GameWorks, InPlay, Jillian's, Dave and Buster's
If you've never heard of any of these, this is the post for you. These companies are the next generation in arcades. Each of these 4 follow a similar style, although I haven't been to any Dave and Buster's locations. Also, D&B has apparently bought out Jillians somewhat recently.
Here's what wikipedia says about GameWorks:
GameWorks is a chain of entertainment venues featuring a full-service restaurant, a bar serving signature martinis and specialty cocktails, and interactive and state-of-the-art video games and attractions.
Its an interesting business model. During the day, GameWorks is basically Chuck E Cheese. There are kids everywhere, playing skiball, winning tickets, getting prizes, playing racing, shooting, dancing games. As the night goes on, Gameworks slowly transitions into more of an adult atmosphere. The location I've been to the most is in the Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe, AZ, and that's where my pictures are from. At that location, at some point in the night the 2nd level becomes 21 and over only, and adults are allowed to have their cocktails right out with the games. The Gameworks in Las Vegas, Jillians in Scottsdale and InPlay in Peoria are the other venues like this I've visited, and they all have sports bars or martini bars or some form of adult beverages. During the day you have Pocket Change Park, at night you have an atmosphere vaguely similar to a bowling alley or pool hall. Also, as you can see from my pictures, some of these places are decorated/themed almost to Disney World standards.
These venues can be a place for everyone from kids through teens to young adults. We need things like this in Davenport, and some of these companies tend to build in downtown areas, or even renovate historic buildings, such as InPlay did in Peoria. Something like this could be one more piece of the puzzle when the QC area markets itself as a regional tourist destination. Also, we don't really have any large arcades in the area outside of movie theaters, bowling alleys, Happy Joes, etc. I believe there would be a market for a venue like these, and hopefully one of these companies agrees.
And here are the images:
This is the outside entrance to the GameWorks at Arizona Mills Mall.
The bottom level has most of the modern arcade games, whereas the top level has the sports bar, restaurant, and a lot of retro (think PacMan) arcade games.
Looking down from the upper level at the ticket-based games area, and prize counter. You can also see some of the restaurant across the way on the upper level.
The stairs up to to the sports bar, which shows off the kind of themed architecture that GameWorks uses.
The rendering above could be seen in the Reader a couple weeks ago, in their article about green roof construction. Here are a couple of older renderings, before a slight design change. I think the city decided that the giant glass panel was a bit much for a government building. These 2 are not the current plan, but do seem to have many similarities.
