The Arcade Tech Stack
I was reminded of a great series Maren Deepwell is doing on her blog about the tech stack she uses while I was reading this epic Call to Arms by Jim to Always Be Commenting and pointing out how hot the blogosphere is right now. It gave me the idea to do a similar post here, in particular, because I imagine many people might find it curious what tools a retail location running a retro arcade might use, especially one run by a nerd like me. Categorization here will be all over the place given how much things overlap, but I'll try to get them into a few larger buckets by how I/we use them.
Communications
Google Workspace - We used Google (at the time called G Suite) almost from day one at Reclaim Hosting, and it was natural to use it for Reclaim Arcade. My two managers and I have accounts and a catch-all info@ email address forwarded to my general manager. In addition, we use Google Drive for collaborating on documents.
Ubiquiti - We did a network infrastructure upgrade last year and moved to Unifi access points as well as a 24 port PoE switch and a few hardwired Flex Mini switches. The Ubiquiti ecosystem is super impressive and I've added a few security cameras to the setup.
CallHarbor - As part of our network upgrade we switched to VoIP last year and use CallHarbor for management of our line. We were able to port our phone number and the interface is decent. We don't use 99% of the fancy features they offer but I like voicemails coming in as email with transcription and being able to upload an MP3 and make it the ringtone.
Operations
Square - We use Square as our point of sale, but over time it has grown to encompass other aspects of the business that could fit almost any category. It handles our payroll, gift card management, team communications, online food ordering, some of our invoicing, and the list goes on. It's probably the single most crucial vendor to our operations and thankfully, for the most part, they have been a solid partner.
Google Home - As a geek I liked the idea of using connected outlet plugs to turn on banks of games so I have a lot of that automated in the arcade. Employees can simply issue a single command to open the arcade and a routine begins that slowly powers on sets of games as well as the lighting. The main issue I have with it all is how flaky it can be where all of a sudden an outlet doesn't want to talk to Google anymore and then they're having to pull out a game and reach the power strip behind to manually get them on so it's not a perfect system.
Scorbit - Scorbit is fairly new at the arcade for us, this allows some of our older games like Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, World Cup Soccer, and Attack from Mars to connect to the internet to delivery high scores. It has some neat features for end users to track their scores and see how they stack up against their friends. I'm also able to bring live scores in realtime into Twitch which you'll see in the bottom right-hand corner of the video here at timestamp 29:30.
Untappd - We have a large collection of beer at the arcade because I'm a craft beer fan and like giving people options. But managing that in the beginning was hard using just a Google Doc. Untappd for Business is expensive at ~$90/mo, however the benefits outweight the cost. Not only do we get a nice digital menu that's embedded on our site and displayed on a TV above the bar, but they also have nicely formatted menus for us to print as our collection changes and updates are a few clicks. Adding new beers from their library is a breeze rather than manually finding all the data on a new beer it's pretty much already already in their database.
Website and eCommerce
Reclaim Hosting and Reclaim Cloud - It probably comes as no surprise that I remain a Big Fan of all things Reclaim Hosting. Our main site is hosted on their cloud platform along with the Women Flipping Out group and I will also occasionally use my cloud account to spin up random projects like a leaderboard for a local brewery that ran on Python (which is a good reminder I need to blog that project because it's an interesting one)
WordPress - Our main site runs WordPress and although all the recent issues with egocentric ownership and problematic decisions give me some pause, the fact of the matter is I've always used the open source version and will continue to do so and if the project starts to decline or there's a fork worthy of switching to it's not outside the realm of possibility. The flexibility I have over something like Squarespace and the low cost of hosting it with Reclaim are what keep me coming to it.
Resova - When the arcade first opened it was during the dark days of occupancy restrictions amidst a pandemic that was still very much at the forefront of everyone's mind. We decided to operate much like an escape room during that time with booked sessions and limited tickets so I set out to find software that worked well for that and stumbled on Resova. Not only has it been great for us but we still use it today for the booking of our private party room. We're able to make the booking process completely user-driven where they see the available dates and timeslots and can book fully online.
Submatic - We offer memberships at the arcade that offer unlimited entry during business hours. In the past we sold these through Square both online and at the point of sale and would print cards to give the members. I wanted better management options that would allow things like emailing a group of members, reminders when renewals were coming up, and automatic renewals to allow for monthly memberships. Submatic is perfectly fit this niche and we implemented their service in October to replace all new memberships. Purchases are done completely online and members receive a digital card they can add to their phone's wallet to scan in. And with renewals completely automated I'm hoping we'll see more people stick with it and it will drive regular revenue as a component of our business.
Social Media Management
Facebook Business Suite - The two main social networking channels that Reclaim Arcade uses are Facebook and Instagram, mostly with duplication of content between the two. Business Suite is where I schedule out the content, respond to comments and messages for both platforms, and (occasionally, not often) will look at analytics. I'd love to outsource all of this but if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's that no one knows the business well enough to represent you online than you. It's worth the effort for me to be the voice of the arcade because it drives a much more authentic representation of the business.
Canva - With each passing year my addiction to Canva grows, and that's coming from an art school graduate that used to live in Photoshop. The way they've made things so much easier for putting together graphics is admirable. We use Canva as a team to share posters, print content, social media graphics, and all manner of other things. If I have to create new content it's the first place I go and if I'm editing existing work I often will pull it into there.
Business Management
Quickbooks Online - This one is pretty straightforward, we use Quickbooks for managing all the books and finances of the business, like probably most other businesses.
MarginEdge - Late last year we began to look in earnest at our revenue and costs associated with the kitchen and found our tools for evaluating data were very subpar. MarginEdge was reasonably priced and had the ability to consume our sales data as well as our outgoing costs, categorize them, and allow us to set budgets and properly monitor margin costs on food and beverage. We are still very much in the learning and building phase but I can already see the value in this tool.
Live Music Production and Streaming
Soundswitch - Probably one of the more user-friendly DMX lighting controller systems I've found. Not in terms of building out scenes and shows which is possible but just not intuitive, however the prebuilt scenes and its ability to monitor BPM from an audio input and just make the lights look cool while a band is playing is what wins for us as a venue without a dedicated lighting engineer.
MadMapper - We have 2 x 4k projectors in our music area and 3 x 1080p projectors in our main arcade and use MadMapper to seamlessly blend these to a single canvas. It allows us to bring in sources whether they be images, video, and even NDI.
Synesthesia - Once I had the projection wall for our live music I wanted to find the best software for visuals. Resolume is very popular for large venues but similar to DMX controllers if you don't have someone whose entire job it is to build and deliver content it doesn't work. Synesthesia is reasonably priced, has a ton of prebuilt scenes, and reacts in very interesting ways to the audio it receives in its input. Combined with MadMapper I'm able to have trippy visuals but put the band logo overtop and create quite an environment.
OBS - This one is just for our pinball streams but when I stream to Twitch I use vanilla Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) and it works for what I need it to. I like Streamlabs in some ways and hate it in others as there is a lot of upsell and the memory usage with it is rough. OBS runs like a dream and can do just about everything I throw at it.