Arcades in game of survival
Shrines to retro machines puzzle out strategy in a world where players can’t gather to compete
video Shawn games and a Meg new Livernoche life. As the love proprietors giving old of a business devoted to vintage console machines, the married couple are the rare adults who relish in the whoops of a crowd when a new top score is set and speak of “Oregon
Trail” in the language of fine art.
Back when the Livernoches still lived in
New Jersey, Shawn once drove a “Donkey
Kong Jr.” cabinet down the Pennsylvania
Turnpike in a twodoor Volkswagen Golf to bring it home. Their 3yearold son, Link, is named after the swordslinging hero of Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda” franchise.
Originally the innocent hobby of two video game superfans, the passion was turned into the pair’s profession when they opened their first High Scores arcade in Burlington, N.J., in 2010.
“We’ve already got quotes for moving 150 games back across the country, where we can afford to live.”
Shawn Livernoche, coowner of High Scores arcade Bay Livernoches never terinplace Now, Since Area planned the six — owners Bay laws in are for: Alameda Area facing in a of March, potential counties two a and situation locations High Hayward game enacted Scores they in over. the shel — had and the other desperately “We’re video selling game searching a establishments social for gathering a way to have experi survive. been ence,” “so we Shawn can’t even told do The a modified Chronicle version by phone, of that. We’ve already got quotes for moving 150 games back across the country, where we can afford to live. At this point, we’ve spent almost three months with no income. Our savings is depleting. We’re running out of options for what we can do, even in the worstcase scenario.”
To make matters worse, Meg said that their storefront in Alameda was also defaced dur
ing recent protests decrying the death of George Floyd and police brutality, which raised their insurance rates.
In an email update sent June 16, Meg noted that current estimates for when Alameda will allow them to get back to business range between July 20 and Aug. 30, but she cautioned that the future was “still pretty nebulous.”
The issue, of course, is the nature of arcades. As an experience designed for dozens of gamers to gather in one space, where different hands are constantly engaging with direct surfaces, the questions about how to do so safely are overwhelming.
Despite the lifting of certain restrictions this month in several Bay Area counties, San Francisco and Alameda counties both are delaying a decision on reopening museums. While San Francisco considers museums a risk on par with indoor bars, Alameda officials suggested museums returning were “several phases away.”
One establishment hoping for clarity is Alameda’s Pacific Pinball Museum, where director d’Arci Bruno has already begun mapping out what their postshelterinplace operations might look like. She says they plan to offer a threephase approach that will rely on twohour time slots reserved in advance.
“Our members will be the first ones to test out how this works for us, so we can finetune it before we start letting the general public in,” Bruno said.
Bruno has also decided that the Pacific Pinball Museum will not admit anyone 12 or younger for the time being.
“It’s not because we don’t like children,” she added. “We absolutely love them, but they’re a wild card. They don’t flush the toilet. They don’t wash their hands. They don’t wear their masks. They don’t listen, and if their parents are here playing, they’re not paying attention.”
Matthew Henri of Free Gold Watch, an arcade and screenprinting business near the Golden Gate Park Panhandle in San Francisco, has also made some decisions about how his arcade will operate once given the green light.
“I personally think that Free Gold Watch should be able to open at the same time that bars are able to have customers inside,” Henri explained. That phase could start as early as midJuly or August.
There’s no alcohol at Free Gold Watch. Instead, patrons play pinball and more at an arcade housed in the back of Henri’s print shop. The collection of games on display includes rarer titles like “The Big Lebowski” from Dutch Pinball, 1988’s “Banzai Run,” 1998’s “Cactus Canyon” and a 2019 limitededition version of “Elvira’s House of Horrors.”
“We are planning to turn off every other game,” he said. “We plan to only allow singleplayer games, so unfortunately, you can’t play your friend at ‘Street Fighter.’ You’re going to have to play the computer.”
Other plans for Free Gold Watch include staggering which games are turned on and off and hiring an extra attendant to disinfect games between use. Henri also plans to operate with extended hours to allow for more visitors.
As Free Gold Watch is a screenprinting operation, Henri says the best way to support the place is to send shirt printing work its way. He also said that his business was able to obtain a loan from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program and plans to be back in action when it’s safe.
For the Pacific Pinball Museum, Bruno said she is amazed at the support from donors, which has totaled around $4,000 so far.
“We have not done a ‘hard’ ask yet,” Bruno said, “but our supporters have been generous.”
Unfortunately, the future is less clear for High Scores.
Though the couple behind the arcade museums are not worried for their own wellbeing, they did express concern for what will happen to the games they’ve so lovingly repaired, showcased and treasured. Far from a pizza parlor crapshoot of “old school” games, the collection at High Scores includes things that are, quite literally, one of a kind.
“In terms of any personal woes stuff, we’re going to be OK,” Shawn said. “We’re employable. The reason why we’re spending our savings, why we’re making these personal sacrifices, is not just for the arcade but for what it represents, too.”
As an example, the couple share the story behind how they obtained the game “Beathead.”
Released for testing in 1993, the same week as the classic “Street Fighter II,” the rhythm game was steamrolled by its competitor and mothballed by Atari. A decade into their pivot from careers in teaching and pharmaceuticals, respectively, Shawn and Meg found themselves sitting in a basement with the man who had actually programmed it.
After speaking with them, he gave the Livernoches the only console version of “Beathead” in existence, along with one of the two existing boards for it.
“We had to figure out how to get that console up a turned concrete stairwell outside,” Meg recalled. “We end up recruiting everybody, down to his landscapers, to help us get that cabinet out of his basement. That’s the personal end of it. These are games that people will never see anywhere else, and many of them have special meaning for us.”
With over $10,000 in monthly overhead, the Livernoches said they are approaching a moment when their only option will be to move their family — all four humans and 150 game cabinets — back to New Jersey.
“We’re Jersey people,” Shawn said. “We never ask anybody for help, but we’re learning now.”
But their turning to the public to buy more time. In addition to a web page for monthly donations, the Livernoches have an ongoing GoFundMe campaign. As of Tuesday, June 16, they had raised $8,540 of their $40,000 goal.
Despite the struggles, Shawn makes one thing abundantly clear: The games will be OK.
“We’re not going to let 150 games go down in flames. We just don’t want to have to move them across the country into storage in New Jersey and spend three years rebuilding our business on the other side of the country. We’re going to keep the games one way or another. We’ll blow our savings on keeping the games before we’ll let them go.”