Bring Back BattleTech

02 Jul, 2026

Arcades used to be at the forefront of gaming, with arcade games representing the bleeding edge of technology, compared to home consoles which were always trying to play catch up. Console manufacturers constantly took swings back and forth between each other over who could provide the most arcade accurate experiences, yet still often failed to live up to the real deal. Arcade machines could be important fixtures at restaurants, laundromats, and other local businesses, now they're an extremely rare thing to come across outside of the very few dedicated arcade establishments still left in the United States.

I'm not really going to go into depth on why arcades fell out of prominence here, because it isn't all that interesting to be honest. By the turn of the millennium, home consoles were catching up to arcades in terms of technology, to the point where arcade machines could be made out of retail consoles, and then there's also the simple fact that most people don't really use cash anymore. Combine that with the huge upfront cost and maintenance required in order to keep arcade cabinets around, and the story tells itself.

It's not like arcades are no longer around, there's chains like Dave & Busters and Round One, which are known for their huge selections of arcade machines, alongside smaller establishments such as barcades catering to older adults who are nostalgic for the arcade experience. However, they're still frustratingly few and far between, and the more mainstream places especially are filled with stuff like this:

(Sonic Dash Extreme. Image source)

You know what that is? Yeah, it's a mobile game blown up to arcade size. Because that's what people want to go to arcades for, to play shit they can already play on their phones. The only reason this seems to exist is because arcade games these days are more or less mostly just a conduit for the player to earn tickets so they can exchange them for tacky prizes at the prize counter, rather than aiming to be interesting experiences in their own right. So why not just take a phone game and re-purpose it for that? This isn't even the worst thing you'll get at these arcades, as a lot of machines are just glorified slots, roulette wheels, etc, but for earning tickets. Congratulations, you figured out how to make legalized gambling for kids. Woo.

But "old-school" arcades died out because they weren't profitable, right? The invisible hand of the market dictated that the only way to keep arcades profitable was to re-orient them around getting kids and their parents to spend way too much trying to earn cheap trinkets they could easily buy online, and you can't argue with the invisible hand of the market. If anything going into arcades is just a means to that end, then why would they bother making any sort of 'real game' for the arcade at all? Sorry you wanted to experience something more, maybe if you're lucky, you'll find the token Donkey Kong or Street Fighter 2 cabinet tucked away in the back. This is what the market has decided arcades are now.

Well, the market is stupid and the people in charge of arcades are cowards. Frankly, there's a wide open path to re-invigorating that market that they're not taking, and it's pretty simple: just focus on delivering experiences you can't get at home or anywhere else. Or, in other words, bring back BattleTech.

(We used to be a proper country. Image Source Time Extension/Jordan Weisman)

Learning about BattleTech Centers blew my mind. What do you mean there used to be entire buildings dedicated to playing an extremely intricate multiplayer Mech Combat sim? Where you could get into pods to play the most futuristic video game imaginable in the most immersive setup possible? That's an experience you could never hope to replicate at home, despite the fact that there are plenty of home versions of BattleTech, including it's (perhaps better known?) spin-off series MechWarrior. Watching this introduction video starring Jim Belushi that would have been shown to players prior to getting into the game, I get the sense that the experience was a lot closer to Laser Tag than a traditional video game, which sounds awesome. I want to go play BattleTech in an environment like this really badly. Why can't we have good things anymore.

Despite their popularity, BattleTech Centers (later known as Virtual Worlds to incorporate more kinds of experiences unrelated to BattleTech) were prohibitively expensive to run and maintain, so the concept largely fizzled out by the turn of the millennium. They pivoted to creating mini-centers inside Dave & Busters establishments, before finally selling off all remaining BattleTech units and officially retiring the game in 2005. A quote in this article from Greg Colson, a programmer for Virtual World Entertainment, has stuck with me since I first read it:

Today, with the improvements in development tools and huge drops in computer costs we're seeing the overall cost of developing/running this kind of business would be less than half what it was in 1990, making it a practical business.

I think Round One and Dave & Busters are okay, but I often end up frustrated when I go to any arcade because I'm looking for experiences I can't get anywhere else, and they largely don't deliver¹. A notable exception is rhythm games, Round One arcades tend to carry a surprisingly large selection of imported Japanese rhythm games with unique control setups. I will say that checking out some random guitar game by Konami and discovering that I could play Megalovania on it was pretty damn cool, but overall rhythm games aren't really my thing.

Reading about the BattleTech Centers especially really frustrates me, because this could just be done again! It's a risk, sure, but it's a hell of a lot less of a risk today than it was when they did it back in the 90s. The fact that we're not getting more BattleTech is the definitive proof that capitalism sucks... I mean, aside from the critically acclaimed 2018 PC game, but this is less a plea about BattleTech specifically and more about wondering why nobody is taking the general concept and running with it to revitalize the arcade scene again.

Consumer VR has been actually practical for over a decade, and yet there really hasn't been much in the way of immersive experiences built using the technology aside from like, hobby projects people make in their own bedrooms, for themselves. I think in the year 2026 I should be able to go into an arcade and step into an extremely immersive simulation mech cockpit, or simulation race car driving experience, or any number of unique curated experiences. Seeing all the photographs and videos of those BattleTech Centers, I am convinced that they had the future figured out, and we're the ones who are squandering it.

(Like my writing? Leave me a tip on Ko-Fi!)