A Mid-Year Review
A Look at Operations, Celebrating a Milestone & Writing a New Book
by Adam Pratt, Arcade Galactic & ArcadeHeroes.com
2026 has been a ride so far, although not one that has me jumping for joy. I know that it is beginning to sound like a broken record given how things have gone over the past few years, and I have to admit that there are times when it gets a little discouraging (especially when the cash flow keeps finding a way to go down instead of up, year-on-year).
But while I draw breath, it’s important to find ways to keep a “glass half full” view of my business, and I do my best to find those things that can equal a better profit.
I’m plugged into arcade news, of course, and for the most part, that’s positive, but with the downside being in a little slowdown. While we had plenty of games pop up at Amusement Expo, many of those are locked into a “hurry up and wait” kind of situation, as parts or other cost factors have caused delays for several titles.
There were some new games announced at the recent AAA Expo 2026 in China, such as Asphalt 9 Legends Arcade DX Plus (what a mouthful), which LAI Games will begin shipping around the end of the summer/beginning of fall. Some of Wahlap’s and Ace’s games also might show up here before too long, although nothing else was announced for the West so far. ExA-Arcadia also showed off some new titles at the EVO Japan 2026 event, and planned to announce more at EVO 2026 in Las Vegas at the end of last month.
Again, a bit like a broken record, I’m still not in a situation to buy anything new. In fact, to help cover expenses, I’ve taken to selling things like my Star Trek (Stern) pinball earlier this year. I’ve also begun selling off some of the old arcade PCBs that have been collecting dust instead of tokens for far too long. I still have a bit to clean up in that regard, but once I get those parts and games into new homes, I hope to find myself in a slightly better spot.
I’ve also been talking with people about revenue shares, something I haven’t been super keen on. Owning my own location, I’d rather own every piece of equipment that I can. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to cover shipping yet, so while I haven’t had any luck with that as of now, I am hoping to have a new piece or two in place before the summer is out.
Anniversary Time
On June 8, my business – which started as The Game Grid Arcade in 2008 and changed to Arcade Galactic in 2020 – celebrated 18 years in business, a milestone that makes me feel a bit old. But for a video arcade with no ticket redemption or party room inside of a mall with a giant FEC down the hall, I’m doing all right!
I am very grateful to God, my family, friends, customers, industry colleagues and organizations that have all made it possible to get this far. But as alluded to earlier in this article, and too many articles to count in recent times, I still have a way to go to get back to a comfortable point.
One thing that I recently launched is a new card system, going with Amusement Connect. With over 70 game cabinets, I couldn’t afford to supply all of them with readers at once, so I ordered 25 and set them up so they can still take tokens. It’s too early to tell how this will work out, but my focus was on putting them on the newest/best-earning games, so I think that will be a benefit. We still get some people who appreciate the physicality of having a coin in their hands, and with that we do offer refunds. In contrast, gameplay via cards won’t be refundable but we will have a bonus points system, so it should be interesting to see how that works out. I hope this will help us catch up, putting us in a position to buy more readers.
The area where I aim to make progress is debt. If you’ve read my column for a while, you know this is still the bane of my existence. It would be really nice to get to a point where I’m debt-free, which would make weathering the storms of inflation and competition much easier to deal with. Sadly, it’s the one area where I find it tough to feel optimistic.
A New Book Is Coming!
I’ve been focusing a lot more on writing lately and I’m happy to report that I’m working on another arcade book. Originally, this was going to be an all-inclusive history of the entire arcade game industry from Computer Space to whatever ends up being the most recent releases when it’s wrapped up. When I talked to Roger Sharpe about the project a couple of Amusement Expos ago, he said, “Good luck, that’s a lot of work.” He wasn’t wrong about that and eventually, I decided to write a separate book for each decade, starting with the ’70s.
I have a solid draft ready that is around 80,000 words, including some trivia questions. By the time the editing process is finished, it may be up to 90,000. (I’m already over 95,000 words in my draft for the 1980s.) By the way, among my resources are back issues of RePlay and reading Eddie Adlum’s RePlay Retro feature.
My hope is the first book will do well and I’ll continue through the other decades, eventually putting them all together which, circling back, was my original plan.
And no, I haven’t used AI for the content. I experimented with it early on and found it to be very unsatisfying. It got too many facts wrong, missed important historical context, and was written in an unnatural way which meant using it would require a lot of rewrite time.
Perhaps it’s foolish to try finish such a massive undertaking before I turn old and decrepit, but I’m learning a lot, and the process is also sharpening my mind and forcing me to be more disciplined with my time. So, despite this taking forever, there are pluses!
Well, time to jump back into it, especially since I want to have it ready by IAAPA in November. Until then, let’s hope we all stay cool and profitable this summer.
Adam Pratt is the owner and operator of Arcade Galactic near Salt Lake City, Utah, and also publishes the Arcade Heroes blog site. He can be reached at [email protected].