The arcade hall with retro video games makes a comeback. Southeast has the ' largest in the Benelux' since last week. 'The 80s generation likes to play video games from their youth with their children. And in their twenties it is fun to not always play at home on their own.

With a huge glass wall and a bright pink logo it is not to be missed: Gamestate, next to the Johan Cruijff Arena in Southeast. Two days ago the 'largest arcade hall in the Benelux' was officially opened and influencers and celebrities were urging them to play Pac-Man , Mario Kart and Beat Saber . This Saturday afternoon it is busy in the 1300 square meter hall. Parents with small children and teenagers stand side by side with people in their twenties and thirties, nobody seems to be bothered by the abundance of neon light and the deafening sounds. The high number of young couples in love strolling hand in hand through the hall is striking; going to the arcade hall turns out to be the ideal date night.

Gaming works like this: you get a chip card on which you can put an amount, with each game you scan the pass (you pay an average of one euro per game). Paper tickets can be won at almost any game, which then come out of the machine. In between games you can exchange them for credits on your pass. When you're done, you can choose a prize with the credits, from a pack of felt-tip pens (200 credits) to a giant unicorn cuddle (5000 credits). Some visitors wear the long strips of tickets as a trophy around their neck or head.

There is a guard at the door, he asks young visitors for their ID: no access under the age of eighteen without adult supervision, that is the rule - even once soft drinks and Pringles are sold indoors. "In this way we prevent it from becoming a hangout for young people." The guard has already had to show the door to a number of disappointed minors.

The golden years of the video game arcade machines were the mid-seventies to early eighties. Just like the roller disco and the cinema, the arcade hall was the place for young people to meet each other. Having come from America, you also had several arcades in Amsterdam at that time and a roller disco, where you could hang out with your peers all afternoon as a teenager.

New York and Tokyo

The advance of home gaming made short work of it and by the end of the 1980s the video game arcade machines hall had disappeared from the street scene. With the arrival of the smartphone and the tablet it seemed unlikely that it would ever return. Yet a few years ago there has been a worldwide comeback, with places such as Barcade in Brooklyn (New York), Meltdown in Paris and Super Potato and fifty other arcades in Tokyo.

The explanation for the return of the arcade is simple, says Gamestate owner Roel Veltmeijer (36). “The 80s generation likes to play video games from their youth with their children. And in their twenties it is fun to not always play at home on their own. ” A series such as Stranger Things , set in the eighties, also introduced the phenomenon to teenagers who grew up with Playstation and Nintendo.

It took Veltmeijer four years to open his arcade hall in Amsterdam. “The municipality was reluctant. I wanted a place in the center, but the inner city was not allowed to 'enjoy'. Eventually I was allowed to look at peripheral areas, including the Arena. That immediately made sense, in Rotterdam we are also sitting next to De Kuip. ”

Amusement parking

Veltmeijer's grandfather started after the Second World War with a company in pinball machines, jukeboxes, table football games and condom machines. “My father took over the company, he entered the arcade world in the 1980s. We had many old video games at home in the basement, my birthday parties were legendary. ” At the age of 26 he joined the company himself, which manages arcade halls in holiday parks such as Center Parcs and Landal Greenparks. “I was surprised how busy it was in those mini-arcades. On Times Square in New York I saw a huge arcade hall, Dave & Buster's, that was very popular. I came across the same in a shopping mall in Dubai. It seemed like the time to start something like this in the Netherlands, so in 2013 I opened the first Gamestate in Kerkrade. ”

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