Retro games restored to former glory thanks to one Wareham resident

When people visit Sean Hibbard’s home arcade, they may expect the latest gaming console paired with a flat screen television, but in reality, he’s restored dozens of arcade and pinball machines from the golden age of retro gaming.

Hibbard, 41, transformed his basement, and part of his living room, into an arcade complete with over a dozen restored games and pinball machines that date back to the 1960s. 

Many of the games in Hibbard’s collection include classics such as Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. as well as a number of niche games, including the pinball machine that got his collection started.

“My first game was ‘High Hand’ that I got from my grandmother in 2004 and I lugged that from rental place to rental place until my wife and I bought our house in 2009,” Hibbard said. 

Growing up on the South Coast, Hibbard said he spent much of his time playing arcade games at his childhood home, including his grandmother’s, and spending Friday nights at the former Independence Mall in Kingston “like people used to do in the 90s.”

“You spend the night at the mall with a few dollars, go to the arcade, buy some Taco Bell and have a good time,” he said.

Some of his favorite memories included “running around like a madman” at the former Super Sports arcade in Carver which his father worked on as an electrical contractor.

“I was there the day they turned their arcade on and they had a couple of cool games that I haven’t played since,” he said.  

Since then Hibbard’s love of arcade games and pinball never wavered and he began a collection. But instead of spending thousands of dollars on fully functional machines, Hibbard instead chose to buy games in need of repair and taught himself how to repair them.

“I spent a lot of time watching this cool YouTube series where this guy explained how everything works and after 12 hours of watching it just clicked,” he said. 

But getting the parts needed to fix the games is much easier than getting the games themselves, Hibbard said. 

“You just have to search obsessively — like 70, 80, 90 to 100 times a day — to be able to make sure that you’re catching things as they are listed,” he said. The good stuff goes first so if you’re not first you’re last.”

Over the years, Hibbard said he has gotten better at identifying the problems within each game he fixes and he even helps other people out. He often gets calls from other people to fix their games which has helped him build many connections.

“I’ve probably made a dozen friends that I’ve traded parts with or helped them with their machines and they’ve helped me,” he said. “I have a friend in Florida who owns his own pinball machine repair company and I met him through this game called ‘Hyperball’. There’s not many of us that like it and have it and we’ve been in contact for probably 10 years now.”
He added some people have reached out to him about fixing other old-school machines.

“I fixed a jukebox machine for a dude and I fixed a slot machine,” he said. 

Since starting his collection, Hibbard has only ever sold one game, which he said still haunts him to this day. Instead, he invites friends over and his kids invite their friends to enjoy some time at his home arcade.

“I like to keep the games alive for the future generations to play — my kids have awesome birthday parties,” he said. “But for me, it’s just cool to have my own personal arcade and play the games that I fixed.”