Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Space Invaders, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Gauntlet, Tron — the names of coin-operated arcade games that have swallowed countless quarters are enshrined in legend. 
 
 Except in the small town of Marshfield, Massachusetts, that is, where coin-op games were banned under a local ordinance in 1982. 
 
 The controversial prohibition was voted in that year by residents who were sick and tired of the noisome bleeping and blooping of arcade videogames, and felt their influence was corrupting the minds of America's youth. The town became briefly famous, or infamous, depending on how many quarters you spent on the machines or, generally, how young you were. Then in 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the ban, and the controversy died down. The ban was upheld by town votes in 1994 and 2011. 
 
 Now, finally, by a vote of 203-175, Marshfield residents have re-entered the Space Invaders era. 
 
 "I was sitting thinking, ‘why is this illegal in my town, to have fun with my friends?'", Marshfield resident Craig Rondeau, who brought the proposal that ended the ban, explained to the local newspaper The Patriot Ledger. Rondeau managed to scrape together six business owners who said they'd like to have the freedom to install arcade games if they wanted, and apparently that was all the majority of the town needed to be convinced. 
 
 As you can see from those numbers, however, the return of arcade games was hardly a sure thing. By the sound of quotes from the crucial meeting, Marshfield is the global capital of killjoys. "There is gaming all over the place, and there’s nothing fun about it," warned Marshfield resident Sue Walker, who apparently fears that her children are going to be accosted by Pac Men — or the boxes that contain him — the next time she steps into one of the town's eateries. 
 
 We'd love it if that were true; if Marshfield suddenly went hog wild and became a town filled with retro gaming device. (After all, it's got 32 years of videogames to catch up on.) Because of course the truth is that the world has moved on, and the kind of console and smartphone gaming we're enjoying these days is, well, far less active. Arcade games? They're the stand-up desks of gaming, and provide further exercise when you slam the console in frustration after losing your last life. 
 
 If Marshfield becomes the arcade town that time forgot, well, praise the Pac Man and pass the quarters. ||||| For many parents in the quiet beach suburb of Marshfield, a stitch has been added to the moral fabric of their community. This week the state Supreme Judicial Court upheld a ban on coin-operated video games. It is believed to be the first outright ban on computer games to hold up under judicial scrutiny. 
 
 ''This is a progressive step in that it protects life in a small town from an urban-type hony-tonk environment . . . the fewer distractions of that type, the easier it is to transfer my ideas and values to my youngster,'' summarizes Jim Judge, a father of three girls and one of the initiators of the ban. 
 
 Marshfield, like other communities around the country, has wrestled with ways to control what some see as the ''nuisances'' associated with commercial video game use. But while most other communities have opted to regulate use and location of the games, Marshfield chose to bar them completely. About 200 citizens attended a town meeting last year and passed the ban as the easiest solution to anticipated problems from the town's 60 or 70 games. 
 
 Similar bans have been proposed in other communities around the nation, says Edward Zeigler, a law professor at the University of Dayton and an authority on video game regulation. But this week's court ruling ''is significant because it's the first state court decision to uphold [such a law],'' he said in a telephone interview after the decision. 
 
 ''If we have these things in the town, it draws the wrong type of people and we want to protect our town,'' says Betsy Judge, who admits that she's never actually seen problems, such as loitering, in her town or any other she's visited. She adds that her beliefs stem from the idea that ''hanging out'' is not a constructive activity for youths. 
 
 The games are said to be addictive to youth, who will skip school and spend unreasonable sums of money to play them at a quarter -- and sometimes 50 cents -- a pop, says Thomas R. Jackson, a retired narcotics agent and the resident who proposed the ban. Further, he says, gambling and drug activity are connected to the video game locations where youth congregate unsupervised. 
 
 ''If a town can kick out an entertainment medium, it isn't long before other mediums [are attacked], too,'' says Ira Zaleznik, who says he may appeal the ruling to the United States Supreme Court, and proponents of the ban suggest that this week's ruling will affect the approach other towns take in grappling with ways to control video-game-related problems. 
 
 The Massachusetts ruling is not binding elsewhere, but it can be used to bolster other cases. In this case, the court found that the video games were not entitled to the constitutional protections for free expression and communication. In challenges to game restriction, the video-game industry argues , as a rule, that the games should come under such First Amendment protections. They argue that the games are forms of communications, like movies, even if their sole purpose is amusement, says Mr. Zeigler. 
 
 Zeigler notes that in New Jersey a similar ban was struck down by a state court on the basis that communities have to accommodate recreational activity, and that there was no basis to outlaw the games entirely. 
 
 ''Other courts may or may not follow the [Massachusetts] ruling,'' he says. ''But it looks like in the future it's unlikely the court will uphold bans in large urban areas . . . It's posible, though, in a residential community [where the activity could alter the atmosphere].'' Local leaders often are allowed to regulate development by banning movie theaters, drive-ins, and the like, says Zeigler. 
 
 Some approaches to game regulation include zoning or licensing. For example, in San Gabriel, Calif., according to Planning magazine, the zoning ordinance includes standards for location, noise, parking layout, signs, and player supervision. Licensing is a more temporary regulation, which allows reconsideration of permission to operate. It also provides revenue with which to administer the regulation of the video game business. 
 
 Mrs. Judge, however, says she doesn't think regulation works. She uses movie ratings as a parallel. ''Did you ever go to an R-rated movie? Look around and see how many 10-year-olds are there on a Saturday afternoon. Let's not have it [ regulation], if we can't enforce it.''
– A Massachusetts town has decided it's time to finally lift a ban on arcade games it established when Ms. Pac-Man was new. At a town meeting, the residents of Marshfield voted 203-175 to lift the ban that was introduced in 1982 and went almost all the way to the Supreme Court when business owners challenged it (the court declined to take on the case), reports the Patriot Ledger. The ban was voted in by residents who feared arcade games would bring an undesirable element to the small town and upheld in 1994 and 2011. "This is a progressive step in that it protects life in a small town from an urban-type honky-tonk environment," one resident told the Christian Science Monitor at the time. "The fewer distractions of that type, the easier it is to transfer my ideas and values to my youngster." The ban was successfully challenged by a resident who says he found it unjust even when he was in the fourth grade. "I was sitting thinking, 'Why is this illegal in my town, to have fun with my friends,'" he says, recalling a visit to an arcade in a neighboring town. Six business owners say they are considering installing games, and while it's not clear whether they plan to bring in games from the decades the town missed, Chris Taylor at Mashable would love it "if Marshfield suddenly went hog wild and became a town filled with retro gaming devices." If it "becomes the arcade town that time forgot, well, praise the Pac-Man and pass the quarters," he writes.