Hello retro gamers! thanks for visiting my site again!
this post will be the first one from a new category that I’m going to name “Tech talk” where I will be talking bout my experience as an arcade repair technician, the porpuse of this posts will be to give you an insight of the job and the responsibilities that an arcade repair tech has and not to give technical advice, with that beaing said let’s jump on it!
I have been working as an arcade tech for a local arcade for a little over a year and a half but I have been doing repairs on machinery and electronics for over 10 years now, the experience that I got from my past jobs (and my passion for the gaming industry) definitely helped me get into the arcade world.
Unfortunately the job openings por arcade techs are not many (at least not in my area) because arcades are not as popular as they once were but if you look around theres always going to be an arcade cab around that needs maintenance. Most people that I work with have told me that before they started doing arcade maintenance for a living they did it as a side hustle for people that own cabs and kiddy rides and have them placed in small restaurants, stores and bars. Other people have told me that they look for old and broken cabs in sites like craigslist and offer up and then they fix them and restore them as much as they can and resell them for profit.
As an arcade tech who is working for a local arcade I’m expected to keep all the games of the place clean and in a good working order, I have to make sure that every button, every light, every monitor is doing what is supposed to do for that I have to spend some time playing every game. I also have to perform repairs in a timely manner and within the specified budget (some parts are expensive and some places and arcade cabinet owners will wait until they have the money to buy parts to fix the broken machine). If you do the job by yourself as an independent contractor you are responsible to explain to the costumer what is not working and show proof of how much the parts are going to cost, if the costumer refuses to pay that much I suggest you give other options such as buying newer pcbs, offer to modify the cab to be able to use new monitors instead of cathode screens (many arcade purists are against doing this) so the costumer can decide what to do with the cab.
I mentioned earlier that an arcade tech is responsible to keep the machines clean, many companies are putting a lot of emphasis in this specially after the covid-19 pandemic also you never know if anyone that visits the arcade is allergic to dust. You can expect to spend a good portion of the day performing preventive maintenance that includes disconnecting the machine opening it and cleaning the inside using a shop vacuum or air blower, so expect to get dirty. I’ve seen many techs quitting after a few weeks because they are not confortable doing this, they think that as techs they should not be doing that but they dont have an idea how important preventive maintenance is for an arcade cab because not only you are saving the company that you work for money in future repairs you are also contribuiting to the longevity of the games that you work on.
I personally enjoy being an arcade repair tech and I would recommend anyone that has a passion for arcades to become one.
Thanks again for reading guys!! I will be writing more posts about the arcade tech job soon.
