During my teenage years my best friend and I spent many a day at the local arcades skipping school and feeding all of our hard earned money into video games. Mostly this was spent playing Cyberball. It was so popular around here that there were leagues and ad hoc tournaments all the time.

After 10 - 15 years of searching, I found one on eBay in pristine condition:

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10175

I have had it in my finished basement since Inbought it. For the last five years or so, my friend and I have occasionally played, reliving the glorious 80s and smoky arcades full of greasy haired kids and pimple faced nerds.

Now I am moving and I have no idea what to do with it. We bought a fairly formal Victorian style home and there is no place on the first two floors for the machine to reside. I could possibly fit it into the finished master apartment on the third floor, but I have doubts that the 300+ pound monster will fit through the stairwell even if it can be lifted up there.

So my other choices are:

1) Stone basement - It is mostly dry, doesn't flood and only seeps mildly along the edges during the heaviest of rains. But it is still a stone basement, which means constant humidity even with a dehumidifier running.

2) Detached garage - Dry and easy to access, it also has little temperature control.

3) Sell it - I would hate to do this, but these things are few and hard to come by and any major component damage done by the environment will likely be impossible to fix because parts can no longer be had.

I don't know yet what to do with it, it's one of my favorite things that I own though.

 

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You are leaving out an option:

4) Climate controlled storage

 

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Like renting a storage unto somewhere?

 

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If you have plans to turn your basement into a game room of sorts, I would store it until then.

 

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Yeah. At least until you can figure out what you want to do\prep an area in the new house for it.

 

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If you put it in the basement, garage or storage make sure to put it on a pallet or something to keep it off the ground.

 

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Sell it, move on.

 

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Where is the option of giving it to your friend that played it with you?

 

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I was thinking this as well.


For me, the arcade game that I would want would be the old Star Wars video game where you flew your x-wing fighter down into the trench of the death star... it was simple line graphics like Tempest, but it was my favorite at the time. I feel like I vaguely remember a sit-down version of it too (all the machines I remember clearly were stand up versions) with the highly reflective windows making flying in the trench seem that much cooler... anyway. Good luck with deciding.

Ahh, here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(1983_video_game)



For what it's worth, I grew up in a stone house with a stone basement. No matter what you do, the constant damp will eventually mess up your game. If you store it in your basement, be advised it might not last more than another 5 years.

 

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