Arcade games, the cornerstone of classic gaming, relied on a combination of memory storage types to deliver their iconic experiences. The most fundamental type was Read-Only Memory (ROM). This non-volatile memory was stored on chips on the game's main printed circuit board (PCB) or, in some cases, on interchangeable cartridges. ROM contained the game's core program code, graphics, and sound data, which remained intact even when the machine was powered off.

For the game's active operation, arcade cabinets used volatile Random-Access Memory (RAM). This working memory held data that changed constantly during gameplay, such as the positions of sprites on the screen, player scores, and the current game state. Once power was cut, all data in standard RAM was lost.

A crucial type of memory for player engagement was battery-backed CMOS RAM. This small amount of memory was powered by a small battery on the PCB. Its primary purpose was to save high scores and game settings after the machine was turned off. Without this battery backup, the high score table would reset to factory defaults every time the arcade closed for the night. Some later games also used this technology to save other settings, like difficulty levels. Another non-volatile method was EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) chips, which could be rewritten without a battery and were sometimes used for similar save functions. The combination of robust ROM for the game itself and specialized RAM for dynamic data and player progress defined the memory architecture of the classic arcade era.