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Arcade Games vs Console Games, From Pong to Your Browser

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A console game wants your evening. An arcade game wants your next quarter. That one difference shaped almost everything about how arcade games play. An arcade game is a coin operated machine set up in a public place, like a bar, a mall or an amusement arcade. Today the word also means a style of game, one built on lives, rising speed and a high score. We make an arcade game for the browser, so we pulled its numbers apart to show where the old rules still live.

What You Need

  • An arcade game started as a coin machine in a public place
  • Pay per play gave it lives, short rounds and fast rising difficulty
  • The high score table gave you a reason to drop one more coin
  • Console games sell once, so they can be long, slow and story heavy
  • Arcade style games today keep the loop and drop the coin

What Makes a Game an Arcade Game

Wikipedia's arcade game article calls it a coin operated entertainment machine, usually found in restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most are sold as games of skill. That covers far more than video games. Pinball, claw cranes, air hockey and Skee-Ball all count.

When people say a game on a phone or a console is "arcade," they mean something else. They mean it plays like a coin machine. You jump in fast. You chase points. You lose and try again.

So there are two meanings, and both are right.

  • The machine. A cabinet, table or booth you pay to play in a public place.
  • The style. Any game, on any screen, built around short runs, lives and a score.

The style came from the machine. And the machine came from the coin slot.

Every arcade rule makes more sense once you picture the owner counting quarters at closing time.

Five Design Traits That Came From the Coin Slot

The arcade video game article puts the deal plainly. You rent the game for as long as your character survives, or until you run out of tokens. A machine that let you play for an hour on one coin lost money. So designers built games that end, and end in a way that makes you want to pay again.

  1. Lives. You get a few tries, then the game is over.
  2. Rising difficulty. The same article notes short levels and difficulty that climbs fast. Each wave is a bit quicker than the last.
  3. Easy to learn, hard to master. That's the classic arcade formula, per the same page. A stranger has to get it in seconds, with no manual.
  4. A high score. The Strong museum's Space Invaders page points to the high score shown at the top of the screen, a feature that became standard in arcade games.
  5. Instant restart. Game over leads straight back to the start, one coin away.

None of these are there by accident. Each one turns a few minutes of fun into another coin in the box.

Arcade vs Console Games Side by Side

A console game is paid for once. That changes what the designer wants from you. The table lines up the two.

Arcade gameConsole game
How you payPer play, a coin or token at a timeOnce, then play as long as you like
Where you playA public place, standing at a cabinetAt home, on a couch
Session lengthA few minutes per creditHours, saved and picked up later
Learning curveSeconds, with no manualTutorials and menus are fine
FailureLose your lives and pay againReload a save and try again
GoalA higher score than the last playerFinish the story or the world
SavingUsually none, just initials on the score tableSave files and cloud saves

Arcade racing vs a driving sim is the same split. One is about speed and fun right now. The other is about getting the details right over many hours.

Bubble Catch cover art with a basket catching falling fruit
Bubble Catch keeps the arcade loop of lives, combos and rising speed, with no coin slot.

A Short History in Six Dates

Arcade games rose fast, crashed, came back and then lost the top spot to home consoles.

  • 1972. Atari tested its first Pong machine at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. The Strong museum's Pong page tells how the owner called to say it had broken. The coin box was full of quarters.
  • 1978. Taito's Space Invaders came out in Japan and kicked off what Wikipedia calls the golden age of arcade video games.
  • 1980. Namco released Pac-Man. The Strong's Pac-Man page calls it the best selling arcade video game ever.
  • 1981. The arcade video game business in the US was worth $8 billion, per the arcade video game article.
  • 1983. The video game crash hit arcades. The market came back by 1986, and Street Fighter II in 1991 helped bring crowds back again.
  • About 1997. Home consoles passed arcade games for the first time. North America had 13,000 video game arcades at the peak and 4,000 in 1998, per the amusement arcade article. In Japan, arcades fell from about 26,000 in 1986 to about 4,000 in 2019, per the arcade game article.

