Seven lessons for life and work we learned in '80s arcades
All of those quarters provided a lot more value than just a high score
Pacman Fever
“I got a pocket full of quarters, and I'm headed to the arcade
I don't have a lot of money, but I'm bringing everything I made
I've got a callus on my finger, and my shoulder's hurting too
I'm gonna eat them all up, just as soon as they turn blue
'Cause I've got Pac-Man fever (Pac-Man fever)”
- “Pacman Fever” by Buckner and Garcia, 1981
Yes that is a real song. Yes those are the real lyrics. Yes it was a top ten billboard hit in 1981/1982 when it peaked at #9. And yes it is a totally awesome song!
Having a Top Ten song about a videogame absolutely solidifies your generation as the videogame generation. We of Gen X are the videogame generation. After all, we are the first generation to truly grow up on videogames.
From Atari to ColecoVision (and Intellivision) to Mall Arcades to text games on Commodore 64/Vic 20 to handhelds from Mattel and Entex like “Dungeons and Dragons” and “Electronic Baseball” and finally on to Sega Genesis, Playstation and Xbox, our demand for all things video games is why it is a $200 billion dollar industry. Just like so much pop culture today - from hip hop to Vans - you can thank your local Gen X denizen for your access to it in 2023.
But it was the arcade that really distinguishes the ‘80s and separates it from the rest of the video game conversation. Every mall had one and it was absolutely the place in my childhood that brought me so much "joy and pain" as Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock rapped back in 1988.
So what did we learn about life and our workplace from spending time in Arcades back in the 80s?
The Grocery Store Playlist
What’s the moment you knew you were old? Besides dwindling flexibility without the obligatory moan or groan and the unfortunate but necessary need for an ear and nose hair trimmer, mine was when I realized that the grocery stores and elevators were playing songs from the ‘80s. I mean it’s awesome and nostalgic of course but it also means that the music of our youth is now considered soothing, non-disruptive and dare I say, adult or even mature. Yikes because it’s true. And if it was disruptive, say like two of my favorites - Metallica or Public Enemy - it’s likely not on the Frozen Foods section playlist.
Unfortunately for us Gen Xer’s, the younger generations shopping along side us think that’s all there was to that old fuddy-duddy ‘80s music was Christopher Cross, Hall and Oates and Air Supply. Now I enjoy all three and all are incredibly talented musicians (Hall and Oates are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) but I’m still not at that point where I am going to push my cart through the grocery store singing, “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you. I knew you were right believing for so long…”. And certainly not, “Sailing, takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be…”. Sing in my head? Absolutely! Out loud? Ummm no way no how.
Now if they played Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation”, well I might find it hard to resist not singing along while feeling like I’m sitting on an ‘85 Trans-Am in a jeans jacket with a Dokken patch front and center when I’m actually waiting for my number to be called in the Deli line. I mean who could resist when you hear her perfect rock and roll voice and the lyrics:
An' I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
Never said I wanted to improve my station
An' I'm only doin' good when I'm havin' fun
An' I don't have to please no one
An' I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
Oh no, no, no, no not me, oh no, no, no, no not me
She is so bad ass. Ok, so what on earth does the grocery story playlist have to do with ‘80s arcades? Well, what prompted this article was when I was grocery shopping earlier this year and the 1985 Thompson Twins song, "King for a Day" came on over their audio system. I was immediately transported back to the days of spending all of my found quarters between the couch cushions in the mall arcade typically on Galaga and Dragons Lair. Long live Dirk the Daring!
And as you saw above, I spent my quarters proudly with a Teen Beat style winged and feathered hair look along with a tight blue izod shirt. Surprisingly, I spared everyone the neon look that particular day.
Your arcade may have been in the mall or a boardwalk at the beach in the summer like we had in Ocean City, MD or at little storefront on your town’s main street. Regardless of the location, it provided us with knowledge for our life and work.
Seven Lessons for Life and Work
So what did we learn with all of those quarters?
