Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Flipping through Frank Pohbo’s photos of California arcades is like stepping into a time machine.
“That’s the power of arcades,” he told CNN. One minute I was in the 1980s, the next minute I was in the present.
Pohbo’s new book “Back to the Arcade”, most of which was filmed in 2019, although it has not been published yet due to the pandemic, includes about 150 photos, most of which were shot in Los Angeles and Southern California. Through this project, he aims to “document the arcade culture (game halls) and the refuge it represents,” according to Bohbo.
“I have always been fascinated by these spaces, and I thought that capturing them on camera would help me delve deeper into their world and immortalize them,” he added.
“Arcades have always been a part of many of the films I grew up with,” Pohbo explained, explaining how cinema led him to this idea. From “Back to the Future Part II” to “Jaws” and “Terminator 2,” they’ve been kind of a part of our visual pop culture. I wanted to explore that and commemorate a bygone era, as well as my personal childhood memories.”
The French pohbo, who moved to Los Angeles in 2018, often shoots at night, driving in and out of town to find a range of different arcades, ranging from the bright and family-friendly to the moody and dark. He then photographed not only the games but the audiences that these arenas attracted as well.
“Each hall had its own completely different vibe, which is fun for me,” he said. He continued, “I’ve found diversity to be a never-ending inspiration. A combination of a dreamy vibe and a sense of loneliness as well.”
Fantasy stadiums
Arcades appeared in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, though at the time they were called amusement arcades, or coin-op arcades, with coin-operated games such as strength testers, slot machines, and racing games providing plenty of entertainment.
In the 1930s, the introduction of the pinball machine overtook other games, captivating audiences like never before. However, by the end of that decade, pinball machines were banned across the country, because they were considered games of chance and a form of gambling. This continued for a long time, especially in New York City.
The development of EM games, such as Sega’s “Periscope” (1966) and Chicago Coin’s “Speedway” (1969), helped redefine arcade games as games of skill, not chance. But during the 1970s, arcades as we know them today took their place in our collective culture thanks to a new type of attraction: the video game.
In 1971, a space combat video game called “Computer Space” became the first commercially sold coin-operated arcade game released in the country, laying the foundation for a new industry that would revolutionize not only arcades, but gaming culture and idea. American youth.
Almost overnight, arcades became places to hang out and enjoy shopping malls. Just as quickly, an increasing number of companies, mostly in the United States and Japan, began producing new games, which paved the way for what became known as the “Golden Age” of arcades.
“The quality and variety of video game selection was amazing,” Pohbo said of the era. “These were and still are classics.”
But the iconic status of arcades was not to last. Like pinball, video games were viewed by some, from officials to concerned parents, as perverted and dangerous pastimes for young people (the 1982 New York Times headlined it “The Battle of America’s Youth”). By this time, home computers, portable game systems, and consoles such as Atari were also changing the way young people played. So when the video game industry stagnated in 1983, many prominent game companies went bankrupt or stopped making software altogether, which indirectly affected the game market.
This recession effectively ended the “golden age”. And while franchises like “Mortal Kombat” and “Street Fighter” (originally just arcade titles) helped revive some of the cultural significance of arcades in the ’90s, their decline has proven to be irreversible.
In 2005, there were about 44 licensed gyms in New York, down by the hundreds just a decade ago, according to The New York Times. By 2010, the number had dropped to 23.
Frank Bohbot
Other parts of the United States experienced a similar sharp decline. However, when Pohbo embarked on his photography project, he was surprised to discover that in Los Angeles, at least these arcades weren’t completely dead.
“The more I search, the more I find,” he said.
Nostalgic time capsules
The past few years have heralded a revival of the classic arcade classic, according to Pohbo, who believes the trend is driven by a sense of nostalgia that he hopes will be captured in his photos.
“These arcades can transport people in time and space,” he said. “They’re time capsules of something we’ve lost, but they can also look like somewhere in an almost other world, from another dimension. I really wanted to… portray them as they are to a lot of us: playgrounds that look like dreams.”
While the illustrator contemplates expanding his project to other cities and countries including Chicago, the center of the American video game industry in the 1980s, and Japan, where the gaming sector has fared better than in the United States, despite similar challenges, he views the book as “a love letter to Los Angeles.” , specially.
Credit: Franck Bohbot
“LA is such a complex city that it often feels like it’s hiding parts of itself. You run so much indoors, in places you don’t even know about, because everything is spread out. It really makes you look twice and look really hard for what you’re looking for,” he said.
He noted that the arcades I photographed represent that. “They felt almost like secrets, yet were full of people ‘playing together’ and enjoying themselves. I think that reflects the atmosphere of the city.”
