Video Game Thief Snares Arcade Brains Picky Burglar Targets $2,700 Game Control Board
It was a precise heist, and a strange one.
Someone hid in an amusement center in downtown Spokane, waited until everyone left for the night, then pried open a popular video arcade game and stole the control board.
The board, valued at $2,700, was the only thing taken in the Tuesday night burglary at Laser Quest, a laser tag and arcade business in the old Spokane Armory building, 202 W. Second Ave.
Police were investigating the theft Thursday but had few clues.
The burglary left Laser Quest general manager Steve Crane shaking his head. The thief passed by other computer equipment as he carried the control board from the Tekken III game out the front door, Crane said.
No office drawers were rifled, and nothing else apparently was touched.
“The strange part is that someone would have to have some video game knowledge to even recognize the value of the thing,” Crane said.
Tekken III is the latest rage among martial arts simulation games. Players assume the role of one of several characters, then fight their way through a litany of villains.
The World Wide Web has dozens of sites devoted to Tekken III, where players share tips and chat about strategy and exciting encounters.
The Tekken III game at Laser Quest is one of only two arcade versions in Spokane, Crane said. It was up and running again Thursday, with a new control board.
Steve McGrath, whose company owns both Tekken III games, said the thief knew exactly what he was after and how to get it.
The person who stole the board will have to order a commercially manufactured cabinet and other expensive, complicated hardware to get it to function, he said.
“It’s really worthless to the average person,” said McGrath, who works for Outback Entertainment, a company that places arcade games in businesses and shares the revenue with the proprietor.
Thefts of arcade game control boards are a problem on the East Coast but rare in Spokane, McGrath said. He could remember only one similar case, a theft that occurred about two years ago.
Someone broke into the Sports Page bowling alley in the Spokane Valley and stole a control board from a Street Fighter game, he said.
Police and local video game purveyors later traced the stolen board to a comic book shop on North Division when a man tried to get a software upgrade for an unlicensed Street Fighter game there.
McGrath said that man, whose name he couldn’t remember, fled to Japan as authorities were preparing a case against him.
“I haven’t heard about him since, but the theory is he’s back in town,” McGrath said.
McGrath said he hopes the theft isn’t a sign of things to come.
“We already do a lot to protect the funds in the games,” he said. “I hope we don’t have to increase security to protect the motherboards. Losing one is just devastating. That’s $2,700 gone.”
, DataTimes