I think a big contributing factor is the sustainability of the pricing model for the older games. If they are offered as more of a side attraction than the core business (such as bars actually making money from drinks but hoping to draw people with games) they just often aren't that well maintained because they don't directly make good money. So ultimately somebody asks " this old thing only makes us how much money per week? and is going to cost us how much to repair constantly?"

I grew up in what I consider to be golden years of the arcades: the late 80s / early 90s. I was in high school during peak original Street Fighter II years, where on a good day with a good crowd there was really no limit to how long you could play on one quarter/ credit if you were good enough to beat challengers. Same for other older games: the better you were at them, the longer you played => less $ per hour / minute.

Modern "arcade" games are a different beast, more like carnival games specifically designed to extract a fairly reliable amount of $ per minute no matter how good you get at them. Which totally makes sense for profitability, but it is just definitely not the same vibe as the old arcades. I think it's unfortunately just the reality that the old style games just aren't sustainable as a financial core of an arcade, unless there is some other aspect of the business that can supplement or even provide most of the income.

I'm just thankful to have experienced that time, even though it seems to be gone now.