I grew up during it’s prime, back in the 80’s. When I was young / small enough to play in the whatever you call it with the tower, tubes, nets, etc. (giant indoor big toy), it was pretty sweet. Once I was too big, then it was video games, which was a slight plus from the local mall arcade as you got 5 tokens per dollar, thus one more game play on single token/quarter games.
By the time I was in 5th grade, I had an NES, so even the video games were getting tiresome. While there at a birthday party, one of the amusement rides for toddlers/ youngsters (a space ship that basically went up and down) was closed for repairs, and the coin slot panel was loose. A friend and I looted every token out of the sucker. We then posted up by the token vending machines offering folks 6 tokens for a dollar, as opposed to the usual 5. Half the people ignored our sweet offer, which was an interesting lesson to me. I ended up walking away that night with enough cash to buy the sweet Contra sequel.