By Samuel Talero
Located in Largo, Neon Dreams Arcade hosts a variety of different arcade-style video games imported from Japan. Rather than serve as just a showcase for overseas games, Neon Dreams specializes in attracting fans to the same spot in St. Petersburg, fostering a community where people with similar taste can meet new friends and play together.
While the modern video game world allows people to play with their friends online, the experience can be considered isolating or impersonal. Online gaming requires people to stay at home, and not once do players get a glimpse of the person they are gaming with.
Neon Dreams aims to address this isolation by bringing people together to play games in a shared physical space, replicating the online experience in real life.
“We just wanted to make a place where everyone could hang out all the time,” said Dallas Huete, one of the owners of Neon Dreams. “We love the people that we have, and we love the current state of it.”
Neon Dreams features a variety of games from different eras and genres, most notably fighting and rhythm-based games which have a large online following. The arcade hosts monthly tournaments for these games, allowing fans to gather and socialize.
Cody McIntyre, co-owner of Neon Dreams, described the arcade as a space where people can learn to play fighting and rhythm games directly from others, rather than relying on the internet or online resources.
According to McIntyre, finding a local community for a game can be difficult, as traditional meeting spaces rarely draw in that kind of audience. This may result in people seeking their gaming communities online, but that can leave an unfulfilled need to socialize.
“A lot of people, like gamers, are not trying to go to a bar or a club,” arcade regular Joshua Fisher said. “Some people want to not be inside all day. They want to go out. They want to communicate with people, they want to make new friends, and there’s not a lot of areas to do that.”
While larger-scale arcade businesses are more common, they tend to focus on a general audience rather than the specific niche that Neon Dreams hits.
“You’re really not a part of the community, and I don’t feel like I make friends there,” said Katie Lynn Locasto, another regular at Neon Dreams, reflecting on her times at other chain arcades.
Arcades that operate under the specific niche of imported Japanese fighting and rhythm games, such as Neon Dreams, aren’t very common in the St. Petersburg area. This can be attributed to several challenges in establishing an arcade, including securing a lease, finding suitable real estate or sourcing the machines themselves
“Maintaining [machines] is the hardest part,” Huete said. “Once you replace the parts, you have a good machine, but you have to have the knowledge, the patience and the skill to troubleshoot.”
According to its owners, community lies at the heart of what Neon Dreams sets out to accomplish. It’s a place where someone with a specialized interest can meet others and have the opportunity to make unlikely friends while playing unique games.
“An arcade without a community isn’t an arcade,” Huete said.