Ideas For Building A Home Arcade Room

As man cave geeks, we all dream about having an arcade room at home. Particularly if you’re a lover of retro games, then the first thing you’re going to do with a man cave space is turn it into a homage to all of your favourite games you played when growing up. 

And, nine times out of ten, this includes arcade machines and the types of games that wouldn’t look out of place in a retro-themed bar. We say if you’ve got the space and the love for gaming, then go for it. But before you do, here are some ideas on how you can make the most out of an arcade room at home, including how to make the most out of your space and choose the best machines that you possible can for your budget. 

Key takeaways:

• Map-out your floor space and measure for available room 
• Buy your arcade machines from trusted suppliers only
• Spend time with your ideas and decide on a gaming theme you’ll love

Understand the space you've got to work with

It’s no secret that investing a home arcade machine is not like just buying a console and being done with it.

You need to assess the amount of floor space that you’ve got to work with, and how that relates to not just the arcade machines that will be occupying it, but all of the supporting accessories and furniture too (which we’ll cover later in this guide).

The main advice we can give here is to be realistic. The arcade machines themselves are what’s going to be the bulkiest, so you need to choose a retailer who provides clear measurements, and cross-reference that with an accurately measured layout of the available floorspace of your room.

Anything less is simply not worth the risk, especially if you’re splashing-out on a custom arcade machine for your home setup.

Consider a theme for your home arcade

Even if you don’t realise, you’re likely already thinking about a theme. There will no doubt be so many ideas whizzing around your head regarding the style of home arcade you want to build, and theming is an important element.

When it comes to ideas, it’s not that you need to pick a certain theme and stick with it, in the sense of it being themed to an idea of a movie or a certain game. You could theme it to your idea of a certain era or style, and keep things broad with room for modifications and upgrades over time.

Or, if you like, you could go all-in on a specific game theme from the outset. We often see this with game-specific arcade machines too, rather than the multi-game setups, which is really cool.  

Home arcade room ideas we’ve seen recently that resonated with our team include:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 
• Marvel superheroes
• Heavy metal & classic rock e.g. Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden
• Movie-inspired ideas such as Blade Runner and Mad Max
• Humidor theme
• LED-focused
• Minimalistic
• Multi-game (essentially a classic gaming room)

Make the right machine choices

Like we said in the introduction, these machines aren’t cheap, and if you’re building a specific home arcade room then it’ll look a little empty without a machine or two! 

Our advice here is to only choose vendors who are reputable, have very clear social proof of what they do with a history of reviews and transactions, and who you can talk to directly.

For example, the brands we stock are those who have demonstrated reliability and superior quality over their competitors for a number of years, and who offer a wide variety of arcade machines to cater to all tastes and requirements. 

Making the right machine choice boils down to the space you have, the budget for a machine and, most importantly, what you actually want to play. This could mean choosing a specific arcade like Pac-Man or a Simpsons, or a broader multi-game arcade machine with seemingly endless gaming possibilities.

Cable Management

You may not feel like this is a huge concern, but trust us, the last thing you want to do is get your machine, accessories and everything else, then move the furniture in and find you’re dealing with a trip hazard. 

Look into quality cable management solutions and consider where your machines are going to be placed within the room, to ensure that you can properly store and hide cables to the best of your ability and keep them out of the way as a trip hazard.  

Prevent liquid spilling on your machines or nasty falls with a quality cable management plan, and pair this with lighting around your arcade machine so that you’re not forever bumping into it and scraping your costly gaming cargo. 

Consoles and lighting accessories

Why stop at just arcade machines? If you’re building a gaming mecca in your home, then is there ever really such thing as too many consoles or gaming options? We didn’t think so either… 

When planning the space in your room, think about how you’re going to want it to expand over time. Do you have the room for a PS5? What about lighting backdrops, custom furniture and fun accessories? Chargers and controllers? Everything will need a place to live, and you’ll need space to manoeuvre, so consider yourself and your accessories alongside the larger items when it comes to planning the room you’ve got to work with.

Conclusion

So, there we have it. Building a home arcade room isn’t just about buying your arcade machine and praying that it fits into that spare room or the unused shed at the bottom of the garden. 

Take time to plan, research and really get to grips with what you’ve got to work with, how much you want to spend, and what you’ll be doing with all the other inevitable purchases that occur when a home games room project comes to fruition.