Gameworks in Grapevine Mills Mall is gone!

As you can see from their website, Gameworks is no longer in Texas! I don't know when this happened but it did. I was thinking about what to do with the kids over the three-day Memorial Day weekend (yes, this post is a week behind) and thought about the times in the past when we would spend a few hours doing unlimited video games at Game Works in Grapevine. They used to have these gaming "happy hours" where you'd spend something like $15-$20 for 2-3 hours of game play. It was a pretty good deal because most of the games cost at least a $1 or more to play. That wouldn't be too bad if your turn on the game wasn't over in less than a minute! The only real issue with the "happy hours" is that they would normally begin around 8 or 9 p.m. which was my kids' bed time back in the day. The bedtime wasn't so bad on a weekend but the drive to Gameworks at Grapevine Mills Mall was like 20-30 minutes. Add that on each end of the two hours and it would be somewhere between 10pm and midnight when we'd get home. Not something that went over well with the wife.

I enjoyed the "happy hours" but I never played during the other hours of operation because they weren't a very cost-effective arcade...especially for my cheap ass! As I mentioned, the games were expensive to play during non-happy hour hours and kids nowadays have their iPhones/iTouches to play games for free or a minimal charge. When kids are eternally playing something as stupid as Angry Birds for $5 or less and unlimited restarts, an arcade that charges $1 or greater to play 1-3-lives-and-your-done video games is not a good business model.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting how there is no longer a Gameworks in the entire state of Texas.