> Later, the big communities around the 'quarters on the glass' era of fighting games when the local arcade was effectively a close-knit dojo - storming, challenge matches and all.

Something I always thought was interesting from that time (I spent High School on Street Fighter II and a bit too much College on Tekken Tag Tournament). Was how the culture in different arcades was always a bit different. The play-styles, how the impromptu tournaments worked, what was considered cheap or fair play...it always interested me as your home arcade group think eventually set a kind of style momentum and mixing it up or discovering new techniques was always kind of a challenge. If you were really dedicated to the game you'd go over to the next city or wherever they had one of the games and spend a day or two there learning from the group think in that arcade.

i remember putting quarters on the glass to signify you were next in line. Sometimes there would be three or four quarters all from different people, and remembering which quarter was yours (your place in the queue) wasn't hard.