Free Play Arcade's Fifth Location Scores a Prime Spot in Dallas Proper

Eight years ago, Free Play Arcade owner and founder Corey Hyden opened his first retro arcade in a strip mall in Richardson. He expanded the brand to four locations that were bigger and better than its predecessors, but they all landed around North Texas like a cluster of darts that failed to hit the bullseye: Dallas proper.

Now Free Play has an arcade it can officially call Free Play Dallas, and Hyden hit more than the target with his fifth arcade concept. He hit a triple 20.

"We're pretty confident right now," Hyden says. "Everything's going better than expected."

Free Play opened its Dallas location on Friday in Trinity Groves in a huge, open-air complex that can hold more games than even the chain's two-story Denton location. The space also offers a gorgeous view of the Dallas skyline from inside, since it sits close to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.

Friday was the official start date for the new Dallas arcade, but Hyden says he plans to do a proper grand opening blowout in the next couple of weeks as the business settles into the space. This is Hyden's third attempt to open an arcade in Dallas. He originally planned to open an all-pinball arcade in 2018 in Oak Cliff along with an official Dallas arcade the following year, but he kept running into obstacles that prevented him from obtaining the spaces he needed to make it happen.

The new location isn't filled wall to wall with arcade games, but that's a good thing. The space can hold up to 399 customers, not including staff, so there's a lot of room to mix the classic arcade machines such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Q*Bert with bigger, newer games like a full six-player Pac-Man World Chomp-ionship game and a four-seat Cruisin' Blast race machine. 

There's even room to organize some of the rarest games into their own space. The rear hallway next to the bar has two rows of Japanese manga and rhythm games that don't usually pop up in American arcades. The wall next to Gulden Lane has three rows of new and classic pinball games. If you look hard enough, you'll find hiding spaces where the staff have tucked away rare classics such as Sega's Time Traveler, a full-video hologram that's actually a terrible game but is extremely rare because the parts needed to make it work are so hard to find.

"We had a broken one for like 10 years and recently one came up in an auction that had the parts we needed and I couldn't believe it," Hyden says. "It's like this cool, magical discovery in Dallas."  The areas of the space that aren't occupied with games include a huge bar and a large grid of tables and chairs for when you inevitably get tired from trying to play every machine in the joint.

"This one's the most functional," Hyden says. "It's a big wide-open space with no pillars. There's just games and seating and bars and that's pretty much it."

Hyden says the most exciting aspect of the new space — besides the games, of course — is how they'll be able to reach players who won't have to make the drive to Richardson, Denton, Arlington or Fort Worth just to play in one of his arcades.

"This is the purest arcade we've ever built, but it's also in this cool spot and we're super pumped to be a part of it," Hyden says. "I think people are excited about it. I think it's gonna be a good transition to reach those people who haven't seen what we do and we're gonna get them now."