Press Start, No Coins: RetroGames e.V. and Karlsruhe's Arcade Museum

Germany's oldest public collection of playable arcade machines does not sit in a capital-city museum quarter. It sits in Karlsruhe, is run by a volunteer association, and has been switched on since 2002.

RetroGames e.V. is exactly the kind of hands-on, community-run museum that keeps gaming history alive by letting you play it, and a natural kindred spirit to our own archive.

A Video Game Arcade Museum in Karlsruhe

The museum of RetroGames e.V. is a video game arcade museum in Karlsruhe, at Schauenburgstrasse 5. Since 15 June 2002 it has shown a permanent exhibition of more than 90 arcade machines, 15 pinball tables and a range of consoles. Almost everything is interactive and set to free play, with no coins to feed.

RetroGames e.V., Karlsruhe: over ninety arcade machines, all on free play.

That makes a visit feel less like looking at history behind glass and more like stepping back into it, controller or joystick in hand.

Kept Running by Its Members

The museum is run by the association itself, and its members keep the machines alive. Every Tuesday evening they meet at the museum to restore exhibits, tend the collection and swap knowledge. It is preservation in the most hands-on sense: volunteers giving their time so that fragile, decades-old hardware keeps working for the next visitor.

A New Theme Every Year

Alongside the permanent floor, RetroGames stages a fresh special exhibition each year. Recent editions marked 40 years of Tetris and 40 years of the Amiga, revisited Ralph Baer and the birth of PONG, and, in 2026, traced the history of the racing game. It is a nice reminder that this history is still being actively curated, not just stored.

Play It Here, Study It Online

This is where our two worlds meet. RetroGames keeps the machines playable and the joysticks warm; the Game Boy Museum preserves the objects and the knowledge around a single device in complete, original condition. The living game and the archived artefact, together, tell the fuller story. If a visit leaves you curious about the little grey handheld in particular, you can follow the whole original Game Boy story in our complete DMG-01 guide.

Plan Your Visit

The museum is at Schauenburgstrasse 5 in Karlsruhe and is open on Saturdays from 16 to 22, with a happy hour from 20:00, and additional afternoon slots by reservation from September to March. Admission is 10 euros, or 5 euros for under-16s. You will find current opening hours and details at retrogames.info. Go with an evening to spare, and let yourself be surprised by how much still runs beautifully.

This is one of the places gathered in our guide to the video game museums worth visiting.