the.com/penny arcade
The webcomic that turned two guys' rage at gaming into a media empire.
means A coin-operated amusement hall packed with slot machines, games, and novelties—originally the kind of place you'd blow a penny just to see something move.
from From 'penny,' the one-cent coin, and 'arcade,' a covered passage lined with shops (itself from the Latin 'arcus,' meaning bow or arch, describing the vaulted architecture). Penny arcades emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s as storefronts packed with coin-fed novelties—mutoscopes, fortune-tellers, strength testers—each costing a single penny to operate. The webcomic borrowed the name for its nostalgic, nickel-and-dime, feed-the-machine charm, long before anyone was feeding quarters into Street Fighter.
- founded
- 1998, by Krahulik and Holkins
- spawned
- PAX, now a convention juggernaut
- charity arm
- Child's Play, raised millions for hospitals
- update schedule
- three times weekly, since the dawn