I've always been kind of envious of America and their arcades, i know there's likely not as many as there once was, but i feel like America still has infinitely more of them than we have in the UK.
I just don't think they ever really were a "thing" here, sure we had some, especially if you live in a tourist place, but i get the impression that at one time most towns in America would have an arcade and that was certainly never the case here. My local shopping centre did have one back in the early 2000's but it was never very big and quickly went from having a handful of cool games to only having one or two actual games and the rest were those dodgy "skill" games and then it closed not long after.
I do remember, around 25 years ago, there used to be a massive place in London, called the Trocadero, i think, that had multiple floors of every game you could think of and even had some experience attractions/rides, but when i last checked several years ago it was long gone which is a real shame.
All of this is to say, while i'm aware how pricey arcades can be, the one in london was pay per machine, there's at least a handful of arcades around the uk, that have all their games set to free play and you just pay to enter for a certain amount of time, some do it hourly, others you can stay the whole day for a set fee.
I'm not sure if any of them are particularly close to Ashley and Burnie, but if they ever go for a bit of an explore further south in the UK they might want to have a look online and see if there's any near where they're going.