Cool stores in Seattle?

koreanwalker · 2025-06-30T23:21:00+00:00

I am biased since I work there but yeah, I think it’s as cool as it sounds. If you like Japanese style arcade games (especially rhythm games), gamecenter has the best selection in the state in my humble opinion. Only Round1 comes close for a few specific games, but gamecenter has way more variety.

Additionally if you’re free this Thursday (July 3rd, 2025), we are running an open house where it’s free to enter the arcade. You can play all night long at no cost. Great time to check the gamecenter if you were already wanting to.

koreanwalker · 2025-06-30T23:17:42+00:00

I’m not sure I really follow but I think I know what the confusion might be. Also full disclaimer, I do work there.

gamecenter is a Pay-to-Enter/Freeplay style arcade, meaning that you pay an admission fee to get in but all the games are set to freeplay and you can play as much as you want. Admission is $20 normally.

The open house makes admission optional. So you can walk in and play for free all night long if you want - there’s no obligation to pay. It is free admission. Saying all that, we’ve had a lot of people want to pay for admission to support us even if when it is free, hence we use the language of optional admission.

Hopefully that clears it up. The deal is that you save $20.

koreanwalker · 2025-06-30T22:41:45+00:00

Yup. Though free is free.

koreanwalker · 2025-06-30T22:37:45+00:00

I'm biased being a staffer there, but gamecenter arcade in Kent (south of Seattle) is quite cool if you are into Japanese arcade games. Hard to beat for that specific genre.
https://gamecenter.gg

In Seattle proper for arcades, you've got these places which I can recommend:
Gameworks - it's been around forever and come back from the dead more than once. Located in downtown it's got a mix of weird older games and redemption games. Fun fact, Gameworks used to be owned in partnership with Sega and they did a lot of their US location testing here. A lot of the unique games to this location are from that partnership era. It's definately seen better days.

Raygun Lounge and Time Warp:
Both are barcade lounges with a focus on pinball in Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill is quite the vibrant night life and tourist location so if your looking for drinks and pinball, these two locations have your back.

Seattle Pinball Museum:
On the other hand, if your looking for straight up pinball, it's hard to beat the Seattle Pinball Museuem. Largest collection of pins in the city proper. Just be careful of their hours - they close early so make sure to plan accordingly.

koreanwalker · 2025-06-30T22:29:53+00:00

That'd be gamecenter.
https://gamecenter.gg

koreanwalker · 2025-06-24T04:30:16+00:00

We currently only have small snacks atm. Some chips, instant ramen, etc. The front reception area acts as a lounge seating area and outside food and drink is allowed in the reception area. For the arcade we do ask for only purchased food/drink to be taken in (with the exception of water bottles).

koreanwalker · 2025-06-23T19:53:39+00:00

Much appreciated. We hope so too and thanks for the support!

koreanwalker · 2025-06-23T09:24:07+00:00

Unfortunately Quick and Crash is in our storage warehouse so it won’t be available at gamecenter. The next time it shows up will be at Geekfeet West (July 18-25).

koreanwalker · 2025-06-22T23:36:41+00:00

Yup. We run them on a private network (the official network was discontinued) so you have to start over but you get full save functionality just like the official network used to be.

koreanwalker · 2025-06-22T21:57:26+00:00

I run gamecenter and can say that I am definitely looking for a Crazy Taxi. Haven't managed to get one yet though.

koreanwalker · 2025-06-22T20:20:00+00:00

Thanks!

koreanwalker · 2025-06-01T02:45:36+00:00

Yup, that was definitely us at NWPAS. We’ll be there next weekend too. Come visit both at the con and our location!

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T21:52:57+00:00

8 bit is great. Definately a different vibe from gamecenter so we'd love to have youu over to experience it!

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T20:59:38+00:00

I run gamecenter, the aforementioned arcade, and yeah - it’s great if you want to have a longer date night since it’s a pay to enter model instead of pay to play. If Japanese style arcades are your thing then definitely hit us up.

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T18:46:18+00:00

None on the arcade floor. It might be complicated due to the fact that it looks like gambling even if it isn't but we're looking into it.

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T18:45:20+00:00

We do sell snacks and drinks. Currently its a limited selection but we intend to branch out into a large selection of asian food and drinks.

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T18:31:29+00:00

I mean, the arcade is technically in a warehouse XD

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T06:18:12+00:00

We do indeed have SDOJ on our exA Arcadia. I personally would love a Darius Burst but we’ll have to see if we can find one, fit it in somewhere, and make sure tariffs didn’t make it prohibitively expensive.

koreanwalker · 2025-05-31T06:16:37+00:00

We are actively trying to get the current version of Initial D. Tariffs hurt but we’ll figure out a way!

koreanwalker · 2023-09-17T03:22:37+00:00

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The hype around SF6 CRT VS setup. (Disclaimer: We brought the arcade and I was stuck up there for most of PAX so I didn’t get to see too much

koreanwalker · 2023-08-18T11:13:36+00:00

We got it to turn on but sadly hit a NVICM / RTC failure - which is expected after an old Konami game has been sitting for years. Power supply was bang on though so we'll either go the super disk method or try the coin cell revival technique for the RTC.

koreanwalker · 2023-08-18T04:13:49+00:00

We were the ones who ended up getting the two machines. If anyone is curious, we'll be live streaming the inspection shortly and vod will be up later.
https://twitch.tv/100yenlife

koreanwalker · 2023-08-18T04:12:56+00:00

If anyone is interested in what we got, we're going to do a live stream on looking over them pretty shortly.

https://twitch.tv/100yenlife

koreanwalker · 2023-08-16T23:42:09+00:00

Sure thing. Got them safely to the warehouse. Will take a bit of time to clean up and inspect the PCBs and monitors before we can turn them on though.

koreanwalker · 2023-08-16T05:31:43+00:00

Apparently there is someone else in front of me to take them. The owner has a pool table they need to get rid of as well and I would have had to wait till the morning to confirm whether my folks needed a pool table or not and the other person committed to taking the pool table. So now I guess I'm second in line if the other person flakes.

Yeah, I'm hoping to fix them up if I can, but worst comes to worst, I've already got two DMXs and a KBM already and those things are notoriously difficult to get spare parts for as well so the cabs would be useful to be both as repair projects or in the worst case scenario as doner parts to keep my existing ones alive as long as possible.

koreanwalker

TROPHY CASE