Out-of-home entertainment

Its roots lie in the popularity of coin-operated arcade video games such as racing, fighting, Japanese imports, or pinball that Generation X will vividly recall with fond memories of countless hours of their youth spent in dimly-lit video-game rooms (popularly known as 'arcades').

So while video amusement remains an integral part of the popular culture fabric today, its relevancy is diminished and even perceived as 'dead' partly due to the lack of coverage by consumer-game media even as the amusement industry transformed itself and research and development investments continue to pour into the sector, evolving and growing the out-of-home, pay-to-play experience.

[6] FECs are essentially a converged outgrowth of theme restaurants and the winning formula of combining food and entertainment as a business model has been around for more than 30 years.

The first Dave & Buster's was opened in 1982 in Dallas, Texas after discovering this winning formula and is a highly-successful FEC chain today with their "Eat, Drink, Play, Watch" offerings.

[7] Chuck E. Cheese first opened a store in 1977 and became the public embodiment of the typical children's party room combined with a pizza restaurant and arcade.

Other restaurants started to come round to seeing the importance of amusement games and "anchor" attractions (bowling alleys, miniature golf, laser tags, batting cages, roller skating rinks, etc.)

Other established companies in this category are Triotech, maker of Typhoon - a 3D arcade machine with 2 seats and delivers up to 2G Forces of acceleration, and CJ 4DPLEX with their Mini Rider 3D - a 2-seat simulator on an electric motion base with a choice of several 3D movies.