On November 6, 1986, the doors opened at the Hyatt Regency Chicago on an amusement industry that was trying to convince itself that better days had arrived.
Inside, Atari Games had turned part of its exhibit into a miniature skateboard park, where live skaters helped promote the new 720°. Sega invited operators to climb into Out Run and experience a driving game designed to move with the player. Konami countered with WEC Le Mans 24. Taito stretched Darius across three monitors. Nintendo brought skiing into the arcade with VS. Slalom. Williams displayed the futuristic Pin-Bot, while Romstar drew attention with Arkanoid.
Yet some of the largest crowds were forming around machines that did not have video screens at all. Cranes, merchandisers, redemption equipment, electronic darts, jukeboxes, and other coin-operated attractions filled the floor alongside the video games.
The Amusement and Music Operators Association’s Expo ’86 was much more than a collection of new machines. It offered a picture of an amusement industry changing after several difficult years. The spectacular arcade boom of the early 1980s had passed, but coin-operated entertainment had not disappeared. Manufacturers were experimenting with new cabinets, new controls, conversion kits, multiplayer experiences, prize machines, and increasingly elaborate forms of physical interaction.
By the end of the three-day convention, the trade press was using language that would have sounded unusually hopeful only a few years earlier.
The arcade industry’s “sparkle,” as Nolan Bushnell put it at the show, appeared to be returning.
A Sold-Out Show in Chicago
AMOA Expo ’86 ran from November 6 through November 8 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. It was the association’s 37th annual exposition, placing the video games on the floor within a much longer tradition of coin-operated entertainment that included jukeboxes, pinball, vending machines, pool tables, and other amusement equipment.
Interest was evident before the convention even began.
About a month before opening day, Cash Box reported that all 432 exhibit booths then available had been sold. At that point 143 manufacturers, distributors, and other firms had committed to the convention, and AMOA maintained a waiting list in case additional space became available.
The final numbers were even larger. AMOA reported 175 exhibiting firms occupying 452 booths.
Total attendance reached 6,802. That was slightly below the 7,100 reported for 1985, but the total figure concealed what AMOA and the trade press considered a more important development. AMOA-member attendance rose from 2,692 in 1985 to 3,221 in 1986. Nonmember operator attendance jumped from 340 to 617, and 158 new members joined during the convention.
For manufacturers, those operators were the people who mattered most. They bought machines, placed them in arcades, restaurants, bars, bowling centers, and other locations, and ultimately decided which new products had a chance to survive.
Cash Box therefore treated the increase in operator attendance as one of the strongest indicators that the convention had succeeded.
“The Sparkle Is Back”
Play Meter captured the atmosphere of Expo ’86 with one of the most memorable descriptions of the convention.
When asked what he thought about the show, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell reportedly answered that “the sparkle is back.”
The phrase became the title of Play Meter’s AMOA review.
There was substance behind the optimism. The magazine described an industry filled with new equipment and operators who seemed more confident about the approaching winter marketplace. The U.S. National Video Game Team, writing in the same issue, called Expo ’86 “a step in the right direction” and argued that the selection of new equipment suggested manufacturers were once again paying close attention to what players wanted.
This did not mean the arcade industry had simply returned to the conditions of 1981 or 1982. The floor at Expo ’86 demonstrated precisely the opposite.
Manufacturers were searching for new ways to compete.
One path involved increasingly elaborate dedicated cabinets that could offer experiences difficult to duplicate outside the arcade. Another relied on inexpensive conversion kits that allowed operators to refresh existing machines without buying an entirely new cabinet. A third involved redemption and merchandising equipment, which was becoming an increasingly important part of the amusement business.
Expo ’86 showed all three approaches at once.
Out Run and the Rise of the Arcade Simulator
Few machines better represented the future-facing side of Expo ’86 than Sega’s Out Run.
The game had already generated attention before AMOA. Contemporary descriptions emphasized its moving cabinet, 26-inch screen, selectable background music, branching roads, and multiple possible endings. Rather than placing players on a closed racing circuit, Out Run offered the fantasy of speeding through changing landscapes while choosing different routes.
Sega offered the game in multiple cabinet configurations, but the deluxe moving version demonstrated why large arcade machines still had an advantage over home systems.
It was not simply something a player watched. It attempted to turn the cabinet itself into part of the experience.
Cash Box reported that Out Run and Konami’s WEC Le Mans 24 became two of the most prominent attractions on the show floor. Both used increasingly elaborate simulation concepts, particularly in their sit-down configurations. Crowds gathered around them, and contemporary observers repeatedly singled out the pair when discussing the convention’s strongest video games.
