Drop Us a Line

Replacing the Bearcade with an ice cream parlor would be an incredible shame. Sure, there's probably more students on campus who would like to eat ice cream than play at an arcade, but that's not the point. If you want to eat ice cream, there are plenty of places to go where you can do just that in the immediate vicinity of campus. But remove the Bearcade and the competitive fighting game scene in the area is instantly killed; an entire community depends on the Bearcade for its existence.

Does the Bearcade make as much money as an ice cream parlor? No, although the management at Bearcade has worked very hard to turn it into a profitable business. Does it serve as many people? No, though I'm sure there are many people who care about the Bearcade more than anyone would care about a new ice cream place. In any case, universities are designed to serve as many different and varied interests as they can, to provide a home for every group, not just the most popular ones.

UC Berkeley could presumably make more money by closing the art history department and replacing it with another business school. That would be silly of course; there's already a perfectly good business school here, and people who want to study art history should be able to do so. There's already perfectly good ice cream places near campus; don't close the Bearcade.

Brian Feldstein

UC Berkeley student

I do not want to see the Bearcade disappear from campus. It has been a fixture at the university for as long as I can remember and a hub for gamers on campus. But the fact that there is talk about revamping or even removing the Bearcade suggests that the arcade is not pulling its weight in staying profitable. I say, instead of looking for ideas to replace the arcade, look for ideas to help it remain in the school.

I will concede that the Bearcade is not utilized by the student population as much as it should. In that regard I ask students to make suggestions on how the arcade could better suit your needs. Because of student initiative, the Bearcade holds small weekly arcade tournaments and much larger bi-monthly arcade tournaments. These tournaments generate revenue, interest and a create a gaming community amongst students. As part of this gaming community, losing the Bearcade would be a devastating blow. Without the Bearcade, the arcade gaming community in the Berkeley/Oakland region would simply disappear. The Bearcade is the last 'real' arcade in this region.

Luis Ramirez

UC Berkeley student

To replace the Bearcade with an ice cream stand because it would be more profitable would be akin to replacing the RSF the moment it showed a loss. While ASUC may regard it as just another business, locals and students alike see it as an institution that is uniquely able to provide them with a space to blow off steam in-between classes or after work and play a few games. Red ink or no, the managers of the Bearcade over the last few years have devoted themselves to associating UC Berkeley with a quality arcade that attracts casual gamers as well as professional players from as far as Japan, and to erect an overpriced gelato joint in its stead would be a shame.

Patrick Miller

UC Berkeley student

I'm an occasional arcade goer. I spend probably an average of a dollar per week on the Bearcade, so when I heard about plans to revamp it, I was a little grieved. There aren't many alternatives in terms of good arcades in Berkeley. The only other one I know of is at La Vals on Southside, which is a little scary to go to sometimes. I also understand it's hard to keep something that's losing money. I like the gelato idea: We really need to vitalize that area of campus. It looks like some abandoned remnant of past glory years of ASUC. I would agree that there's a lot of wasted space in the Bearcade; probably half the games consume more electricity than tokens put into them. The most popular games are the fighting games, so I would keep those.

So one solution is to have a gelato or some nice magnet for students. That would clean and brighten the place up. There's a lot of space in that room, so we can allocate one corner to the fighting games, maybe some fun ones like shooter games or Dance Dance Revolution, and maybe we can keep the pool tables as well (though honestly I don't think the pool tables make that much money either; there are free pool tables in the dorms after all). Hopefully a solution can be found where we can have the a profitable use of that space as well as giving a place for gamers to go.

Michael Chongpornprasert

UC Berkeley student

Being a former student and patron of the Bearcade, I feel that replacing it with something as common as an ice cream shop is a mistake. I agree that something innovative must be done to rectify the profitability of the Bearcade, but to erase this facility from the campus is not the right course of action.

First off, the Bearcade offers a place where many students under the drinking age can play pool. I remember during my freshman and sophomore years it was one of the few places with decent pool tables I would be allowed to enter. And even though there were pool tables in the dorms, they were in very bad condition. Even though plans of turning the Bearcade into an ice cream parlor include keeping the pool tables, it is even more of a stretch to associate pool with ice cream than pool with video games.

I am afraid ASUC will simply be repeating a similar mistake when it decided to get rid of the bowling alley. And yes, we had a bowling alley at once. I have been told it was a popular place to go for students, but unfortunately it was gone even before I started my schooling. What we now know as the Bearcade was once part of the bowling alley, all located where the textbook store is right now. It is already a sad state that the closest bowling alley is even further than the closet ice cream parlor. How is it that UC Davis and San Jose State have a bowling alley on campus but Berkeley doesn't? Getting rid of the Bearcade would worsen this situation.

In addition to offering entertainment to students, the Bearcade also created a great deal of school pride among patrons. In fact, I was a part of regular competitions held at the Bearcade. We organized a team to compete against other universities, and all semesters I participated in, we came out on top.

Daniel Chang

UC Berkeley alumnus

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