Weirs Beach, N.H., is an odd place for a mecca. Located on Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest body of water in New Hampshire’s tourist-friendly Lakes Region, Weirs Beach is a lazy strip of antique shops, mini-golf, and ice-cream stands. Why, there’s even a beach. It’s an unspectacular village, except for the fact that on its outskirts lies Funspot, the epicenter of nostalgic arcade gaming.

So, yeah, an odd place for a mecca, but I guess the incongruous locale is what makes something a “mecca” in the first place. Were Funspot located in a major city—somewhere easily accessible—it would just be a cool place to visit, or as Funspot’s slogan puts it, “The Spot For Fun!” (Clever.) You can’t have a mecca without an arduous pilgrimage.

When I was growing up in New Hampshire, though, Funspot wasn’t considered a mecca, and my “pilgrimage,” if you could call it that, was a scenic 45-minute drive. Having known and loved the place for most of my life, it has been fun, and somewhat bemusing, to watch Funspot’s star rise in geek culture to the point where it is considered the destination for classic gaming. The Spot For Fun is the site of annual video-game championships, it was featured prominently in the hit documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, and it recently received the Guinness World Record for Largest Arcade.

Ten years ago, if you had asked me to predict whether Funspot would even exist in 2008, I would have shaken my head and given you a rueful “no.”

Funspot’s success is the result of tireless dedication to the unappreciated art of 1980s video games. It’s also the result of dumb luck.

What’s now hailed as The American Classic Arcade Museum was, about a decade ago, little more than a run-down arcade that never got new games. During the 1990s, most arcades tried to fight off competition from home consoles by exploiting their increasingly thin technological edge. This was the era of stillborn gimmicks like Holosseum¹, a quasi-holographic fighting game that I played once and remember only because that was the moment when I realized that arcades were dying.

During this era of crisis, rather than frantically upgrade its wares, Funspot stood pat. In retrospect, you might be tempted to interpret this as a principled stand, a realization that games were about fun rather than graphics, a deep spiritual appreciation of “gameness,” etc., etc.

No, the real reason Funspot stuck with its passé 1980s cabinets was more prosaic: The place is huge. I have no doubt that Funspot is deserving of its world record. Despite dozens of visits under my belt, I still get lost in its cavernous layout. Thanks to its hillside placement, a compartmentalized interior, and seemingly infinite rows of games, you’re never quite sure where you are in relation to the rest of the place. It’s like an amusement center on a Möbius strip.

If Funspot management had desired to fill this place with updated 1990s games, it would have been impossible. The cost would have been crippling, but more to the point, there simply weren’t enough games being made to occupy more than 10 or 20 percent of the floor space. The industry had cooled down too far since its peak. Funspot did offer a few of the new games from Sega, Namco, etc., but those modern machines were islands in the ocean of games acquired during the 1980s arcade glut.

This was always the knock on Funspot. It was a cool place, but man, those games were old. Of course, anyone familiar with recent gaming history knows that once my generation grew old enough to become wistful for their youth, those old games became an enormous asset—and, thanks to the collapse of the arcade industry, a rare one. Add a touch of savvy marketing, and the American Classic Arcade Museum was born.

Instant mecca.

That’s the “dumb luck” part. The “tireless dedication” part is important, too. Unlike pretty much every other arcade I’ve ever been to, Funspot management and staff give a damn whether their games are working or not. They don’t just give a damn; they literally care. Crazy, right?

My game is pinball, which relies on machines that are notoriously difficult to maintain. Unlike video games, which consist of a circuit board, a TV, and a button pad, pinball machines possess a rat’s nest under the hood. Pinball machines have circuit boards, too, but they also have solenoids, light bulbs, hundreds of hookup wires, and delicate switches, all of which are regularly subjected to pounding by 1-1/16” ball bearings.

Since the last “golden era” of pinball, the early- to mid-1990s, most arcade operators have either neglected their pinball machines or abandoned them altogether. One of the main reasons is that pins require too much upkeep. Funspot, to its unending credit, believes that pinball is worth the trouble.

Not all of Funspot’s pins are in perfect working order. I’ve visited the arcade twice this year. The first time, I was disappointed to find that White Water was dirty and some switches were broken. I played Pin-Bot instead. On a return trip last week, Pin-Bot had some weak-flipper juju going on, but White Water was sparkling and snappy.

This delighted me. They fixed their White Water. The staff at Funspot know how to clean a playfield and repair a stuck leaf switch. This is rare, too rare. My heart sinks when I spot an “out of order” sign on a pinball machine in the back of a bar, knowing that rather than have someone repair it, the proprietors will soon trade it in for a Golden Tee or Big Buck Hunter Pro.

While I was at the White Water machine, a floor manager noticed a transitory glitch with the start button that could have robbed me of a couple of credits. With no hesitation, he plunked some tokens into my cup and said he would have the techs take a look at it. Arcades have always outpaced even comic-book stores in their disdain for the paying customer. In this respect, Funspot departs from tradition. They’ve also bucked convention by failing to go bankrupt. Not a coincidence.

Last week was New Hampshire’s annual Motorcycle Week, when bikers ranging the gamut from Hell’s Angels to Hell’s Mid-Life Crises roar toward Lake Winnepesaukee for seven days of noise and beer. It’s like spring break for people who hate to wear a shirt but really ought to.

I arrived at Funspot to find that the arcade had rented out most of its parking lot to bike-vendor tents and chili-dog carts, and the sight of so many bike maniacs milling around was enough to scare away your average nerd.² The upshot: a practically empty Funspot. I had an entire afternoon to play any game I wanted, as long as I wanted. As a kid, I would be brought near tears at such an opportunity. As an adult, I went ahead and let myself cry a little. I’m comfortable expressing my emotions.

After plugging away at the aforementioned White Water and logging some time on other worthy pins like Funhouse and Fire!, I strolled the aisles to take in the scope of Funspot’s collection. I’m typically in a frenzy to maximize my playing time, so this was a new experience.

What I saw reminded me that the legacy of these ’80s games is built on more than kitsch. That programmers achieved such creative gameplay is astonishing not just because of the limited computer hardware but also because many of the game concepts were so basic they were borderline stupid, like Kickman or Food Fight.

I always imagined these games would lose their luster in adulthood, but in fact, I’m more able to appreciate how much fun they are. With the technological fascination long since faded, I can enjoy the games on their “playable” merits alone. And that’s the nice thing about this so-called “museum”: The exhibits are there to be touched and played. It’s less a museum than an arcade that time forgot. I hope time deigns to forget Funspot a good while longer.