"Oh man! On the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy."
- Kevin Flynn
The Design
Embrace the neon vaporwave aesthetics with this reimagining of the legendary Flynn's Arcade. You don't need to be a games designer, or even to play games, just a love for all things elec-TRON-ic.
Join us on the other side of the screen?
T-Shirt Details
- Taped neck and shoulders
- Tear away label
- Double-needle sleeve and bottom hems
- Preshrunk jersey knit
- Quarter-turned to eliminate centre crease
- Seamless double-needle 2.2 cm collar
This design is printed on a heavy cotton unisex style t-shirt. Our size guide also shows what the equivalent (or closest to it) size would be in a UK Women's size. Feel free to ask if you are not sure though.
Our feedback on the sizing is that it is pretty true to the size guide provided, so if you are always an XL, we would say that this would be true with this garment too.
This is a regular fit 100% Cotton T-Shirt.*
* Sport Grey & Antique Heathers: 90% Cotton and 10% Polyester
Meta Content:
There was a time when going down to the arcade to play the latest game was the only way to experience the next level in gaming. No internet, no consoles , no phones (so you can't play poker while at work) - just a room filled with flashing lights and beeping sounds - it was an adventure waiting to happen!
Now we can all sit on our couches and play retro classics like Pac-Man and Galaga with a few taps of our fingers.
What do you miss most about the classic arcades?
Most video game arcades consisted of games that were not suitable for home use. These included early 3-D games, shooting games, and most notably the vast majority of fighting games, which couldn't be played at home because they required two or more players.
The next generation began to make some headway with fighting game ports for multiple players on a single console, known as "brawler" or "fighting simulators."
It was common practice to put your initials on the high score screen. This would differentiate between you and the other people who were playing the same game.
Some believed this created superior competition between multiple people trying to get their initials on each high score board throughout the arcade. However, as time went on, some people would start to cheat this system by making "ghosts" of themselves.
This allowed them to continue playing after they lost their lives instead of starting from the beginning.
These ghosts were basically a replica of the player that could be controlled by an employee or a second player using a joy stick or a dedicated controller. This allowed the players to continue playing without bringing attention to themselves or anyone else.
High scores were also saved by arcade operators so they could keep track of their most popular games, which would be played most often. Many times, high scores were used as arcade marketing tools to attract new customers with flashy screens that displayed updated statistics about top players.
Arcades have long been a staple in popular culture, appearing as background settings for films and television series. Typically these are set in the United States between WWII to the 1980s.
Arcade games also show up frequently as prizes or focal points in films about dystopian societies or post-apocalyptic worlds, where they are usually seen as relics of a more innocent past age, with William Gibson's 1979 novel Neuromancer describing one arcade game thus: "It was an old dumb game called New York 1941"
These aspects of arcades' representations have persisted into contemporary pop culture. The fifth episode of USA Network's Mr. Robot will feature live actors playing arcade games, while roughly contemporaneous artworks such as 2016's Paperwork by Stanislav Stratiev and 2012's Grand Theft Auto V demonstrate game mechanics via their game trailers, which are typically set in arcades.
Modern games can be played with one screen per player. It is becoming common practice to port classic games onto mobile devices so people can play alongside each other anywhere at any time.
The nostalgia for classic arcade games has made them a staple of art galleries and museums all over the world. Some arcades have actually been transformed into showcases for classic arcade cabinets, where people can re-live their memories or create new ones without emptying their pockets.
Arcades have made a comeback in the form of entertainment centers that offer more than just games. Some establishments may feature full bars, themed food menus, live music, virtual reality experiences and interactive attractions. These types of venues are becoming popular, though post COVID-19 this may just be the death knell for the Video Game Arcade.
Tron has been a staple of pop culture since 1982. Tron itself is a cultural phenomenon due to amazing visual effects and a story that transcends time, but Tron could not have been what it was without one man: Kevin Flynn. In Tron, the world inside the computer is known as "The Grid" and it is a simpler world, where programs are people and super advanced technology is common place. It's a world that Tron plays by it's own rules, with programs holding enough power to control the computer itself.
Tron was a box office hit and Disney had high hopes for Tron: Legacy, which was released in 2010. Tron would go on to be a movie franchise, but Tron was an arcade game first.
It's in Flynn's Arcade where Tron starts.
The Tron cabinet itself holds a special place for gamers, this isn't like other cabinets that merely play out their programmed experiences. Tron would popup in arcades across the world, sometimes with Tron: Deadly Discs and at other times Tron: Maze-Atron.
Tron is consistent but offers a different experience each time you play it. This level of consistency allows Tron to transcend time and culture. Tron is far from the only classic arcade title that can claim this, but Tron feels special when you look at it in context.
Tron was released by Bally Midway and not Disney themselves, who were busy with The Black Cauldron around the time of Tron's release. Tron and Tron: Legacy were both directed by Steven Lisberger and so Tron has a special place in his heart as well. With Disney developing Tron: Uprising for television, Tron feels like it is on the way back into our lives again.
Where was I? Oh right! Tron didn't actually start out as Tron at all, Tron was originally titled Jet Fighter for its first few months. The cabinet was built on the same hardware that Tron Deadly Discs would be on and was even listed under that title on some Bally Midway price lists. Kevin Flynn's Arcade appears in Tron: Legacy as the arcade where Quorra finds Sam Flynn playing the original Tron.
You can see a picture of that arcade here . The cabinet uses a hacked Space Invaders board to power it, which is why the grid looks so similar to space invaders in many ways.
What's really important about this isn't just what you see when you look at the inside of the machine but what it represents: the effort and passion that went into creating this innovative piece of technology. Part of what made Tron such a cultural phenomenon was not just how cool it looked but the fact that the people who played it really felt like they were inside a computer, something that no other game had ever really done up to that point in time.
Off World Tees has been making awesome geeky pop culture based shirts for a while now and you can get one that emulates the look of Flynn's Arcade right here. Off World Tees has a ton of great designs so be sure to check them out.
Disclaimer
This is not official merchandise and is not intended to be passed off in any way as being an officially licensed t-shirt.
We create original designs to pay homage to pop culture references in our own unique way.
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