they spend copious amounts of time figuring out all the best move combos and sharing tips

The trick is, not only do they spend copious amounts of time, but more importantly, copious amounts of money learning how to play. I am ashamed to admit that I can walk into any arcade that has Tekken 1-3 or Killer Instinct and if theirs someone playing, play for two hours with only THEM pumping money into the machine. Let's just say that there were better ways of spending my free time in college, but that was just fun.

I personally love pretty much any pinball game. The only trouble with this is that pinball machines actually took a little care to keep them in running order, so arcades never ever keep them up. Gee, I wonder why no one wants to play either of those two pinball machines over there? Perhaps it's because they only have one full set of working solenoids between them.

Another thing I can't stand is that you go to a "good" arcade and they only have three types of games. Fighters, that stupid fscking dance game, and driving games. They may have 50+ games, but they're all basically the exact same thing with different graphics. Then again I haven't seen a video game parlor that had more than 5 kids in it in years.