Out Run made an especially lasting impression. When Cash Box published its review of the entire coin-operated year in January 1987, it remembered Sega’s racer as one of the most popular machines at AMOA.
That reception was important because it illustrated one of the directions arcade design would increasingly follow. If players could purchase sophisticated games for home consoles and computers, arcades could compete by offering hardware that was impractical to place in the average home.
Moving seats, specialized steering systems, unusual controllers, linked cabinets, panoramic displays, and other physical attractions could make the machine itself part of the game.
Expo ’86 provided an early showcase for that philosophy.
Atari Builds a Skate Park for 720°
Atari Games approached the problem from a different direction.
Rather than simply placing 720° in a row of cabinets and allowing the machine to speak for itself, Atari built a small skateboard park into its exhibit.
Skilled skateboarders performed near the machine, creating one of the convention’s most distinctive promotional displays. Photographs published after the show preserve the scene, and Play Meter reported that much of Atari’s booth space was devoted to the skateboard presentation.
The spectacle suited the game.
720° attempted to translate contemporary skateboarding culture into an arcade environment. Players moved through an open skating area, purchased equipment, performed tricks, searched for skate parks, and responded to the game’s famous warning to “Skate or Die.”
Its unusual rotating joystick was central to the experience. Rather than adapting a standard directional controller to the sport, Atari gave players a control system designed around continuous movement and turning.
The U.S. National Video Game Team’s Expo coverage selected 720° for recognition as both the most challenging game and the most original game idea at the show. The writers praised its theme, freedom of movement, animation, sound, and unusual controls.
Atari’s exhibit contained more than 720°. The company also displayed Road Runner and Championship Sprint conversions and showed Gauntlet II in two-player and four-player forms.
Still, the skateboard park made 720° difficult to ignore.
It also demonstrated how competitive trade shows had become. A successful game needed to attract operators surrounded by hundreds of other machines. Sometimes that meant building an attraction around the attraction.
Nintendo Brings VS. Slalom to the Floor
Nintendo arrived at AMOA Expo ’86 during a fascinating period in the company’s American history.
The Nintendo Entertainment System was gaining momentum in the home market, but Nintendo remained active in coin-operated amusement as well. Before the convention, Nintendo of America’s Frank Ballouz told Play Meter that the company’s AMOA lineup would include VS. Slalom, PlayChoice-10, VS. Goonies, Wrecking Crew, Mighty Bomb Jack, and other equipment.
VS. Slalom received particular attention.
The skiing game used an unusual physical control arrangement that separated it visually from the rows of conventional joystick machines surrounding it. Cash Box photographed the Nintendo exhibit, while Japanese trade publication Game Machine documented Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa at the company’s booth.
The presence of PlayChoice was also significant. Nintendo was operating in both the home and arcade spaces, and its coin-operated systems could draw directly from software associated with the company’s growing console business.
Expo ’86 therefore caught Nintendo at a moment when the relationship between home games and arcade games was becoming increasingly complicated.
The arcade was no longer the only place where consumers expected sophisticated video game experiences.
Manufacturers had to give players a reason to keep dropping coins.
Taito Stretches Darius Across Three Screens
If Out Run demonstrated movement and 720° demonstrated specialized controls, Taito’s Darius demonstrated scale.
At the Taito America exhibit, Darius used three monitors to create a long panoramic display. The unusual cabinet attracted immediate attention.
Game Machine photographed the machine on the AMOA floor, showing the three-screen cabinet at Taito’s booth. Cash Box later reported that Taito America president Paul Moriarity considered the convention the company’s best show in years and said the firm had written substantial business there.
Darius stood out even among the technologically ambitious games surrounding it.
The game placed two players in a futuristic underwater setting and spread the action across a playfield far wider than a normal arcade monitor. Cash Box described the graphics enthusiastically and reported that American production was expected after the beginning of 1987.
Taito also displayed Kick and Run, a soccer game that reportedly received a particularly strong response from the European market while attracting American interest as well.
Elsewhere on the floor, Konami’s WEC Le Mans 24 reinforced the prominence of Japanese-designed games. Photographs from Cash Box and Game Machine show the game displayed prominently, while contemporary reporting repeatedly grouped it with Out Run among the convention’s major attractions.
Although Cash Box reported a decline in the number of foreign attendees compared with the previous year, Japanese-developed games were impossible to overlook.
