World's LARGEST Arcade - Galloping Ghost - Doc Mack Interview!

RetroRalph·video·17m 39s·analyzed·Nov 19, 2021

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Doc Mack discusses Galloping Ghost's 845-game operation, vault strategy, and arcade industry preservation.

Summary

RetroRalph interviews Doc Mack at Galloping Ghost Arcade, the world's largest playable arcade with 845 games currently operational. Doc discusses the operational challenges of maintaining so many machines, the arcade's unique vault of 170 unreleased prototypes and rare games, and the broader arcade industry landscape including preservation, revival, and the role of new game development in sustaining arcade culture.

Key Claims

Galloping Ghost currently has 845 playable games with approximately 35 down for maintenance at any given time
high confidence · Doc Mack directly stated current operational numbers during interview
The vault contains approximately 170 additional games (boards and cabinets in restoration) that would bring total to over 1,000 if all were deployed
high confidence · Doc Mack explicitly stated vault inventory number when asked by RetroRalph
New games are added every Monday through the 'Monday Mystery' program, with Doc Mack as the sole person with vault access
high confidence · Doc Mack confirmed Monday addition schedule and exclusive vault access
Rare board issues with custom chips are the biggest technical challenge, not common monitor/steering problems
high confidence · Doc Mack identified this as the number one issue when directly asked
Galloping Ghost acquired Orcade (a location tracker/high-score venue service) and now logs over 500 world records
high confidence · Doc Mack explicitly stated the acquisition and current record count
When Galloping Ghost puts a game out, its resale value typically increases, affecting sourcing strategy
high confidence · Doc Mack stated this observation about market dynamics affecting acquisition approach
Galloping Ghost opened with 114 machines and has grown to 845 operational games plus 170 in vault
high confidence · Doc Mack referenced original opening inventory during conversation about venue growth
The arcade receives approximately 80,000 visitors annually
high confidence · Doc Mack stated visitor number when discussing evidence of arcade viability
Galloping Ghost's production company is developing a classic-style fighting game to encourage other developers to create arcade titles

Notable Quotes

“Currently we have a few over at Pinball Expo, but currently there's 845 games that you can play here at the Galloping Ghost Arcade. And every Monday we add a new one, so that number is constantly going up.”
Doc Mack@ 0:12 — Establishes the scale and ongoing growth of the operation
“It's the rare boards when they have an issue that something, there's no schematics for it. There's nobody that has any information on ever repairing it... That's the stuff that's kind of high pressure for us just because we want to get it back up.”
Doc Mack@ 1:49 — Identifies the core technical challenge of operating ultra-rare machines
“I'm the only one that has access to the vault. There's one way into it. If somebody said they've seen the vault, it's not true.”
Doc Mack@ 7:48 — Emphasizes the secrecy and exclusivity of the vault, building mystique around Monday Mystery program
“There's about 170 games in the vaults already. So even with just what we have on hand, if we put them all out on the floor, we would be over a thousand machines.”
Doc Mack@ 6:44 — Reveals the scale of unreleased inventory available for future releases
“I couldn't find a working Mortal Kombat cabinet in all of Chicago... These machines need to be preserved. They need to be out there where people can play them.”
Doc Mack@ 10:26 — Explains the founding motivation and preservation philosophy behind Galloping Ghost
“The people that want to open arcades, they're there. We've seen them open. The players are coming. We've seen 80,000 people through the door in a year. So it's now up to the designers and developers.”

Entities

Galloping Ghost ArcadeorganizationDoc MackpersonRetroRalphpersonBrian ColanpersonGeorge PetropersonEugene JarvispersonRaw ThrillscompanyPlay MechanicscompanyOrcadecompanySpecter Filesgame

Signals

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business_signal: Data sharing strategy: Galloping Ghost openly shares business/operational data with game developers to encourage classic arcade game development
high · Doc Mack: 'We're outwardly very open about sharing all of our data with the companies in hopes that they'll go back to making more classic-style games'
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business_signal: Acquisition of Orcade (location tracker/scoring service) and expansion to 500+ world records indicates strategic growth into competitive/ranking infrastructure
high · Doc Mack stated: 'We bought a company called Orcade... now over 500 world records logged in with Orcade... we're working on redoing that whole site and making that bigger and better'
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community_signal: Galloping Ghost operating at 845 games with 35 down for maintenance represents sustained operational excellence and community trust. Monday Mystery program creates weekly engagement and anticipation.
high · Doc Mack stated 845 operational games and consistent Monday additions; 80,000 annual visitors indicates strong community engagement
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sentiment_shift: Strong positive sentiment toward arcade industry future despite challenges; intergenerational play and family engagement cited as validating preservation mission
high · Doc Mack: 'It has a bright future... You can see it in seven days a week here... just like I used to go to the arcades with my dad, I see that happen constantly'
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event_signal: Galloping Ghost hosting industry events (Combat Conquer, T20 tournaments) with designer attendance and participation, creating industry networking hub

