The concept of a formal, player-created alliance, as seen in modern online games, is largely foreign to classic arcade machines. Their hardware and design philosophy were built for immediacy and simplicity, not persistent social structures. However, alliances did exist in an emergent, informal sense, primarily facilitated through two key methods: cooperative gameplay mechanics and shared objectives.

The most direct way arcade machines supported alliances was through built-in cooperative modes. Games like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time" or "The Simpsons" allowed two to four players to play simultaneously. The game's programming inherently treated these players as a team, with shared lives or a collective health pool in some cases. The alliance was not player-created but machine-mandated; the system handled it by having players share a common goal (defeat the boss) and a common resource (the continue counter). The machine managed this alliance by tracking a single score for the entire team, preventing internal competition and fostering a unified front against the game's challenges.

In competitive games, player-created alliances were purely social and unsupported by the game's code. In a fighting game like "Street Fighter II," two players could verbally agree to "team up" against a third. However, the arcade machine itself remained oblivious to this pact. It continued to process inputs from each joystick independently, with the gameplay logic strictly adhering to a free-for-all or 1-vs-1 structure. The "alliance" would last only as long as the players honored their word, as the machine provided no tools to enforce or recognize it. The moment one player betrayed the other, the game seamlessly continued the match without any technical interruption.

The technical limitations of arcade hardware also played a significant role. There was no infrastructure for persistent data, user profiles, or communication between cabinets. An alliance could not be saved, named, or carry over to a future gaming session. Any pact was temporary, lasting only for the duration of a single credit. The primary shared objective that the machine itself recognized was often the high score list. Players could form an implicit alliance to help one another achieve a higher collective score, but the machine would still record the individual's initials, not the group's.

Ultimately, arcade machines handled player-created alliances not through complex programming, but through simple, shared game states. The alliance was a social layer superimposed on the machine's rigid rules. The system managed these emergent teams by providing a common enemy and a common goal, with the technical handling being a byproduct of cooperative game design rather than a specific "alliance system" as we understand it today.