Their influence was visible throughout the hall.
Arkanoid and the Value of the Conversion Kit
Not every successful arcade product at Expo ’86 depended on an enormous custom cabinet.
Romstar’s Arkanoid represented almost the opposite philosophy.
At its core, Arkanoid revived the familiar ball-and-paddle foundation associated with Atari’s Breakout, but expanded it with colorful stages, enemies, power-up capsules, different brick types, and other additions.
Most importantly for many operators, it could be sold as a conversion kit.
That mattered economically.
Buying a new dedicated game could be expensive. Conversion kits allowed an operator to reuse an older cabinet by replacing its game hardware and changing its controls, artwork, or other components. During a period when operators had learned to be cautious about large equipment investments, a strong conversion game could be extremely attractive.
The U.S. National Video Game Team selected Arkanoid as its best conversion kit at Expo ’86. Cash Box later photographed the machine as a featured attraction in the Romstar exhibit.
Its popularity showed that technical spectacle was only one route to arcade success.
A comparatively simple concept, carefully updated and offered in an operator-friendly format, could compete for attention beside some of the largest machines in the building.
Cranes Take Over the Convention Floor
For a video game historian, it is tempting to imagine Expo ’86 entirely through machines such as Out Run, 720°, Darius, Arkanoid, and VS. Slalom.
Contemporary observers saw something broader.
Cranes and merchandisers were everywhere.
Play Meter reported that 19 companies were promoting merchandise equipment at the convention. The category had grown rapidly during the previous two years, and the magazine believed the number of companies involved was evidence that the trend had moved beyond a temporary fad.
The machines added a different kind of spectacle to the floor. Instead of chasing a high score, players attempted to win physical prizes. Plush toys, lights, music, mirrored cabinets, mechanical claws, rotating prize tables, ticket systems, and increasingly sophisticated operator controls turned the machines into highly visible attractions.
A seminar devoted to merchandisers reportedly attracted a standing-room-only crowd.
Cash Box reached a similar conclusion. Its photographic coverage repeatedly returned to cranes and redemption equipment, and its year-end review remembered their rapid growth as one of the major stories of Expo ’86.
This diversification helps explain why the arcade industry survived changes that had damaged the old video-only model.
Operators were not required to bet everything on one category.
A location might mix video games, pinball, cranes, redemption machines, pool, darts, and music equipment, creating a broader amusement business that did not depend entirely on the next Pac-Man-sized video phenomenon.
Pin-Bot and the Strength of Pinball
Pinball was another major part of the story.
Williams used Expo ’86 to place Pin-Bot in the spotlight. Roger Sharpe noted in Play Meter that Road Kings had effectively moved aside in the Williams exhibit to give Pin-Bot a clear path to attention.
Cash Box described the machine as one of the hits of the show.
Designed around a futuristic robot and a journey through the solar system, Pin-Bot combined ramps, targets, multiball play, lighting, sound, and a distinctive science-fiction presentation. It arrived at a time when manufacturers were adding increasingly elaborate features to pinball machines, and the AMOA floor showed that video games had not eliminated the older amusement form.
Cash Box argued that some of the convention’s greatest attractions were pinball machines, highlighting Pin-Bot alongside Bally’s Strange Science and Premier’s Genesis and Gold Wings.
The continuing strength of pinball is important when looking back at Expo ’86.
The event was not a “video game convention” in the modern sense. It was a coin-operated amusement convention where video games occupied the same commercial ecosystem as flippers, jukeboxes, pool tables, vending equipment, cranes, and darts.
Understanding that environment helps explain many design and business decisions made by arcade manufacturers.
They were competing not only against other video games, but against every other machine an operator might choose to place in the same square footage.
Gauntlet, Mat Mania, and the AMOA Awards
The annual AMOA banquet also provided an opportunity to recognize machines that had already proved themselves in the marketplace.
These awards should not be confused with judgments about the newest machines introduced at Expo ’86. AMOA members voted on the games categories based on top revenue production between July 1, 1985, and June 30, 1986.
Atari’s Gauntlet was named the most popular dedicated video game.
Memetron’s Mat Mania won as the most played conversion game.
Williams Electronics’ High Speed received the award for most played pinball game.
The awards provide useful context for the new machines filling the convention hall.
Gauntlet’s success had already demonstrated the commercial potential of multiplayer video games. Cash Box specifically discussed simulation and multiplayer concepts as important directions visible at Expo ’86, mentioning games such as Gauntlet, Quartet, and Rampage when considering where the industry was heading.