The arcades shrank. The style didn't. It moved into phones, consoles and browser tabs.

Inside a Browser Arcade Game, Bubble Catch by the Numbers

Bubble Catch is our own arcade game. You slide a basket and catch falling fruit. The numbers below come straight from its level code, all 100 levels of it.

  • 3 lives per level. Catch a bomb and you lose one. Lose all three and the level is over.
  • Rounds of about a minute. Level 1 runs 58 seconds. Level 100 runs 66.
  • Speed that climbs. Fruit starts falling at 150 pixels a second on level 1 and 400 on level 100. It also speeds up as each round goes on.
  • More things at once. A new item drops every 950 milliseconds at the start of level 1. On level 100 it starts at 620.
  • More bombs. About 6 in 100 drops are bombs on level 1. By level 100 it's about 16 in 100.
  • A boss every tenth level. Levels 10, 20 and so on are Gauntlet rounds, with more bombs and faster fruit.
  • Combos. Catch 3 in a row for double points and 5 in a row for triple. Let one fruit slip by and the chain breaks.

That's the coin slot recipe almost line for line. A short round, three tries, speed that ramps and a score to chase.

What Changes With No Coin

Two things change when nobody is paying per play. First, a lost level costs you nothing. You just hit retry. Second, Bubble Catch saves the levels you've cleared in your browser, so you pick up where you left off. A real cabinet sends you back to the start.

That's the main shift in modern arcade style games. The pressure stays. The penalty goes away. If you like that kind of quick play, the guide to games without ads covers where to find more of it without the ad breaks.

Types of Arcade Games You'll Still See

Wikipedia's arcade game article sorts the machines into a long list. These are the ones you're most likely to meet in a bowling alley or a family fun center.

  • Video games. A screen in a cabinet. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, fighting and racing games.
  • Pinball. A steel ball, flippers and bumpers under glass.
  • Redemption games. You win tickets to trade for prizes.
  • Merchandiser games. Claw cranes and coin pushers, where the prize sits inside.
  • Sports games. Air hockey and basketball hoops.
  • Carnival games. Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole style games.

Only the first one moved well to screens at home. The rest need the machine.

Chip Jam Session cover art with a dancing potato on a neon floor
Chip Jam Session is an endless rhythm game. You play until you miss too much, then you chase a better score.

What Other Pages Miss

The top store guide for this topic is written to sell machines. It sorts arcade games by cabinet, like racing, pinball and redemption. That helps if you're buying one for a game room.

But it never says why arcade games play the way they do. Lives, rising speed, the high score and the quick restart all come from pay per play. Once you see that, the whole genre makes sense.

It also leaves out the place most people play arcade style games now. That's a phone or a browser tab, where the loop is the same and the coin is gone.

Short Questions

Are arcade games still made?

Yes. New cabinets and pinball machines are still built and sold. Game room stores still carry machines from makers like Raw Thrills and Stern Pinball. Arcades are fewer than in the 1980s, though. Japan alone went from about 26,000 arcades in 1986 to about 4,000 in 2019.

What is the meaning of the word arcade?

An arcade first meant a row of arches on columns. It later also meant a covered passage with shops on one or both sides. Rooms full of coin machines became amusement arcades, first called penny arcades after the coin the machines took. Today the word covers the games too.

What does arcade style mean in a game?

It means the game plays like a coin machine. Quick to start, short rounds, lives or a timer, rising speed and a score to beat. It can be on a phone, a console or a web page.

Why are arcade games so hard?

Because the owner earned money each time you played. A game that let one coin last an hour lost money. So difficulty climbs fast and the game ends, which makes you want to pay again.

What was the first successful arcade video game?

Pong, from Atari in 1972. Wikipedia calls it the first successful arcade video game. Its test machine at a bar in Sunnyvale stopped working because the coin box was full.

Can you play arcade games for free online?

Yes. Many arcade style games run in a browser for free. Bubble Catch on VanillaBits is one, with 100 levels and no ads.

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We build every VanillaBits game by hand in Hemet, California. Bubble Catch is our take on the coin slot loop, minus the coin.

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