How important can a domain be while optimizing sites for search engines? arcade-game-site.com will generally rank better than arcadespot.com for the keyphrase 'arcade game site'. What do you concentrate on why registering a domain, how good it is for SEO or how good it look and feel.
All things equal, arcade-game-site.com would 'probably' rank better but I don't think it's that important in this case. arcadespot.com is semantically relevant and similar, and I think it's a better domain. Multiple hyphens aren't that great.
Not necessarily. It all depends on how many backlinks each site gets with the anchor words "arcade game site" and also the weight of the pages where those links are found. Having an optimized name does not necessarily mean that you'll rank higher. There are other factors.
You can search for this answer. It's been asked many times. Short answer, yes. Your domain name is very important. However, lots of people will disagree. But I don't care about them, they're wrong.
arcadespot is very catchy and will be remembered easier by your members.....remember, the search engines are not your only source of traffic, viral, word of mouth ect....with the long url, there is more change of a typing error and they might get to one of your competitors sites instead of yours.