The convention therefore brought together two sides of arcade history.
Operators could see which machines had already earned money, then walk onto the exhibit floor and decide which new machines might earn it next.
What Happened After the Show
The significance of a trade show cannot be measured entirely by the excitement inside the convention hall.
Manufacturers always wanted their products to look impressive under exhibition lights. The more difficult question was what happened once the machines reached ordinary locations and players had to put real money into them repeatedly.
Contemporary follow-up coverage suggests that several Expo ’86 attractions continued to perform well.
Out Run remained one of the most talked-about games from the convention and was remembered by Cash Box as one of AMOA’s most popular pieces. Arkanoid developed into a major conversion attraction. 720° continued receiving attention from operators and reviewers, although later assessments also acknowledged that its skateboarding theme could appeal more strongly to a particular audience than to everyone.
Pin-Bot quickly established itself as an important Williams release.
The point was not that every machine at Expo ’86 became a classic.
Most trade shows contain forgotten equipment alongside the products that later appear in history books.
What makes AMOA Expo ’86 especially interesting is how many different ideas visible there would shape the amusement business that followed.
Large simulation cabinets became increasingly important.
Specialized controls became a way to distinguish arcade machines from home games.
Conversion kits remained economically important.
Redemption and prize equipment expanded.
Japanese-developed games continued to exert tremendous influence on the American market.
Pinball remained viable.
Operators increasingly relied on a mixture of attractions rather than expecting a single category to carry an entire location.
Why AMOA Expo ’86 Matters to Video Game History
AMOA Expo ’86 did not mark the beginning of a single gaming generation, nor did one revolutionary machine suddenly transform the industry during those three days in Chicago.
Its importance is broader.
The convention captured an industry in transition.
The coin-operated business had survived the turbulence that followed the enormous arcade boom of the early 1980s, but survival required adaptation. Manufacturers were learning that they could no longer assume any ordinary upright video cabinet would attract endless lines of players.
The machines had to offer something more.
Sega tried movement and spectacle with Out Run. Konami pursued a similar simulation experience with WEC Le Mans 24. Atari paired an unusual control system with contemporary skateboarding culture in 720° and promoted it with a live demonstration. Taito made Darius physically wider than almost anything around it. Nintendo connected its coin-operated business to the growing library and identity surrounding its home systems. Romstar showed that an affordable conversion such as Arkanoid could still compete with expensive dedicated hardware.
Meanwhile, the enormous presence of cranes and redemption equipment suggested that the future of the American arcade would not belong exclusively to video games at all.
That mixture may be the most revealing part of Expo ’86.
The arcade industry was learning how to become the broader amusement industry that would carry coin-operated gaming through the end of the 1980s and into the decades that followed.
The convention’s 6,802 attendees did not know which machines historians would still be discussing forty years later. They were distributors deciding what to buy, operators calculating what could earn money, manufacturers watching competitors, players trying new games, and designers presenting their latest ideas.
Yet when photographs from the show are viewed today, the future is visible everywhere.
A skateboarder performs beside Atari’s 720°. Someone sits behind the wheel of WEC Le Mans. Crowds gather around Out Run. Nintendo demonstrates VS. Slalom. Arkanoid occupies the Romstar exhibit. Darius stretches across three screens. Pin-Bot waits under Williams’ lights. Cranes and prize machines crowd the aisles around them.
For three days in Chicago in November 1986, nearly every direction the arcade business might take could be seen under one roof.
The sparkle had not simply returned.
It had changed.
Sources & Further Reading
Cash Box. “AMOA Expo ’86 Is Sold Out!” November 1, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-01.pdf.
Cash Box. “Nintendo Intro’s ‘VS. Slalom.’” November 1, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-01.pdf.
Cash Box. “Sega’s ‘Out Run.’” November 1, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-01.pdf.
Cash Box. AMOA Expo ’86 Special Issue. November 8, 1986. https://electronicsandbooks.com/edt/manual/Magazine/C/Cash%20Box%20US/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-08.pdf.
Compasio, Camille. “Konami Moves to New Facilities; Expands Its U.S. Operations.” Cash Box, October 18, 1986. https://electronicsandbooks.com/edt/manual/Magazine/C/Cash%20Box%20US/80s/1986/CB-1986-10-18.pdf.
Cash Box. “Op Attendance Up at AMOA Expo ’86.” November 29, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-29.pdf.
