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Most people don't know that my country, Macedonia (now North Macedonia), had an incredible arcade scene in the 80s/90s (we called them "Fliperi", Flippers!). It's a piece of gaming history that's almost completely undocumented, so I made this video detailing my own, personal experiences with Arcades in Macedonia during the Yugoslavia Era and after Macedonia left the union.
The video talks about Arcade Gaming culture in Macedonia, its quirks and specifics during the 80's and 90's.
I explain all this in the video but it's a 29 min video so for those who don't want to click the video or watch/listen to it and would rather read, let me give you guys a brief run down of how amazing our arcade scene was.
- In Macedonia and I assume in the rest of Yugoslaivia Arcades were called Flippers (Fliperi/Флипери), the name comes from Pinball Machines which were originally called Flippers here so the thing stuck for everything, both the Arcade itself and the Arcade games/cabinets.
Arcades were so big among kids and teens here in the 80’s and 90’s parents naturally assumed that if they didn’t know where their kids were, they’d most likely be at one of the local arcades.
- It appears Arcades were cheap to import in Yugoslavia and Macedonia and due to the low cost of Electricity cheap to maintain as a business.
Arcades In our part of the world were usually family owned businesses often named after the owners themselves, their kids or family members. Yet these places were absolutely filled with games from the early 80’s all the way to the newest and best titles at the time.
Fom what I was told by the admin of a popular Macedonian gaming facebook group, RETROTEKA, in the early 90’s Arcade owners would often import bootleg PCBs from Tailand but a good number of the cabinets were built locally by a company from the Macedonian city of Prilep called VIDEO DE-NI as well as some other company from the city of Gevgelia.
The guy gave me a few photos of an old beat up arcade cabinet from the early 90's or so built by this DE-NI company:
Apparently monitors and other hardware was sourced from the Netherlands.
He believes that branded, original cabinets would often be imported from Italy and pinball machines from France.
- This is what arcade coints looked like here in Macedonia and pretty much I assume all of Yugoslavia and later ex Yugoslavia.
My aunt found these two coins in one of her wallets, they're authentic Macedonian arcade coins from the early-mid 90's.
Coins here would be very cheap and easily affordable, but in vacation towns like Ohrid they'd increase the price drastically during the peak of the tourist season in mid July and August.
These are authentic coins from two of the most popular arcades back then in the city of Ohrid, Tabana and Bibi.
- When it comes to games we had just about everything here, if you can think of an arcade game we probably had it in an arcade somewhere.
BUT, we also had tons of Consoles turned Arcades on a timer. So for me, some of my favorite "Arcade" games as a kid were actually Sonic 3 and TMNT Hyperstone Heist for Mega Drive among other real arcade games.
I remember seeing the Genesis/MD Aladdin in several arcades as well the Battle Mania games.
These arcades worked similar to the Mega Drive Mega Tech arcade cabinets, they were on a timer but our timers were usually 5 minutes per coin or so.
So what happened to arcades in Macedonia? How did they get phased out?
Though present and popular throughout the 90’s and early 00’s, arcades were quickly being replaced by cheaper, better alternatives, Game and Internet cafes.
We had game cafes as early as the mid 90’s where you could pay for an hour and play an unlimited number of console games, NES, Mega Drive, SNES, Master System and in the late 90’s PS1 and by the late 90’s PC Gaming and Internet cafes became exceptionally popular as well. So why pay 3 or 5 denars a coin at an arcade and if you sucked at the game you’d die immediately and lose your money when you could be playing to your hearts content for a mere 60 denars for a whole hour and extend your play time if you wanted.
Hope you all enjoyed this topic :)
Again I do NOT profit from my channel, it's a 100% non profit thing
The video talks about Arcade Gaming culture in Macedonia, its quirks and specifics during the 80's and 90's.
I explain all this in the video but it's a 29 min video so for those who don't want to click the video or watch/listen to it and would rather read, let me give you guys a brief run down of how amazing our arcade scene was.
- In Macedonia and I assume in the rest of Yugoslaivia Arcades were called Flippers (Fliperi/Флипери), the name comes from Pinball Machines which were originally called Flippers here so the thing stuck for everything, both the Arcade itself and the Arcade games/cabinets.
Arcades were so big among kids and teens here in the 80’s and 90’s parents naturally assumed that if they didn’t know where their kids were, they’d most likely be at one of the local arcades.
- It appears Arcades were cheap to import in Yugoslavia and Macedonia and due to the low cost of Electricity cheap to maintain as a business.
Arcades In our part of the world were usually family owned businesses often named after the owners themselves, their kids or family members. Yet these places were absolutely filled with games from the early 80’s all the way to the newest and best titles at the time.
Fom what I was told by the admin of a popular Macedonian gaming facebook group, RETROTEKA, in the early 90’s Arcade owners would often import bootleg PCBs from Tailand but a good number of the cabinets were built locally by a company from the Macedonian city of Prilep called VIDEO DE-NI as well as some other company from the city of Gevgelia.
The guy gave me a few photos of an old beat up arcade cabinet from the early 90's or so built by this DE-NI company:
Apparently monitors and other hardware was sourced from the Netherlands.
He believes that branded, original cabinets would often be imported from Italy and pinball machines from France.
- This is what arcade coints looked like here in Macedonia and pretty much I assume all of Yugoslavia and later ex Yugoslavia.
My aunt found these two coins in one of her wallets, they're authentic Macedonian arcade coins from the early-mid 90's.
Coins here would be very cheap and easily affordable, but in vacation towns like Ohrid they'd increase the price drastically during the peak of the tourist season in mid July and August.
These are authentic coins from two of the most popular arcades back then in the city of Ohrid, Tabana and Bibi.
- When it comes to games we had just about everything here, if you can think of an arcade game we probably had it in an arcade somewhere.
BUT, we also had tons of Consoles turned Arcades on a timer. So for me, some of my favorite "Arcade" games as a kid were actually Sonic 3 and TMNT Hyperstone Heist for Mega Drive among other real arcade games.
I remember seeing the Genesis/MD Aladdin in several arcades as well the Battle Mania games.
These arcades worked similar to the Mega Drive Mega Tech arcade cabinets, they were on a timer but our timers were usually 5 minutes per coin or so.
So what happened to arcades in Macedonia? How did they get phased out?
Though present and popular throughout the 90’s and early 00’s, arcades were quickly being replaced by cheaper, better alternatives, Game and Internet cafes.
We had game cafes as early as the mid 90’s where you could pay for an hour and play an unlimited number of console games, NES, Mega Drive, SNES, Master System and in the late 90’s PS1 and by the late 90’s PC Gaming and Internet cafes became exceptionally popular as well. So why pay 3 or 5 denars a coin at an arcade and if you sucked at the game you’d die immediately and lose your money when you could be playing to your hearts content for a mere 60 denars for a whole hour and extend your play time if you wanted.
Hope you all enjoyed this topic :)
Again I do NOT profit from my channel, it's a 100% non profit thing