaurants ignore the flashing lights and whirring sounds of the arcade as they sit quietly at their tables playing hand held games on their father’s iPhone or even their very own iPod Touch. Quickly fading are the days when we’ll here, “Dad can I have some quarters?” as we enter the days of, “Dad can I have your iPhone?”
To some extent I will miss the old ways. Waiting in line as you watch the mistakes of your predecessor. Getting randomly paired up with some guy as your partner in fighting the Foot Clan. Putting your quarter in only to find out that slot doesn’t work and you just lost your game. And of course walking up to random games wistfully hitting the start button in hopes that just maybe you’d get a free game.
At the same time, having all your favorite games in your pocket (why isn’t there a TMNT iPhone game yet!?) is pretty amazing. Being able to play them whenever you want (whenever Mom lets us) is fantastic. That is definitely the future of gaming.
Maybe what I’ll do is make Chandler give me a quarter every time he wants to play a game on my iPhone.
Have fond memories of childhood video games? Share them in the comments section.