Sharpe, Roger C. “AMOA Expo ’86 Dazzles Visitors for the 37th Time.” Cash Box, November 29, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-29.pdf.
Cash Box. “Cash Box Tours the AMOA Expo ’86 Exhibits.” November 29, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-11-29.pdf.
Cash Box. “AMOA JB, Games & Cig Vending Awards Winners.” December 6, 1986. https://electronicsandbooks.com/edt/manual/Magazine/C/Cash%20Box%20US/80s/1986/CB-1986-12-06.pdf.
Cash Box. “Cash Box Tours the AMOA Expo ’86 Exhibits.” December 13, 1986. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1986/CB-1986-12-13.pdf.
Cash Box. “Coin-Op ’86: Putting into Perspective the Year in Review.” January 17, 1987. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1987/CB-1987-01-17.pdf.
Cash Box. “AMOA Announces Awards Nominations.” August 23, 1986.
Theard, Bonnie. “Chicago’s Diversions Await AMOA Visitors.” Play Meter 12, no. 18 (October 15, 1986). https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/Play-Meter/1986-October-15/53.
Play Meter. “1986 AMOA Expo Exhibitor List.” 12, no. 18 (October 15, 1986). https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/magazines/pm/PlayMeter-1986-10-15/PlayMeter-1986-10-15-044.pdf.
Play Meter. “The Sparkle Is Back!” 12, no. 20 (November 1986). https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/Play-Meter/1986-November/28.
Harris, Steve, and the U.S. National Video Game Team. “Players’ Picks: Expo ’86 a Step in the Right Direction.” Play Meter, November 1986. https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/Play-Meter/1986-November/77.
Play Meter. “Most Challenging Game & Most Original Game Idea: Atari’s 720 Degrees.” November 1986. https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/Play-Meter/1986-November/80.
Sharpe, Roger C. “Critic’s Corner: Lost in the AMOA Shuffle.” Play Meter, November 1986. https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/magazines/pm/PlayMeter-1986-11/PlayMeter-1986-11-074.pdf.
Play Meter. “New Products.” November 1986.
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Play Meter. Operator Follow-Up on AMOA Games. January 1987. https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/magazines/pm/PlayMeter-1987-01/PlayMeter-1987-01-043.pdf.
Play Meter. Later Evaluation of Atari’s 720°. February 1987. https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/Play-Meter/1987-February/63.
Game Machine. October 15, 1986, no. 294. https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/19861015p.pdf.
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Game Machine. “AMOA Expo ’86 Participated by Many Japanese Videos.” December 15, 1986. https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/19861215p.pdf.
Game Machine. “Best Hit Games 25.” November 1, November 15, and December 1, 1986.
Game Machine. “Game Machine’s Best Hit Games 25: ’86 Second Half.” January 15, 1987.
Top Score. “Hot New Games Debut for the Winter Season: AMOA Expo ’86 Previews Sizzling Lineup of Video and Pin Games.” Winter 1987.
Top Score. “Amusement Players Association’s Players Choice Awards.” Winter 1987.
Atari Games. 720 Degrees. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/4376.
Sega Enterprises. Out Run. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/5277.
Taito. Darius. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/252.
Konami. WEC Le Mans 24. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/1291.
Konami. WEC Le Mans 24. Deluxe cabinet sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/2604.
Taito. Kick and Run. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/1519.
Cinematronics. Danger Zone. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/4396.
Cinematronics. Redline Racer. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/837.
Data East and Nihon Bussan. Last Mission. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/2539.
Nihon Bussan and AV Japan. Lock-On. Sales flyer. 1986. The Arcade Flyer Archive, International Arcade Museum. https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/3989.
Atari Games. “Atari Games VAXMail, 1986.” Internal company correspondence. CoinOp.org Historical Documents Archive. https://www.coinop.org/kdl/Historical%20Documents/Atari%20Games%20VaxMail/vax86.txt.
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The Strong National Museum of Play. “Guide to the Arcade Flier Collection.” Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play. https://museumofplay.org/app/uploads/2021/09/Guide-to-the-Arcade-flier-collection_Library-and-Archives_031119.pdf.
The Strong National Museum of Play. “Atari Coin-Op Division Corporate Records, 1969–2002.” New York Heritage Digital Collections. https://nyheritage.org/collections/atari-coin-op-division-corporate-records-1969-2002.
Horowitz, Ken. Beyond Donkey Kong: A History of Nintendo Arcade Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2020. https://www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/beyond-donkey-kong-a-history-of-nintendo-arcade-games.
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