Topics

Arcade preservation and restorationprimaryRare and unreleased arcade prototypesprimaryGalloping Ghost Arcade operations and scaleprimaryArcade industry future and game developmentprimaryMonday Mystery program and vault strategyprimaryCRT monitor and arcade hardware maintenancesecondaryIntergenerational arcade gaming and family engagementsecondaryCollector market impact on arcade sourcingsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Interview is enthusiastic and optimistic about arcade preservation and industry future. Doc Mack expresses passion for the mission, pride in achievements, and confidence in arcade revival. RetroRalph is impressed and appreciative throughout. Only minor tensions mentioned are market-related (high entry costs for new operators, collector competition driving prices) but framed as challenges to overcome rather than dealbreakers.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.053

I'm here with DocQuest Mac at Galloping Ghost. Super exciting because for one, obviously you have the largest arcade in the universe, so that's Papa Duke cool. How many games are here right now at this very moment? Currently we have a few over at Pinball Expo, but currently there's 845 games that you can play here at the Galloping Ghost Arcade. And every Monday we add a new one, so that number is constantly going up. That's crazy to me, so a lot of people that watch the channel are collectors so they're always they're always kind of saying how many games they have down at one given time it can't be easy to keep that many games up and running like what is that like a big challenge for it absolutely is it's an everyday thing uh right now we probably have about 35 games down um it was at 804 we were at 100 oh wow so the number is constantly breathing in and out like some days we get really close where it's like we can see where a hundred percent of everything is running okay and then the next day like a weekend will hit a bunch of light gun games will need some work and it's it's just a constant thing so all right i gotta ask you it's along those same lines so i think i know the answer but i want to know because you have you have More Brewing Company games than i could ever imagine so what's the biggest issue because there's got to be one issue and i'm sure it's i'm sure i know what it is but i'm curious Maybe I don't. What's your number one issue that they come across? For us, it's a little unique. Most of the stuff that a lot of people complain about, like monitors and just common stuff, like light guns needing to be refixed and steering wheels and stuff on drivers, that's so casual that we fix them like nothing. Like monitor needs recap, new flyback, tubes go out. That's easy. It's the rare boards when they have an issue that something, there's no schematics for it. There's nobody that has any information on ever repairing it. And it's basically like a one-of-one game. And that's the stuff that's kind of high pressure for us just because we want to get it back up. And that's kind of what we're known for is the really rare stuff. But when something with a custom chip goes down, there's no real The Place to turn. So we have to do a lot of research. We fortunately have so many people that have made these games that we can tap them and get some inside information. And it's so awesome to have just like people who design the stuff. They've just got the answers. Yeah, they've shown such an interest in having their game showcased here, right? It's something that's unique that you can't find anywhere else. Absolutely. So I think that was the biggest thing for me. When we came the other day, and obviously it was just this visit, and we just kind of went around. I was so taken back at how many things I found here that I don't know exist in any other The Place. That's Papa Duke cool. I mean, to say that you can experience something for the first time here that may potentially never be able to be experienced, even under emulation. When we were opening, I had a really good way of bringing stuff in from Japan. So there was rare schmups and just obscure older games from the 80s that you would have thought would have come out here in the U.S. Yeah. But just never did for whatever reason. And in putting those out, it really brought us a lot of attention. and once we were able to really showcase how serious we were about finding the rare games and finding out a lot of the history to them, a lot of the Industry Arcade people who we knew through our productions company, they just came out and started telling us stories and that kind of snowballed it because we've got guys like Brian Colan who made like Hulk Rampage (game mode) and Xenophobe and he's telling us, he's like, oh, yeah, I got a couple of unreleased prototypes in my office. You can just have those if you want them. That is so cool. It's kind of kept going. As soon as one or two of the Industry Arcade people, like, knew how serious we were, then More Brewing Company were like, hey, can we do an event or something? And that was really it was just awesome It brought so many unreleased prototypes into the light We got to even work with Brian Cullen on a game called Specter Files that got cancelled in 1984 Arcade It was just completely scrapped. And we teamed up with our production company and finished the coding. He had all the video footage from it. It was supposed to be an unreleased Laserdisc game. So we just finished it, and now that's out in a bunch of CRCades across the U.S. That's awesome. I love that. The fact that you can find these unique games and play them here is amazing. So do you think that that, if you had to say, if someone said, okay, you're coming to Gallup and go, what is the biggest differentiator of this The Place over another The Place? Isn't that kind of it? It's the uniqueness of the games you'll be able to play? It's kind of a combination. We not