Quiptar's was the largest of the Golden Age arcades located inside Memorial City Mall in Houston, Texas. Only years later at the opening of anchor-sized Family Entertainment Centers Fame City and Exhilarama did arcades exceed its scope.
Background[]
Quiptar's was in good company with many other game rooms in the Mall during the arcade boom, as Quiptar's II, Games, Games, Games, Celebrity Cafe, Green's, the Memorial Theater and others existed at the same time. Most suffered the fate of going out of business when the video game crash of 1983-1984 hit. In early successful years the games at Quiptar's ran on tokens exchanged at the rate of 4 per dollar. As business dwindled, these arcades began a token pricing war, with locations providing 5, 6, 8, 10, or 12 tokens per dollar. Quiptar's offered as many as 15 tokens per dollar (20 on slower days), but were unable to gain enough revenue to survive.
Memorial City is a mall that was built in Houston, Texas that opened for business in 1966. It has since grown to having over 140 stores and services over the years. The mall is located at 900 Gessner Road.
The arcade/known games[]
- Astron Belt
- Bega's Battle
- Cobra Command
- Crystal Castles
- Dragon's Lair
- Cliff Hanger
- Eyes
- Gravitar
- Interstellar Laser Fantasy
- Jump Bug
- Krull
- Loco-Motion
- Lost Tomb
- Missile Command
- Mr. Do!
- Pop Flamer
- Q*Bert
- Reactor
- Space Odyssey
- Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator
- The Pit
- Tron
- Up 'n Down
- Warp Warp
- Possibly pinball machines
This location also had a small ball pit for younger children.
Trivia[]
- Quiptar's was an early pioneer in the use of observation monitors. When games such as Dragon's Lair and Reactor were released, a second monitor was connected and placed on top of or several feet higher than the game’s cabinet, giving onlookers a better view of the game, even if people were crowded around it.
- Quiptar's II was a short-lived smaller spin-off location in the same mall, roughly in the area where the food court is today, which used the same tokens as Quiptar's.
This arcade was featured in July, 2015.