Wilcox Arcade is 9 Years Old Today

We’re not quite at a decade yet…but dang, are we close.

That’s right: Today, February 6^th, 2026, marks the ninth year Wilcox Arcade has existed — the official starting point being when I reviewed the Terminator Salvation arcade game for my blog.

In my opinion, things have come a long way since then…in a very good way. For example, although I no longer comment on the industry at large from the perch that it is the Wilcox Arcade blog, I think the uninitiated find it far less confusing now that I more acutely focus on developments related to the Wilcox Arcade route.

(This, to my dismay, comes at the expense of my website traffic, considering my defining topic has narrowed in scope, but at least I’m more confident the people reading actually care about the games I’m putting into the public.)

Speaking of which, my route is night-and-day different from what is used to be…also in a very good way. When I was in high school, I could only afford older arcade games, a fact that didn’t fully align with my overarching vision. Now that I’m employed year-round — and not in a near-minimum wage occupation — it blows my mind what I’ve been able to achieve.

Case in point: In the very near future, I’ll drop the third indie arcade game on the Wilcox Arcade route — this one being The Spectre Files: Deathstalker at Maiden Alley Cinema in Paducah, Kentucky. Not only is this title so exceptionally rare that I never in my wildest dreams imagined I’d one day acquire it, but its presence at Maiden Alley Cinema will also serve as my official foray into that aforementioned community.

Of course, I couldn’t forget the two preceding indie releases that helped me get to this point. Switch ‘N’ Shoot and Galactic Battleground are two phenomenal experiences that I practically salivated over during my teenaged years. At the time, they seemed pretty well unattainable; these days, it’s looking like I might own multiple of each over the course of my lifetime.

I’m getting ahead of myself here. In the short-term, I foresee, in the near future, being able to offer Skycurser on the Wilcox Arcade route for the first time since 2021.

Real Wilcox Arcade fans will remember that, in 2020, I deployed Skycurser at WK Cinemas in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. For reasons he couldn’t even share to my face — choosing instead to randomly relay it via an employee when I went to see Black Widow — owner Mark McSparin ultimately wanted the game gone, so I sat dormant for a while in my grandparents’ garage.

Then, in 2024, I took Skycurser to Trends N Treasures in Murray, Kentucky…whereupon I immediately discovered it wouldn’t boot up. Fast forward to today, and the fine folks at Tech-Knowledge 517 in that very city have fixed it for me.

On a more self-aggrandizing note, I’m also really happy with how the Wilcox Arcade branding looks right now. My YouTube videos are dope; my in-person signage is dope; my Teepublic merchandise is dope; everything is just plain dope. I hope someday Wilcox Arcade will be seen as a cultural force worth remembering.

In fact, that’s exactly how I’ll end this here anniversary article: Someday, I want people to look back fondly on their memories playing the arcade games that I have placed throughout our commonwealth. I want someone to say, “Man, I loved Switch ‘N’ Shoot back in the day,” the same way I would say that about The Fast & the Furious: Drift or Big Buck Hunter Pro.

That shouldn’t be too tough to achieve at the rate things are moving now. I’m reaching people my age at all kinds of venues within western Kentucky. Heck, after all these years away, I might finally have a machine back in Christian County this year (still pending).

It’s been a great nine years — so great that those long-term ambitions of which I wrote could eventually become our lived reality. But hey, I’m just guy in Kentucky.

Follow Wilcox Arcade on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to keep up with my various escapades for the next nine years (if you feel so inclined).

Thank you, all of you, for supporting my journey thus far.