only have a lot of just dozens of unreleased prototypes and rare stuff that you won't be able to play anywhere else. The Industry Arcade people are Papa Duke much here every week. There's somebody just Genghis (person's name, from Denmark, Pinball Brothers figure) or having fun together. Sometimes they're just playing. Sometimes they're here doing events. Sometimes they're together and just chatting about what they're doing now or we're getting More Brewing Company information on something that's going to be coming out on Monday Mystery. We have an amazing community behind this The Place where we've got a lot of high-score players. so we'll get uh we actually bought a company called orcade okay which was a location tracker and a High Score Arcade The Venue a scoring house kind of like uh twin galaxies and we've got now over 500 world records logged in with orcade and we're working on redoing that whole site and making that bigger and Bob Betor and More Brewing Company inclusive to all venues so it's it's really kind of the the perfect storm of things going here where it's so many games the Industry Arcade people we take scoring very seriously and just doing like crazy events like uh combat Conquer (as in Conquer Multiball) or our t20 tournaments and stuff that's so awesome so i i the lines of the monday mystery thing because i think that's really cool i'm always constantly watching this going okay there can't be that many More Brewing Company games that you haven't found so i know you probably don't want to reveal this but do you have in your mind maybe you don't want to share the names, but are there that many More Brewing Company that you don't have that you want or want to find? There's about 170 games in the vaults already. So even with just what we have on hand, if we put them all out on the floor, we would be over a thousand machines. Okay, so wait, the vault is games that are Monday Mysteries that are going to come out. Yes. You're telling me you have 170 of those in the vault right now? Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. That's amazing. Most Most of them are just boards and then we'll build up cabinets around them and we'll do restorations. But it's everything from, even with 845 games, there's still a lot of games that people know and they're surprised when we say, like, here's your Monday Mystery Game and they're like, how did they not have that one? And it's almost by design because we still want them to experience that, where it's something they're familiar with. Because all day long we can be putting out stuff that nobody's ever heard of even because there are just so many rare games or, again, unreleased prototype stuff. So would you consider the vault kind of like the recipe for Coca-Cola? Does no one go into the vault? What's the deal with the vault access? I'm the only one that has access to the vault. There's one way into it. If somebody said they've seen the vault, it's not true. Oh, okay. So there's the vaults are, uh, we don't disclose even where it is. So, all right. So, all right. Is there something in the vault right now that you are shocked? And I know you're not going to tell me what it is, but is there something in there right now that you're totally shocked that you were able to get that's going to completely blow people's minds? In all honesty, after we put out Sega's R360 for our 10 year anniversary and everything's A little... Like, there's some unbelievably rare stuff that we've taken years to drag down, but the bar is set so high with everything that we've put out, like Primal Rage 2... Yeah, that was awesome. ...and Beavis and Butthead, R360, Galaxy Force, Dragon Gun. There just such a huge long list of games that are like Man I really proud that we have that on the floor and what There so many amazing stories behind those games There still a bunch of those in the vault but it hard to compete with some of those other titles Oh, I can see that, yeah. You constantly keep raising the bar on yourself almost. Is there something that isn't in the vault now that you're kind of keeping it under wraps that you're trying to find right now in the wild that it's like a constant hunt for? It's kind of the hard thing for us to say what we're looking for. And we see it on Monday Mystery. When we put a new game out, usually the resale value of the game goes up. So if somebody knows we're looking for the game, we aren't really able to say because we're worried that the prices will go up. So we have people out there specifically looking for us. Oh, that's very cool. And most of the stuff, again, it's like... I'm talking with another super collector and it's like I'm looking for this and they're like I don't even know what that is What is it? Yeah It just has become so difficult to buy games in general clearly You can't do all this without being super passionate that you can't like there's so much passion here You can feel it when you walk in this The Place So like what's the main motivation for this like what was your main motivator to do all of this? There's several actually like my first company was Galloping Ghost Productions which were making an arcade game. So it was, we went to about, this was before we purchased arcade. We were going around looking at all the venues and like, hey, we can sell our game to this The Place and Place. I couldn't find a working Mortal Kombat cabinet in all of Chicago. And it was like, wow, that's really disappointing. Wow, that seems impossible, especially with Midway being here. You would think it would be nothing, but I wanted my guys on my production side to be able to go out and play it. I had them in my The Basement and stuff, but growing up in CRCades, it was like, wow, this is really going in the wrong direction. These machines need to be preserved. They need to be out there where the CRCades that were still open that had Mortal Kombat, I'd go in, put mate/man