Bragging Rights Amusements — Local services in Gainesville

Love this place. Great for date days/nights yet also great for family fun for both kids and adults alike. So many games in good condition and pretty clean/organized. Plenty of parking across the street at the time of this post if they look full (pictured). Great staff and fair price as well! In my opinion this is so far the best value in food, service, and gaming in town at the time of writing this review. Hats off to Crystal, James (the GM), Sammy, and Andrea. They were wonderful during a family birthday party event I booked last month.

To those who are interested, this was my event/party reservation experience:

I decided to try and book a party of 15 reservation here for my wife's birthday last month. Crystal the coordinator was wonderful and very accommodating. The process was easy (and you get a free digital invitation you can text/email out). I ended up booking our reservation for 11am on a Saturday right when they open, and it was perfect. I was allowed to come in a few minutes early and set up, which was just enough time since I prepped everything up ahead of time and wagon'ed it in. From kids 2 yrs old to adults in their 70's, everyone had a blast playing their large selection of games, pinball machines, and everything that all generations grew up loving. All pretty much to ourselves since it was quiet and right at open. The pizza was very good and came out at noon which gave us enough time to play and get hungry. We did birthday cake and gifts, and then we were back out to play even more. By 1pm (reservations are typically 2 hrs long) we were packing up and cleared out, but to our surprise we learned the wristbands for non-token/prize games that were part of the reservation are good for the whole day (I'm sure this was communicated by Crystal but I may have forgotten about it). All of our families ended up staying for another 1-2 hrs (which says alot about how good this place is as I have family that likes to leave immediately after cake and gifts). I can say this was the best birthday party we as a family ever had where everyone (even the parents with small ones) was having fun and not stressing out since everything was closed in and secured yet still able to play games together and enjoy everything freely.

Would definitely do this again. Thank you, Bragging Rights!

Notes - To those who have kids: even though the passes are all day, friendly reminder there are blacked out times on certain days where kids I believe under 18 are not allowed in or will be asked to leave if already in there. If you have kids and plan to do a reservation or just going by to get the kids out of the house around dinner time, plan to ask ahead on this to get the best value for the wrist bands or to not waste a trip to be turned away. For reservations you do get a form that you share your guests' ages and Crystal does pretty good communicating this...

I think it's important to note that the employees that work at Bragging Rights appear to be college students. They all seem very nice. This post is in reference to the owner or whoever the manager is. My husband and I have been to this video game bar twice. The only reason why it was fun is because we made it fun, but the last time that we went was the deal breaker. We won't be going to this video game bar again. Simply because 60% of the video games were working and they still charge the full price. What was unfortunate is that the games that are the most fun, where the ones that weren't working. The last time we were there I would say about 75% of the games were working. So nothing changed. Nothing got fixed. In fact, more games broke and we're completely ignored. And yet, they still charge you the full price to get in. My question to management is why can't you fix the games? The games are the focal point. Customers spend quite a bit of money while they are there. We ordered food while we were there and several alcoholic beverages. We also payed extra to rent the television because we wanted to play some of the more trendy games. So why is there no money to fix the games that aren't working? Why do you still charge the same amount of money when your product is completely broken? I honestly did not feel like getting angry and causing a fuss with a bunch of college students who would essentially say to me that it's out of their hands. That would be the truth. Before you go to this video game bar, ask them if all of the games are working? If not, you should request to get a discount. You should never have to pay full price when you're not getting the full product. I learned the...

This place is great! A truly amazing arcade not far from downtown Gainesville with a single $25 entry for free play on all, or almost all, of the machines. I haven't seen a free play arcade like this since I went to DisneyQuest years ago. The selection ranges from the truly antique, including several wooden pinball machines with manual scoring, to the modern. There is a huge selection of pinball machines with highlights including Star Trek, Rush, Deadpool, and The Hobbit all of which were new to me. To accompany these, there are some old arcade standbys including free play Skee Ball, and an antique Whack-A-Mole machine. Also among the attractions are many arcade cabinets. Highlights for me include Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, Star Wars: Episode 1 - Racer (the sit-down cabinet with the dual throttle pod racer controls), Halo: Fireteam Raven, and Cruisin' World which were staples of my childhood arcade haunts. There's a standing Tron cabinet with blacklight effects which seems to date from the original movie release, several imported oddities from Japan, and a huge range of vintage arcade cabinets.

There are definitely some machines that need a bit of TLC. The Star Wars: Battle Pod has some glitches with the projector and the control stick on that one and Star Wars Trilogy both feel a little loose and inaccurate. The Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball wasn't releasing a ball on start, and the right-hand Mario Kart GP cabinet had issues with the item button, steering wheel, and built in camera. All in all, though, this is excusable in my opinion because of the sheer variety and the work it takes to keep old arcade games working. I live 3 hours away and I know I'll be...