Patience - If you wanted to play a popular game, you had to line up your quarters on the machine behind those of others also waiting to play. It was a true test of patience for tweens and teenagers whose impatience with everything in life is a feature (or bug) that is consistent from one generation to the next. But patient we were. Amongst all of the arcade chaos of lights, sounds and screams of joy and pain there was a semblance of order which is actually pretty cool when you think about it.
Camaraderie and friendship - While waiting in those lines for games like Galaga, Dragons Lair, Pole Position, Time Pilot, Galaxian, Track and Field, Donkey Kong and so many more, we made friends. Really good friends. I mean how do you typically make friends? Usually one of four ways - in your neighborhood, at school, at work and at play. The last one is where we often make our most lasting friendships whether it’s sports, riding big wheels or waiting in line for an arcade game. Having a hobby, passion or interest in common with someone else creates an almost instant friendship.
Even for the kids who were super introverted, the arcade gave them a chance to make really great friends and as Gordie said at the end of the classic 1987 movie, Stand by Me - “I never had any friends again like I did when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”
Perseverance - Solving an arcade game to the point where you consistently had a top five high score displayed with your 3 letter call sign (mine was A.C.E.) or finished the entire story and saved the princess from the mighty dragon in Dragon’s Lair, wasn’t easy. It took hours of game play and studying others who were better than you or had moved further along in the game. Hours that I should have spent on Algebra or Geometry I suppose. Nah. I never needed either those as an adult any way. The fact is that it took perseverance. You didn’t have unlimited lives like you do in games today. One quarter (or two) typically got you three lives. That’s it. And often times you’d get stuck at the same stage over and over again until you finally broke through which is the definition of perseverance.
Failure, winning and how to do both with dignity - I was lucky enough to play team sports from the age of five so by the time I was spending hours in the arcade, I’d already had the experience of failing and winning in front of teammates, friends, family and crowds of strangers. Every kid doesn’t have that same path and there were many in the arcade who were likely experiencing their first failures and successes in front of an audience. An audience filled with a few friends - maybe - but mostly a mix of kids and adults who were unknown to them.
Whether you had experience performing in front of a crowd or not, the arcade gave us a great opportunity to realize that we don’t always win and that it is actually cool and gracious to congratulate someone who does. Oh and that no matter how hard you hit the machine, your score wasn’t going to change and you absolutely want a better story when asking someone to sign your cast than “I broke my hand on the Galaga machine because I didn’t get the high score”.
The value of a simple quarter (or two) - Whether you are spending in the moment or extending what you have over a longer period of time, the arcade taught us about investing. There were times where you’d spend on a new game just to find out it wasn’t something you enjoyed (spending in the moment). And other times you’d find a game that you loved and were determined to beat which required a much longer and higher investment of your valued quarters (investing for the future). In any case, the arcade most definitely taught us the value of money all the way down to a simple quarter.
Focus - If you ever played a video game then you know the focus that it takes to become successful at it. As I mentioned previously, we typically only had three lives to work with in an arcade game back in the ‘80s so focus was key or that quarter was going to be a very short term investment. It also helped with our hand/eye coordination which also requires focus and has likely led to all of the training simulators we see today from the military to sports to pilots.
And of course the business principle of recurring revenue - For many of us the mall arcade was our first exposure to recurring revenue unless of course we had signed up behind our parents’ back for Columbia House to get 11 records or cassette tapes for a penny. Whether we knew it or not, we were learning that you could make a capital investment in something that could provide you with revenue over the long term eventually allowing you to turn a profit. Not that we thought about that as 11 year olds unless you were like Young Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory spin off about the childhood of Sheldon Cooper. In that case, then yes you already had that figured out.
Whether it's movies, music, television or even the mall arcade, ‘80s pop culture is full of workplace and life lessons except of course for the fashion. Q*bert - the quirky little cute foul mouthed orange videogame character with the best snout ever - said it best about the fashion of the ‘80s when he said:
“@!#?@!”
Game on everybody and Stay Rad!
When I was maybe 10 or 11, the arcade closest to me adopted a new system where games cost a nickel (or a couple of nickels) instead of a quarter. I have no idea how they stayed in business like that but it definitely gave me a ton of opportunity to play! What a rush.