I have been wanting to discuss this many time but never had the chance to until now. I wanted to voice my opinion on how the gaming world is going mini crazy. I am indeed am one of those gamers. I can’t help but collect all the new mini versions of the same game, that quite frankly can be played on most modern consoles with online downloads, or on the original arcade or console it came out on.It seems like each month another company comes out with its own tiny arcade. 
Companies such as Arcade 1up, My Arcade, and Tiny Arcade to name a few all have a new look on a classic game to lure the collectors and gamers in to spend more dollars.
There are many examples of this I can go into, but I will make it simple and discuss the most famous game and most popular, Pac-Man. Back in the 1980’s an electronic company designed a portable version of Pac-Man. Not at all a replication of the game but a nifty little table top game that gives you the fun of Pac-Man. 
This item now is very hard to find in good condition and vendors are selling it for almost 100 dollars. In the 1990’s Nintendo changed everything by creating the Gameboy. 
This hand held device gave gamers a way play on the go and a huge library of games to choose from. Other companies followed suit such as Sega, Atari and Turbografx. Nintendo has always been the winner in all markets with handhelds. Recently the Nintendo 3DS has been discontinued and it looks like handheld gaming is slowly going away with the games now on cell phones and I Pad’s. 
But then all of the sudden, following the small success of TV plug in games, companies started making there own min arcade versions of these games.
I saw this little tiny key-chain version of Pac-Man and thought it was a key-chain with stickers on it. Then I saw you can actually play a close version of the arcade on it. It was pretty cool. Then other games followed, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig-Dug, Galaxian, to name a few. I was hooked. Arcade 1up had a better idea. 
They would replicate the exact arcade machine but scale it down a lower the cost. This new craze actually worked and gamers all over were buying Pac-Man for about 299.99, 
Granted, it did come with Pac-Man plus, but who plays that? Well that excitement kept growing with games like Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Galaga. The Company My Arcade helped the consumer who didn’t want to spend that much on a game, created a mini arcade machine that replicates the big one. Pac-Man was one of those games. 
Another Pac-Man to play, but on a different environment. Well after that all bets were off and Pac-Man was all over as a mini handheld version of the arcade. hey even made a tiny table top version of Pac-Man. Now, for a small fee of 119.00 you can have a miniature arcade of Dragon’s Lair. 
Yes, miniature for 119.00. The arcade boom is rising, but I didn’t think it would be miniature sized. In the end, I am one of the gamers who are collecting the miniature version of the arcade. After all, I have more space to display them. I still have many more to go but as long as they keep making them, my money is spent on it.
Todd Friedman is heavily involved in the retro gaming community and has co-promoted the Video Game Summit in Chicago, IL for the past 16 years. He also has published 2 books and written for various different gaming magazines including Old School Gamer.
