OK, I haven't the energy for a big reply any more, but I'd probably withdraw my argument anyway as I see where you're coming from now. Being from the slightly younger generation and not having much pocket money me & my bro would have to pick and choose our arcade gaming quite carefully... being part of a tournament etc just wasn't an option because of the cost of entry, and the culture being somewhat different round our neck of the woods.
Besides, any arcade type place nearby had asshole managers who'd often kill the power to all the units every night, or once a week across a day it may not be open, so the high scores were transitory.
Hence any more hardcore tourney kind of action being round our home machine with mates who came round. Still, you haven't seen gaming carnage til you've seen five early teens clustered around a 13" monitor and a keyboard-computer playing Bomberman (oh, sorry... "Dyna Blaster") with two on the regular sticks, two on sticks running through a printer port adaptor, and one on the keyboard.
So yeah. Wrong place wrong time to really pick that kind of thing up, but I know *of* it and what you're going on about. I still don't see it as a every night of the week, several hours at a time thing, though, unless you were super flush? Just the number of coins you'd need to get a goodly distance through Rainbow Islands makes my wallet ache.
Besides, any arcade type place nearby had asshole managers who'd often kill the power to all the units every night, or once a week across a day it may not be open, so the high scores were transitory.
Hence any more hardcore tourney kind of action being round our home machine with mates who came round. Still, you haven't seen gaming carnage til you've seen five early teens clustered around a 13" monitor and a keyboard-computer playing Bomberman (oh, sorry... "Dyna Blaster") with two on the regular sticks, two on sticks running through a printer port adaptor, and one on the keyboard.
So yeah. Wrong place wrong time to really pick that kind of thing up, but I know *of* it and what you're going on about. I still don't see it as a every night of the week, several hours at a time thing, though, unless you were super flush? Just the number of coins you'd need to get a goodly distance through Rainbow Islands makes my wallet ache.