Game Arena — Restaurant in Columbus

Disappointing Experience for Casual Gamers and Newcomers We visited Game Arena in the Ohio State University District during a trip to Columbus, excited to try something new, but the experience was a complete letdown. This was a Sunday night with no events and not particularly crowded. Here’s my review… Disorganized Console Access: We came to play on consoles but were told “the Switch would be free in 45 minutes.” Over an hour later, there was no follow-up, no system to track availability, and no effort to assist us. PC Gaming Failures: We reluctantly tried PC gaming but faced constant technical issues. Borrowed Steam accounts wouldn’t let us add each other as friends, so we couldn’t play together. On top of that, many games wouldn’t launch due to repeated EULA errors, requiring staff intervention every time. The employee admitted it was a known issue but seemed indifferent about fixing it. Unhelpful Staff: The one staff member available was disengaged, more interested in playing on their own PC or stepping out for smoke breaks. Despite asking for help repeatedly, we were shuffled between PCs with no resolution. After multiple failed logins, restarts, and over an hour of frustration, we left without being able to play anything. We still paid, and paid for parking, but didn’t even get to play one single game. Poor Customer Service: From the moment we walked in, we felt unwelcome. Nobody greeted us or explained how things worked. The food and drink options others raved about in reviews were nowhere to be found—nobody even mentioned them.

Overall, it felt like they weren’t interested in helping newcomers or casual gamers. We left feeling ignored, disappointed, and like our time and money had been completely wasted. If you’re not already a PC shooter expert or a regular, I’d recommend...

Clean awesome place to go to! I visit GA weekly to join a weekly super smash bros tournament. I can't say enough about how well organized, clean, and friendly the employees are.

I've never encountered any problems here, and with comfy Maxinomic seating and Hyper X headsets it's a great place to bring your kid obsessed with Fortnite or yourself to enjoy a good game of PUBG.

The venue has several TVs streaming the hottest streamers like Ninja, The Doctor, ZeRo, Nairo, etc. The venue also offers food inside, while it is abit exepsnive, it is also super tasty and cooked to order.

The venue also just started serving a selection of alcohol, including an option to spike many of there drinks as well as some mainly beer and cider brands, Angery Orchard being my personal go to beverage.

I'm excited to have a venue like this in Columbus, and honestly can't say anything bad about it, it's clean, and doesn't smell like body oder like you d expect a venue full of neckbeards to smell like.

The only thing I could possibly suggest is to hire on some more staff for the weekly smash tournaments to run food and help check people in, these events are starting to get huge!

Hats off to the management here, as there is almost nothing to...

My son has gotten interested in video games and I do not play them. He has been asking me to buy a video game system and I don't want to spend hundreds on a system and games and accessories when I wouldnt use it. I came across Game Arena randomly via Google search. I told my son about it and we checked it out for the first time today. Game Arena exceeded our expectations in every aspect. The place is clean and orderly, which is something I pay attention to when I go public places. I have zero knowledge of the new systems and how they operate and the staff and even some of the other people there went out of their way to help me get things going or figured out for us. We wanted to play Madden 25 and the game had to update. The guy working told me he would pause our time so that the update wouldnt use up any of our playing time, which I thought was awesome. While it was updating, we ordered some food from the kitchen/bar and the bartender was very friendly (and gorgeous but that's besides the point). The food tasted great and the price was great compared to prices of food in similar settings. We loved it so much that we are planning on going to GA on a regular basis. I give it 11/10. They run a...