Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day (2025)

-Written by Kyle Bain. 

Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day, a mouthful, a bit more convoluted than a title needs to be. However, it feels incredibly fitting of the film’s titular subject, Walter Day, an enigmatic and eccentric [quasi] recluse that has spent the majority of his life refereeing video game competitions and aspiring to be a musician. Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day dives deep into Walter’s history, analyzing more than just the what, but the why and the how of his existence. 

As seems to be the usual as of late, I’m on the outside looking in at this documentary–attempting to understand the appeal of what individuals being showcased are participating in. Walter is, again, an enigma–but not necessarily for the reasons one might think. Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day sees him effectively falling head over heels in love with gaming, with the idea of gaming-related competitions–and just as quickly transitioning to a place in culture that isn’t for the faint of heart. Music is not Walter’s forte, and yet he dives deep into it, willing to throw away everything that he’s gained throughout the years. I hate to defecate on someone’s dreams, but music just doesn’t feel like the right place for Walter. 

Furthermore, one of Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day’s primary focuses is Walter's venture through the world of video games, a world that has grown exponentially over the past eighty-plus years. While I get the cultural significance of esports, video games…whatever you’d like to call it, its history isn’t something that I’m particularly interested in learning about–at least not in long form. A twenty-minute podcast, a short film, or something similar could have sufficed when tackling the history of video games and their competitive nature. Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day does a bit too much in this regard, and the documentary lost me somewhere around the twenty-minute mark, only to reel me back in not long after. 

What it eventually boils down to in Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day is a story about Walter’s character, about the type of person that he was and continues to be. Referred to as someone incapable of lying, I’m not sure anyone could receive a more incredible compliment. Additionally, to put this compliment in perspective, the comment comes from Billy Mitchell, a video game record holder and seemingly pompous, arrogant individual. Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day spends an extended amount of time ensuring that viewers understand who Walter is beyond his accolades. His character becomes the primary focus of Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day–and while tidbits of legal issues, video game accolades, etc. play a role in developing this individual for viewers, it’s the focus itself that becomes so appealing to those viewers. 

With the video game and musical aspects of Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day, the documentary drones on for far too long. The legal aspects of Walter’s existence, as well as the study of his personal life and his character allow the film to remain grounded and accessible, however. With a lot of push and pull, Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day has moments of greatness and moments of failure. All in all, however, Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day is an interesting watch that highlights the struggles and successes of a man that I’d never heard of–but deserves a chance in the spotlight. 

Directed by Ed Cunningham. 

Written by Ed Cunningham, Paul Leach, Mike J. Nichols, & Mike Thompson. 

Starring Walter Day, Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, etc. 

6.5/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE