Playdium
Playdium (formerly Sega City Playdium) is a Canadian company which operates a large arcade/amusement park in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The company also operated in downtown Toronto. The original park (in Mississauga) features go-kart tracks, miniature golf courses, sand volleyball courts, pitching and batting practice areas, and video arcades. The Playdium locations also had party rooms (that could be rented for hosting birthday parties, "pentathlons", and other special events) and a sports bar.
The concept of Playdium improved on the original arcade, putting hundreds of arcade games into 40,000 square feet. The arcade portions were sorted by game genre into various "zones", including the Classic Zone, Contact Zone, Kids Zone, Music Zone, Speed Zone, Sports Zone, Extreme Zone, and Target Zone.
Arcade machines were outfitted with card readers (BLINKis), and barcoded "PlayCards" were used instead of quarters or tokens. The card readers displayed the number of Credits required to play. PlayCards could be charged with Credits (at the higher denominations, it would be eight Credits per dollar, but at the lower denominations, it would be less), or they could be charged with TimePlay, meaning that all arcade games (with some rare exceptions) could be played within a certain length of time, typically half an hour, one hour, or two hours. To prevent abuse, PlayCards with TimePlay were "locked out" if used too soon after the last swipe and were not meant to be shared between players, though no such restrictions were placed on Credits. Booked party groups were typically given PlayCards with TimePlay.
A lack of capital investment and lack of foresight of changing consumer behavior resulted in a significant consolidation. All Playdium locations aside from the Mississauga location have now been shut down, including locations at West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta. Playdium was chosen to be the filming of the YTV show Gamerz. The show ran from 1998 to 2000. It was also featured in the Lindsay Lohan film, Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen.