Flashback brings back old arcade feel

LOGANVILLE — Walking through the doors of Flashback Games, it doesn’t take long to realize the business lives up to its name.

Digital beeps, booms and roars fill the air from various game cabinets, mixed with the whistles and bells of pinball machines, the quiet hum of an air hockey table and the excited chatter of gamers young and old, all of it feeling more like 1985 than 2015.

Flashback Games is, in fact, that rarest of creatures in the modern age, a full-fledged video game arcade, with dozens of game cabinets, multiple television connected to numerous home game consoles, three pinball machines, the air hockey table and more.

The throwback business is the brainchild of brothers-in-law Will Geiger and Roger Ozbolt, who moved their arcade from Athens to Loganville in March and have seen their old-fashioned game parlor flourish in Sizemore Plaza, right on Highway 78 at the edge of Walton and Gwinnett counties.

The business all began with Geiger’s hobby of collecting arcade game cabinets and storing them in his home, which soon had him scrambling to find room for them all.

“I always loved the arcade machines,” Geiger said. “I started collecting them and soon had 21 machines, but my wife wanted them out of the house, so she said open a business with them.”

Geiger teamed up with his brother-in-law, Ozbolt, and they opened Flashback Games in Athens in 2013 as a pure arcade, but they weren’t entirely satisfied with the layout.

“We wanted a different setup,” Ozbolt said. “We didn’t have food. We wanted more families.”

So in March the pair moved to Loganville, where not only did they offer the same gaming experience, they also opened a bar offering drinks and food, as well as installing the console section and adding table space for people to eat, socialize and game in an analog way, whether with cards, models or other paraphernalia.

“Business has been increasing steadily,” Ozbolt said. “We get a good young adult crowd here, but the younger kids like the console section and families will come out, so parents can share the games they loved with the kids. We go after everybody.”

Part of the appeal at Flashback is there’s no need to bring a stack of quarters.

“All the machines are free play,” Geiger said. “Instead, we charge an all-day admission.”

For only $8, customers can stay all day to play either arcade or console games, or both for only $10. Patrons get a bracelet to wear for the day that even allows them to leave and come back in the same day without paying to get in twice.

“We also have a popular option, for $14.99, that gets you all day on consoles and arcades, as well as a meal,” Geiger said.

With many of the arcade machines programmed to add multiple games to one cabinet, the arcade also increases its library exponentially. One machine includes nearly every “Street Fighter” game ever made, while others include such standards as “Joust,” “Galaga” and “Super Mario Bros.” on one device.

Combined with the hundreds of console games available for machines from the Atari 2600 all the way up to the Xbox One, the arcade has a library of nearly 1,500 games.

Yet many of the most popular choices are old standards such as “Donkey Kong” and “Ms. Pac-Man.” The arcade also plays host to various tournaments for games such as “Super Smash Bros.” and keeps track of the high score on many of the classic arcade titles.

The arcade has drawn a steady crowd who attend regularly, such as Dereck Gilbert, who drives out from Lithonia to play old Nintendo games like “Punch-Out” and “The Legend of Zelda.”

“It’s incredible here,” Gilbert said. “I feel like it’s paradise.”