In Back Alleys and Basements, Video Arcades Quietly Survive
(Southtown Arcade is tucked into a tiny corner by the entrance to San Francisco’s Stockton Tunnel. Photo: Brian L. Frank/Wired.com)
SAN FRANCISCO — The Stockton Tunnel, excavated in 1914, lets San Francisco drivers get between downtown and Fisherman’s Wharf without having to ascend the scarily steep grades of Nob Hill. The tunnel is bordered on the west side by the famous cable cars and on the east by the Chinatown gate, so no tourists need ever walk near it. Accordingly, the tunnel entrance is a dingy block crammed with aging tenements and seedy shops. Junkies tweak out on the sidewalk; a grimy massage parlor called The Green Door advertises “A Touch of Ecstacy.”
Late every Saturday evening, the massage parlor, the tiny taqueria and the assorted other shops all close up, but one is still bustling. A gaggle of young men wearing Street Fighter T-shirts and toting their own massive arcade-style game joysticks mingle inside the tiny Southtown Arcade, jammed wall to wall with arcade cabinets. They’re throwing down in friendly matches for now; later tonight they play for cash.
Here in this dingy alleyway is the leading edge of what Seth Killian, director of online and community strategy at Street Fighter maker Capcom, calls the “second wave” of video arcades — run not by businessmen looking to make a buck, but by those with a passion for communal gaming.
“The second wave was the people that grew up in the arcades and dreamed of starting places of their own, maybe a bit like Flynn from Tron or something, or just because they — like me — had so many intensely happy memories of that kind of place,” Killian said.
