Wilcox Arcade is 8 Years Old Today

I can’t believe I’ve been working on this thing since I was 15 years old.

More to the point, the headline doesn’t lie: The Wilcox Arcade blog turns eight today. It was at this time in 2017 that I published to www.wilcoxarcade.com my first article, within which I reviewed Terminator Salvation by Raw Thrills.

The way I wrote back then is a lot quirkier than I’d prefer now – and arguably a bit less informed than I’d eventually become – but I’m surprised by how consistent I’ve remained over the years. When you come to Wilcox Arcade, you still know exactly what to expect.

February seems to be a significant month for me in general. That same month in 2019, I received my business license to launch the Wilcox Arcade route in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. If you want to talk about consistency, Fun-E-Ball was not only the first game I dropped in my hometown but also the same one I would drop in Murray seven years later.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. The blog is historically what most people have conjured to mind upon hearing the phrase “Wilcox Arcade,” and this year, I plan to go heavier on posts than I have in a long time. The caveat is that I’m moving away from industry-wide news coverage; I’d instead like to highlight new developments in my route.

Speaking of which, the route is shaping up nicely in western Kentucky. Although it isn’t where I’d like it yet – not by a long shot – I at least have the self-awareness to step back and be grateful for what I’ve been able to achieve in a relatively short period of time. I have four machines at Basement Bar Collectibles in Benton; two at Trends N Treasures in Murray; and one at Know-a-Guy in the same town.

The rubble is really hitting the road now. Within the next month or so, I’ll add Switch ‘N’ Shoot to Know-a-Guy and Galactic Battleground to Basement Bar Collectibles, my first indie game purchases since Skycurser in 2019. (There will be more articles and YouTube videos explaining how this came to be as we get closer to launch.)

Indie games have always been my thing – just look at my second, fourth, or tenth ever articles for proof of that – but now that I have a full-time income, I’m especially primed to put my money where my mouth is. It took unreal patience not being able to buy brand-new indie games for most of my career.

I can’t believe this all started with a 60-in-1 Multicade. I’m not much for the emulator cabinets anymore, though I inadvertently bought one for Basement Bar Collectibles in November. (Long, LONG story short, I will remedy that situation as soon as possible.)

For as much as things have stayed the same, I can’t say that nothing has changed. I sold out everything I ever cared about by buying the first Wilcox Arcade mini-crane, currently located at Know-a-Guy. If it makes you feel any better – the way it made me feel better – the merchandise is cheap enough that I can keep the win rate perfectly one-to-one, and I’m using the proceeds to fund indie game purchases. I was just trying something different.

It's like they always say: If you keep carrying the same bricks, you’ll keep building the same house. For the longest time, I stuck solely to the used games, because they were all that I could afford. Obviously, the goal was to eventually scale to new games, but I’ve done so sooner than I expected. Too many TikTok comments about me running a “retro arcade” will do that to a guy.

Oh, and TikTok…I HATE TikTok. Like, I promise you there is no one in the world who hates TikTok more than I do. Like, I hate TikTok so much that I probably sound psychopathic explaining to you how much I hate TikTok right now. But alas, TikTok offers unmatched advertising utility, so I grit my teeth and riff in front of the front-facing camera every day.

Doing things that make me uncomfortable yet could benefit my business is a recurring theme in my life right now. I mean, we all know how much I despise cranes. The truth of matter, however, is I’d rather reach my financial goals faster, and it’s hard to do that being too principled.

I’ll have plenty of time to fine tune the route in the future. For now, I’m just happy that it’s starting to look real again.

Here’s what you can look forward to in the future: I WILL return to Hopkinsville someday. I don’t just mean I’ll drop a couple games there — no, I’m destined to live there. There is not a single place on the face of the Earth more frickin’ criticial to me.

I just gotta get married and get the route on its feet first. Oh, by the way, I’m getting married in April. My fiancée Jordan Harrell is 100 percent the reason any of this is happening, even if she won’t admit it to you. She encouraged me to relaunch my route in April 2024 following the tribulations that came with the pandemic.

Now, what about the Wilcox Arcade blog? As you’ve seen in the past year, I just can’t do the news grind anymore, but I do want this to be a fun site to visit. I don’t believe that blogs are dead in today’s day and age. All I need to do is adapt to modern sensibilities, which Includes bringing back “audio articles.”

I know – crazy. But when you think about it, posting audio renditions of my articles to YouTube makes more sense now than it did in 2019, considering fewer people are reading and more people are heading straight to YouTube. Again, it’s all about adapting to the present reality.

Don’t take that as me completely giving up on my ideals, though. At the end of the day, I will NEVER grow and change as person. I’m still that stubborn 15-year-old who swore he’d never leave Hopkinsville – and that he’d have a chain of arcades bigger than the frickin’ Dave & Buster’s. It’s not a matter of “if” for me, man.

That pretty much brings you up to present. Before I go, I need to thank as many people as I possibly can for getting me to this point, because I’m feeling particularly sentimental.

On the personal side of things, thank you to Cade Utterback, Nick Kendall, Chance Sherrill, and Chris Martinez for advising my pursuits lately. Nick and Cade are the first ones to see any commercial that I cook up for the Wilcox Arcade route; Chance is the one who nudged me to try TikTok in the first place; and Chris has smart insights.

And of course, thank you to all the guys who grew up with me in Hoptown: Spencer Walker, Hayden Woosley, Aaron Crosby, Hudson Taylor, Raiden Henderson, David Burch, JT Shepherd, Matthew Bowie, Josh Bush, Iden Algiburi, and Nick Hawkins. You guys give me a reason to come back. (And Iden, I certainly didn’t forget that you were the first to put money in Fun-E-Ball.)

My route wouldn’t exist without the location owners who took a chance on a young guy trying to build an empire: Brenda Hanson, Paul Barnes and Adam Barnes-Gallerie, Chris and Krystl Martinez, the guys at Indian Hills Barbershop, Jason from Trends N Treasures, James Dismore, Toby Monts, and Caroline Few.

Beyond that, so many people have helped me in the coin-op space at large: Key Snodgress, Brandon Cook, Adam Pratt, Adam Lamb, Joe Wagner, Dan Fessler, and Phil Golobish, are just a few of many. (I apologize to those whom I did not mention.)

So yeah, we’re 8 years deep, and I’m looking forward to the next 50. God bless, and keep it real. I’ll be back with more soon.