The story of the British amusement arcade from the 1800s to the
present.
Amusement arcades are an important part of British culture, yet
discussions of them tend to be based on American models. Alan Meades,
who spent his childhood happily playing in British seaside arcades,
presents the history of the arcade from its origins in traveling fairs
of the 1800s to the present. Drawing on firsthand accounts of industry
members and archival sources, including rare photographs and trade
publications, he tells the story of the first arcades, the people who
made the machines, the rise of video games, and the legislative and
economic challenges spurred by public fears of moral decline.
Arcade Britannia highlights the differences between British and North
American arcades, especially in terms of the complex relationship
between gambling and amusements. He also underlines Britain's role in
introducing coin-operated technologies into Europe, as well as the
industry's close links to America and, especially, Japan. He shows how
the British arcade is a product of centuries of public play, gambling,
entrepreneurship, and mechanization. Examining the arcade's history
through technological, social, cultural, biographic, and legislative
perspectives, he describes a pendulum shift between control and
liberalization, as well as the continued efforts of concerned moralists
to limit and regulate public play. Finally, he recounts the impact on
the industry of legislative challenges that included vicious taxation,
questions of whether copyright law applied to video-game code, and the
peculiar moment when every arcade game in Britain was considered a
cinema.
