In the arcade, fun was something you paid for. In the family entertainment centers’ redemption scheme, fun is your job, or rather, an unpaid internship that you take at your own expense so that you can EARN all those fabulous plush prizes. Basically, the redemption arcade is a giant, overpriced toy store housed in a high-tech, neo-Victorian circus, complete with putt-putt courses, downsized indoor Ferris wheels, and merry-go-rounds manufactured by Chance Rides, Inc., of Wichita, Kansas, which has supplied over a hundred North American malls with quarter-million dollar carousels. -J.C. Herz

By Sly, August 23, 2015