Why one man's passion is restoring old video arcade games

For Lorne Allaire, playing games online is just not as fun as the tactile arcade games of his youth. So, he restores them to working order in his own workshop.

'Sure, you can hook up a joystick and that, but it’s just not the same'

Dave Atkinson · for CBC News · Posted: Dec 15, 2019 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: December 15, 2019

'Most of the parts in here still work after 40 years,' says Lorne Allaire of the old arcade games he restores. (Dave Atkinson/CBC)

It's 1984. Lorne Allaire is a young teenager in Kirkland Lake, in northern Ontario, and he and his buddies are basically the cast of Stranger Things.

They ride their bikes, they listen to tunes and they save their quarters for the arcade.

"We had one arcade in town," remembers Allaire. "We went every chance we got."

For the past few months, I've been working on a series for CBC P.E.I. about people and their passions. I'm calling it The Things We Do For Love.

"We needed money, so we got jobs selling papers for our local newspaper," said Allaire. "We were called street-sellers. We took papers and sold them on the street. All the money we got from that, we used to play arcade games."

The Things We Do For Love: A man's passion for Aquaponics

The Things We Do For Love: Making time for antique clocks

'It's just not the same'

Allaire saved his quarters for one specific game. Pac-Man and Space Invaders were cool, but his true love was Joust.

'I wanted a joystick with the knobby on it and buttons that sound like buttons,' says Allaire, who searches the internet for old arcade games to fix and play. (Dave Atkinson/CBC)

"I don't know why I liked it," said Allaire. "It was just my favourite. It's sort of a two-player game where you can play against each other, or you can play with each other. You can play one-player. It's just a great game all around."

About 15 years ago, Allaire got the itch to play Joust again. He did a bit of research and told a buddy at work about it

"I said I wanted to buy an arcade cabinet. I told him I was going to buy it off eBay. He said, 'Why would you do that? You can just download it off the internet.' I said, 'What do you mean download it off the internet?' I wanted to play an arcade cabinet. You can't download that. He said, 'Oh no, there's something called MAME — Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.'"

Allaire went home. He downloaded MAME He installed Joust. And he played.

And it was fun — for a while.

"You know, when you play on the computer, you're sitting down, the keyboard is in front of you, you've got the mouse," said Allaire.

"Sure, you can hook up a joystick and that, but it's just not the same, right? I wanted a joystick with the knobby on it and buttons that sound like buttons, not a key on a keyboard."

The Things We Do For Love: Building a Mars colony in the basement

The Things We Do For Love: Raising homing pigeons

'It adds character'

Allaire searched online and found an old Pac-Man machine that needed some love. Allaire isn't an engineer — his day job is in information technology — but a high-school electronics course plus a whole lot of YouTube taught him what he needed to know.

'I left all the cigarette burns on there,' says Allaire of his restored Joust game. (Dave Atkinson/CBC)

"This is my workspace here," he said, showing me a busy workbench in his basement in Charlottetown. "I have all my tools that I need to repair these arcade cabinets."

Allaire has several games around his basement, in various states of construction. But his original love is still Joust.

He finally found an original arcade version a few years ago. It needed a lot of work, inside and out. Today, it looks just like it did in the early 1980s, right down to some carefully-preserved battle scars.

"I left all the cigarette burns on there," he said with a grin. "Might as well leave it there. It adds character to the game, right? I can plug it in if you want."

Oh, I want.

Grandma's closet is this woman's secret fashion weapon

Why these Islanders are obsessed with fountain pens

'My favourite game of all time'

The machine took a few minutes to warm up.

Allaire can't wipe the smile off his face as he plays one of his favourite old arcade games. (Dave Atkinson/CBC)

"It's not like the new games where it comes on right away," he said. The screen finally lit up. Allaire popped in a quarter and grabbed the controls.

"Okay, so you're a little guy on an ostrich, and you've got to hit these guys on the head. As long as your sword is higher than their sword, you're going to win."

Allaire got quiet for a minute as he navigated his ostrich through the first level.

"I grew up with this game," he said as he levelled up. "This is my favourite game of all time."

'They made everything to last'

Most of these machines cost less than $1,000 to buy. It took Allaire hundreds more to get them back to original condition. He sold one once and said he almost immediately regretted it. He's not in it for profit — he wants to get them just right, from the feel of the joystick, to the look of the artwork on the panels.

"It's obviously worth it, eh? When you restore it back to its glory, a certain satisfaction comes out of it, you know? Taking something that was garbage and making something beautiful."

"You love this," I observe.

"I do! Everything is disposable nowadays right? Back then they made everything to last. That's why most of the parts in here still work after 40 years."

Allaire has played modern games, but he's just not a fan. The best games, he says, aren't complicated — they're fun to play, and they only need one button, maybe two.

Got a quarter?