Back in the days of cavernous arcades, video game players had but one unwritten law amid the pizza slices and the Stridex: He who puts a quarter on the machine has got “Next.”

It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, short or gangly, skilled at Killer Instinct or not: your quarter was gold here and that quarter meant you were up against the winner of the current match.

Woe to the unwordly fool who tried to pop a quarter (or, in some quarters, so to speak, the humble token) into the machine ahead of a quarter placed carefully on the acrylic rim below the game screen. “Eh, dude. No,” an elder gamer would say, pointing to the quarter (or row of quarters) lying in wait.

The death of video arcades (or at least video arcades that don’t use the distasteful debit card as its carrier of currency) means the “Next” Quarter custom has gone the way of the Pac-Man. What are you going to do now, stick your Wiimote next to the game console to let your roommates know you’ve got next at Wii Boxing? It’s not the same, man.

It’s not the same.