Arcades have come a long way since their inception as simple coin operated games long ago.
The earliest coin operated games showed up in the 1930's as pinball machines. In the early 70's the world was mesmerized by the video game called pong. Then Atari came into the picture as the first major player in the industry.

New arcade games were developed and seemingly overnight they appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over the United States and other countries. Games such as Space Invaders, Galaxies, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong were especially popular.

The simplest arcade games are still fun to play but the most advanced games challenge you more, and generally provide a more gratifying user experience. Arcade games are products of someone's imagination. Someone who took a simple idea created an interactive product that appeals to the masses of gamers out there. Some games become extremely popular, others do not.

At one time the only place you could play an arcade game was at a public establishment such as movie theaters and bowling alleys. They started out being the size of small refrigerators. Then we had home gaming systems which over the years were developed and got smaller, and much more powerful with better graphics. There are home gaming systems, handheld games, games on cell phones and about any other electronic media with a screen.

What fascinates me about the free online games is the endless variety. There are free games available all over the internet and they are all fun to play. If you find yourself sitting in front of a computer waiting on a download you can play a free arcade game.

You won't have any trouble finding an arcade site; there are literally thousands of them on the internet today.
A lot of the game sites allow you to keep score and challenge others to beat your score at a particular game. Some have a link you can embed into your social networking page which will allow other users to play the game. Most of these web arcade sites have upwards of 3000 games or more.

Arcades are indeed a lot of fun. They have come a long way from years ago and I expect that the popularity of arcade games will not diminish anytime soon. They are sure to be developed further as time goes on with more advances in the next few years than we have seen in the last 20 years.

Anyone young and old can play arcade games. It is great exercise for the brain and is fun and challenging at the same time.

Check out some of the great arcade sites out there and play away.