in, and then it's like it doesn't work. Oh, man, okay. I can't come back here and Play It Again Arcade if they're not going to fix it. So it just seemed like such a wide open field of if it's done where you care about the machines and take care of them, make sure everything's running great, have a bunch of rare stuff, it would do well. So it was really wanting to see it continue on into the future. And I was so surprised after we opened. It took off almost immediately. About a year and a half in, we started helping other CRCades open. Not as a franchise thing or anything, just like we shared our business model. We shared our tech on how to repair machines, how to get games and everything, and how to build the community behind it. And that's, it's all about keeping the arcade culture alive and make it grow from where it was starting to diminish to balloon it back up. We all loved the experience of the CRCades back in the day and we want to have that feeling again. What do you think the future of arcade gaming is? Is it More Brewing Company about preservation of the past or is there some kind of interesting, because you have companies like Raw Thrills making games and you've got Eugene over there. but where does it go? It has to evolve and I think it has there's been those staples like Raw Thrills and Playmec Flippers Arcade they have really held that torch bright and kept it going forward it looked like CRCades could like this, CRCades like this could have this huge resurgence but now we're seeing because the collector side has gotten so big, it's so hard to get machines. It's like when we opened, we got our first 114 machines. It was like That amazing It was for a machine It unheard of But now the point of entry is so much More Brewing Company expensive And that one of the big things that slow everything down because you can get the machines For me I always looked at it there three things going into point Venues of where you can play arcade games at, players that want to play them, and then designers and development companies making games for it. The people that want to open CRCades, they're there. We've seen them open. The players are coming. We've seen 80,000 people through the door in a year. Awesome. So it's now up to the designers and developers. And that's one of the things with our production company. Like, we have a classic-style fighting game coming out. And we're so excited to put that out because I think a lot of the companies are kind of hesitant to work on a project like that because they don't have numbers for anything. Yeah. The budgets are so high. They don't know what the sales are going to look like, right? Right. Yeah. So, just like with the arcade and sharing all the information that we had to get where we're at, we're outwardly very open about sharing all of our data with the companies in hopes that they'll go back to making More Brewing Company classic-style games. And not just like phone games that have been put in an arcade cabinet. But you've got the talent that made all these games is still out there. And you've got, again, Eugene Jarvis, George Petro, those guys are still making games. and Brian Colan, Jeff Lee, the guy who made Cuber, they all want to make games. Like, who knows where it's going to go? But you think it's bright. It has a bright future. Like, it's not a dying thing. No, no. You can see it in seven days a week here. You can see how it gets perpetuated when people my age and older and younger, too, they're coming here to relive that piece of history. But what they're doing is perpetuating it with their kids. Right, yes. and just like I used to go to the CRCades with my dad, Innovative Concepts (ICE) that happen constantly. And it's hard to not share that with the people that I know that have created the games. It's like I'll see a family of three playing Hulk Rampage (game mode) and it's like, oh, I've got to take a picture of that and send it to Brian Cohen to let him know that a game that he made 30 years ago is still being enjoyed and loved by people. That's so awesome. Well, DocQuest, first of all, thank you so much for taking the time. This is great. Like, you're an icon in this field and it's awesome to meet you, first of all. But also, I just, I don't know, I feel like you can feel the energy in this The Place. It's good to know that places like this exist and it's, if anything, people see this and go, it's alive and well, right? It's alive and well and it keeps going, which is great. So I know as a collector, I appreciate that you take that torch and hold it high for everybody. So that's awesome. Awesome. Favorite game? Is it the first one you bought or is it not? I would still probably say NARC is my favorite game, given the history that the one that we have here is unique to us because we had this huge NARC event, and George Petro, who was working on the game, the night before, he finished an unreleased level. I've got to play this, I know. I keep hearing that. You play it in a helicopter, right? In a helicopter, you have unlimited missiles, so it's just kind of taking the streets back and blowing everything up. That's awesome. Do you have any idea where I can find a 19-inch medium-resolution CRT monitor for my NARC? Because I just bought one. Why are those so hard to find? Well, you know, they shouldn't be. The tubes go bad, but the chassis and yokes are good. And most people don't know you can just swap the chassis and yoke. So I've seen people that I like, they get rid of them because they think that the tube is proprietary and different, and it's not. But I might actually have one. Oh. Well, that would be Papa Duke interesting to leave here with a 19-inch CRT. All right, DocQuest. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. I'll cut you Loose The Flip. I know you have a lot to do, so I just appreciate the time. Thank you, man. I appreciate it so much. Thank you.