Arcades in Brisbane

Arcades are pure joy per dollar. Brisbane, QLD has 13 mapped right now. That's 13 arcades mapped around Brisbane. Machine condition varies wildly between venues, so the one with the best-maintained cabinets wins regardless of size. Off-peak hours mean shorter waits on the good machines and your pick of the racing seats.

This guide covers every arcade we could verify in and around Brisbane (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Game Over and 1up Arcade, plus Free Space VR Arcade. If an arcade's missing from Brisbane's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The Brisbane arcade lineup

13 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about arcades in Brisbane

1 of the 13 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — arcades keep long hours, so the listed times are usually good.

3 have websites listed. Worth a look for tournament nights and free-play evenings.

3 arcades list websites — worth a look for opening times and whether they run leagues or tournament nights.

The Brisbane arcade run

The efficient Brisbane arcade run strings these together: Game Over, 1up Arcade on 230 Lytton Road, Free Space VR Arcade, iPlay on The Terrace, Timezone on 1 Main Street, iPlay, Timezone, and Planet Arcades — 13 stops, one logical order. 5 more are listed below.

Arcade tips for Brisbane

Hitting the arcades in Brisbane? Play smarter:

• Ticket games are a tax at Game Over. The prizes cost more in tickets than cash. Play them for fun, not for the giant plush — that's the most expensive plush alive.
• Ask about tournaments at 1up Arcade. Fighting game and pinball tournaments run weekly in many towns. Beginners are usually welcome and it's the fastest way to improve.
• Nudge (gently). Pinball machines tolerate nudging; they tilt at abuse. Learn the line and your scores double.
• Pinball rewards regulars. Pinball tables have personalities and moods. Play the same table a few times and you'll start reading it.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Brisbane — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new arcade in Brisbane can take a while to appear. If you spot one of the 13 that's closed, or a great arcade we missed, the fix is to update the map itself — that's where this guide reads from.

We don't list machine lineups — they change too often. What we list is the where: real venues, verified by real mappers.

If you run one of the 13 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.