10 Most Profitable Arcade Games That Made BILLIONS
Eating your money for 45 years results in a LOT of cash.
There was a time, not too long ago, when the local arcade drew in the young folks to play an assortment of quarter-guzzling machines. In those glorious days before home consoles and the Internet became a thing, arcade cabinets pulled in millions of dollars in quarters each and every year.
Arcades could be found in every mall in America, as well as hotspots of activity for young adults and anyone who wanted to try their luck at getting a high score. Since the debut of Computer Space in 1971, there have been several thousand unique arcade cabinets, and not all of them were exceptional.
Sadly, the truth of arcade cabs is, there were some real duds. These would be bought up by arcades, played for a short while, and get dumped to make room for something the kids wanted to play, which would often involve cute, memorable characters and engaging play mechanics.
Many of those games continue to dominate the industry today, though they have gone through a version upgrade or two in the intervening years.
What may surprise many is the scope of arcade games, and how much money they brought in. These ten are the machines that earned the most money.
10. Mortal Kombat - Midway (1992)
Revenue To Date: $1.045 billion
When it first came out, Mortal Kombat was an incredibly controversial game. The digitalization of blood, coupled with the brutal "Fatality" moves made conservative parents across the United States cringe. Of course, the kids loved it, and it wasn't long before they were surreptitiously dropping quarters into the cab when their parents weren't looking.
The game even spawned a Congressional hearing, which resulted in the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, more commonly known as the ESRB, a rating system, which remains in use today. The controversy was certainly helpful in MK sales, but the gameplay wasn't bad either.
The graphics used a (then) revolutionary method of motion capture to make the characters look and move like real people. While it was a fighting game, it had a detailed story and lore, which was used to launch a fairly successful film franchise, so it's fair to say MK was a popular title when it was released in 1992.
The cabinets sold well enough, and all-told, 24,000 units shipped to arcades, movie theaters, bars, and bowling alleys where millions of people dropped an estimated 2.28 billion quarters into the machines, which amounts to around $1.045 billion in 2019 dollars.