Arcade City Pigeon Forge — Attraction in Pigeon Forge

I wanted to first state that this is a clean arcade with a lot of play-based games, skill games, chance games, and an overall decent place. The folks working there were courteous and pleasant.

I am giving this two stars for a recent experience on 4/10. First, I love games of chance, like claw machines. Having had a past client who designs these machines and owning a few myself, I know how the operators (like the arcade location, ex), can alter the actual odds of the game. For example, many can be set such that the odds of a tight claw grip might be 1:50, 1:75, etc. Theoretically, the expected RTP would be that if someone played for say, 100 times in a row, there would be 1 win. I wanted to try this theory and so I purchased 2 $100 playcards, each of which yielded 145 credits. Thus, we had a total of 290 plays.

My son and I stayed on one machine to see what the odds of winning might be, whether we were to win or lose.

I will first state that the settings on some machines, I feel, and at least for the cheaper toys and prizes, are entirely too difficult and have low win (grip) odds for kids. For the higher-valued games, like Lululemon bags, Air Jordan shoes, etc, they should have a harder RTP. The sole purpose is for the venue to make money.

We stayed on the claw machine that had 5 plush balls, of which had to be picked up to win a choice of Air Jordan shoes. Please note that our expectation was that we were going to lose as I think people need to accept that going into it when the odds are statistically set as it's a game of chance, not so much skill.

We played through the first 235 games and had loose grips for each one. Out of those games, the machine crashed and reset 18 times. I asked one of the employees and she stated that the machines are new and that the wifi is bad, so the machine had to restart many times over. It was annoying and took about 60-90 seconds each, and so we waited.

On game number 236 we managed to grip a ball which would be a win. Yet, as the ball fell towards the chute it hit the edge of the wall of the chute as the claw opened and fell into the machine next to it. If there was a plexiglass wall to this machine, it wouldn't be an issue and the win would have been fine. However, as the claw opened and the ball fell, for whatever reason it hit the left side of the chute which allowed to ball to go into the other machine, but even stay in the proper playfield of this machine - which would have actually been a veritable win. We were informed that even though it "should have" gone in and been a win, there's nothing that could be done and was a loss, so someone came over, took the winning ball out of the other machine and placed it back into the current game machine.

With the assumed statistical odds behind us, we continued playing all of our remaining credits. A lot of these machines will record, with the preprogrammed odds, a win once it goes to the chute, passes the sensor, and records it. Otherwise, a gripped success may not register at all. On try number 261 we gripped another ball, which was a success and won. We played the remaining 29 to no avail. Theoretically, the initial win, which didn't count for what I feel is an unfair reason, could have been a second win, but numerically, it's impossible to know if the second win, to which we won, would have also triggered.

All in all, it's a fun place to go, but the expectation of winning from some of these machines needs to be realized properly in that the odds are very minimal and what seems a bit higher than many averages of 1:50 - 1:75.

Would I go back again? Sure - but if I were to play another claw game, I would sit at that machine with at least 100 credits to see if the typical claw machine win averages would...

The arcade is one of our favorite places to go on The Island and it is always a must-stop. The games are excellent and offer literally hours of entertainment, providing smiles and laughter regardless of a win. The one thing that must be mentioned, which prevented a five star review from us, is the fact that there are very few sanitizing stations throughout the arcade and you rarely see anyone cleaning the games, despite the ample presence of staff members. We are extra cautious and carry out own sanitizer, but with a pandemic and mask mandates in place we feel it would be a little more comforting to see more cleaning protocols in place. Several of the closely placed games have red X's on them, indicating this or that game should not be used, but those games still work and the markings are often ignored and never enforced (that we have seen). Of course, we understand in a tactile environment like this you take a certain amount of risk to enjoy the festivities, but it would be good to see some amped up cleaning, and maybe the disabling or repositioning of some of those close games to help encourage a bit of distancing. We will keep going, of course, and highly recommend the arcade to any and everyone who enjoys...

DON'T STOP KEEP GOING! We had the worst arcade experience of our lives here. Maybe 2 teenagers worked there, I'm not sure though because they kept telling me they only work for the island itself not the arcade. So we stood and waited for over an hour for an actual employee and never found one. This place is compact and had 100s of people elbow to elbow, people just trying to escape the heat sitting at all the skill stop games chairs, 80 percent of games were an instant rip off. We should've just threw 200 Dollars out the window, we had a group of 6, and not one of us got to play a running game but the Simpsons soccer kick. All the claw machines were an instant loss none of them worked. Just took our money. The girl who claimed she didn't work their was finally behind the prize table where you trade your tickets in and she was mad at us for even turning in 28 tickets. She said it was a waste of her time and threw the stale piece of candy at my son and proceeded to have a nasty attitude towards the families behind us in line. If you want a true arcade experience do yourself a favor an go to...