Walking down Mott Street in downtown Manhattan ? past cheap-toy shops and Chinese restaurants of varying quality ? is an unremarkable experience until the sidewalk is suddenly packed with grungy and very loud young people loitering in front of a “No Loitering” sign.

It is Friday night at the Chinatown Fair video arcade, one of the last of the traditional arcades left in New York. It’s hot and sweaty and the walls are blood-red. “It’s an old arcade, more for the hard-core gamers,” says Travis , 30, a dreadlocked paralegal who lives uptown in Harlem and has been a regular at Chinatown Fair for seven years.

“ Kids come here from all over the city.” In 2005, there were 44 licensed video game arcades in New York, according to the Department of Consumer Affairs; today, 23 survive. With the expansion of online gaming, the action has largely shifted to the home.

Chinatown Fair has become a center for all the outcasts in the city to bond over their shared love for a good 20-punch combo and “old school” games ? Street Fighter II from 1991 , as well as Ms. Pac-Man and Time Crisis. “The competition is real good,” says Yipes, also known as Michael Mendoza, a chubby 23-year-old from Washington Heights in upper Manhattan .

“I would say it is the best in Manhattan. And it’s a good hangout. You got games, the people, cheap food around the corner.” Yipes, known as one of the best gamers in the arcade, points out the various factions. “You have your DDR clique,” he says, referring to the sweat-soaked boys and girls who favor the game Dance Dance Revolution, as well as “your racers, your fighters.”

Indeed, most of the teenage males were huddled around a stack of the newer Street Fighter IV machines. One person was recording video of the games to post on YouTube. The players take the games seriously, although the mood is usually one of camaraderie .

Several employees identified a Pakistani man in his 70s named Samuel as the owner. He says he has been in the business for almost 30 years but then refuses to talk any further .

On Fridays and Saturdays, the arcade stays open until 2 a.m. After midnight, there are more kids with backpacks outside, and even more copious smoking. Sanford Kelly, 22, from the Bronx, looks relaxed in thick glasses and an all-black ensemble.

He lives off the earnings of playing (and winning) in tournaments across the country. “I’m basically the best guy on the East Coast right now,” he says. “They call me Sanford Sensei. ” Despite its appeal to the hard-core faithful, Chinatown Fair has been feeling the industry’s pain. Travis says that a tournament at the arcade was recently canceled because of low turnout.

“Now, you can play a million people from all around the world,” he says. “For me, it’s not the same as playing face-to-face. The young’uns may not