Formerly known as the College’s game room, C103 has been repurposed into a meeting space for student clubs and programs. The machines that once entertained students have been sent back to their original distributors.
Program Coordinator Chris Stoynov said that the room was “not economically feasible,” and “not the best use of space,” when acting as an arcade. As a result, the room will become a miscellaneous meeting room, open on a first come first serve basis to the roughly 50 clubs that are established at the College.
Assistant Dean Faisal Jaswal said, “As there is a growing shortage of meeting rooms for students, especially clubs and programs, the room is being converted to a general purpose [area] primarily dedicated to student clubs and programs.”
“The amount of money made in the game room either just covered or was not enough to cover the electrical costs,” said Laurel Lafever, campus operations director at the College.
After the arcade room had been emptied, there were a number of suggestions by staff and students for what new purpose the area should serve. It was the LGBTQ Program, however, that finalized the decision to turn what had once been a games room, into a more formal and versatile setup.
Since the LGBTQ Program had recently secured a new headquarters in C225, Student Programs had lost a meeting area and function room. Because of this, it was decided that the empty arcade would replace this loss, and become host to a projector, desks and tables.
This was somewhat of a disappointment to Stoynov, advisor to the Ping-Pong Club, who was hoping to use the College’s game room to house a number of ping-pong tables. He had made requests for this to happen years before while the arcade was still in use, but was denied because, at that time, it brought in revenue to food services.
“It was a great way to pass time between classes”, said arcade user Thomas Vincent. “Metal Slug cost 25 cents and I kicked ass at it.”
While the College’s game room may exist as a lone exception, there are a number of different factors that have caused the decline of the once major hobby of arcading to die off. The standard arcade fare of fighting games and rail shooters, such as House of the Dead, have become more niche, and racing games started to gain popularity on home consoles, which looked better and cost less.
Despite the allure that arcade games instill within its participants, especially college students, faculty and the rest of the student body will find new and potentially more productive uses for C103. This will allow the school to save money on energy costs as well as providing a much needed space for various clubs to meet.