Amusement arcade

An amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers (such as claw cranes), or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables. In some countries, some types of arcades are also legally permitted to provide gambling machines such as slot machines or pachinko machines. Games are usually housed in cabinets. The term used for ancestors of these venues in the beginning of 20th century was penny arcades.

Video games were introduced in amusement arcades in the late 1970s and were most popular during the golden age of arcade video games, the early 1980s. Arcades became popular with young adults and particularly adolescents, which led parents to be concerned that video game playing might cause children to skip school.

History

Penny arcade

A penny arcade can be any type of venue for coin-operated devices, usually for entertainment. The term came into use about 1905-1910. The name derives from the penny, once a staple coin for the machines. The machines used included:

Penny Arcade

Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic strip each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The comics are accompanied by regular updates on the site's blog.

Penny Arcade is among the most popular and longest running gaming webcomics currently online, listed in 2010 as having 3.5 million readers. Holkins and Krahulik are among the few and first webcomic creators successful enough to make a living from their work. In addition to the comic, Holkins and Krahulik also created Child's Play, a children's charity; PAX, an annual gaming convention, and the episodic video game Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness with Hothead Games and Zeboyd Games.

Overview

The strip features Krahulik and Holkins' cartoon alter egos, John "Gabe" Gabriel and Tycho Brahe, respectively. While often borrowing from the authors' experiences, Holkins and Krahulik do not treat them as literal avatars or caricatures of themselves. The two characters spend much of their time playing and commenting on computer and video games, which forms the basis of the humor in the strip. Most of the time Gabe serves the purpose of the comic and Tycho the comic foil. The strip can feature in-jokes that are explained in the news posts accompanying each comic, written by the authors.

Penny Arcade Expo

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a series of gaming festivals held in Seattle, Boston, Melbourne, and San Antonio. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming.

Created in 2004, PAX has been hailed as a celebration of gamer culture. Defining characteristics of the festival include an opening keynote speech from an industry insider, game-culture inspired concerts, panels on game topics, exhibitor booths from independent and major game developers and publishers, a LAN party, tabletop game tournaments, and video game freeplay areas. Every PAX also features the Omegathon, a festival long tournament consisting of a group of randomly selected attendees competing for a grand prize. The final round of the Omegathon makes up the closing ceremony of PAX. Past games for the final round have included Tetris, Pong, Halo 3, and Skee ball.

History

The first Penny Arcade Expo was held on August 28–29, 2004, in Bellevue, Washington, at the Meydenbauer Center, and was attended by approximately 3,300 people. The event was held annually in August, at the same venue, for the next two years. Attendance grew rapidly, with over 9,000 attendees in 2005, and over 19,000 in 2006.

Penny

A penny is a coin (pl. pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (whence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is the formal name of the British penny (abbr. p) and the informal name of the American and Irish cents (abbr. ¢ and c, respectively). It is the informal name of the cent unit of account in Canada, although one cent coins are no longer minted in that country. The name is also used in reference to various historical currencies also derived from the Carolingian system, such as the French denier and the German pfennig. It may also be informally used to refer to any similar smallest-denomination coin, such as the euro cent or Chinese fen.

The Carolingian penny was originally a .940-fine silver coin weighing 1/240 pound. It was adopted by Offa of Mercia and other English kings and remained the principal currency in Europe over the next few centuries until repeated debasements necessitated the development of more valuable coins. The British penny remained a silver coin until the expense of the Napoleonic Wars prompted the use of base metals in 1797. Despite the decimalization of currencies in the United States and, later, throughout the British Commonwealth, the name remains in informal use.

Arcade

Arcade may refer to:

Places

Australia

Italy

United Kingdom

United States