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DoA Creator Says Online Is New Arcade
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to this interview with Dead Or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki at Gamespy. The discussion covers the forthcoming Ninja Gaiden, as well as the new Dead Or Alive Online title we've previously mentioned, but the most interesting part of the interview may be Itagaki's assertion that "When you look at arcade culture, it's pretty much dying. I feel that it needs to be replaced with something else, and that is online gaming. Online connects the homes around the nation to create an arcade-like experience without going to an arcade."
I think the big difference though, is the 'crowd'. Online gaming, it is you, and the people in the game with you, that are involved. And that's it.
The part of the arcade that was always so much fun, was the crowd. When you are standing in line with a dozen other folks at the Street Fighter machine. Everyone oohing and groaning at what happens on the machine. People talking about this player and that player, and what their strengths are. The comraderie that develops from that, etc.
You don't get that online. As why would you, there is no need to wait in line, everyone can play right now. But you lose that friendship/rivalry building.
Okay, perhaps the most interesting thing about DoA1 was the incredible, gravity defying bounce. And I'm not talking about the ring-out bounce. Although the other games had sweeter graphics, much sweeter, the zero-g breasts in the first game were pretty much the only reason to play. Will that be in the game? How about with enhanced graphics?
She kicks high.
Taking arcade machines and networking them? So when you put your quarter in... whoops sorry showing my age. Anyway when you put your dollar in, you play a game that is networked with several other arcades as well as some home users.
I better go patent this!
While it's true that you can find as many kids and other annoying people online, you get to choose. You don't have to play against someone just because they happen to be there and you don't have to listen to someone's inane prattle if you don't want to (yummy Xbox Live mute button). Plus, you don't have to be stuck waiting in line for a machine to open up since every machine - or every two machines for online - is it's own arcade box.
I agree that the internet is the new place for games. It will remain so until something else comes around and completely revolutionizes our world again. However, the arcade is making a comeback. If the popularity of DDR isn't enough for you just check out Time Crisis 3 and the new F-ZeroAC. Time Crisis 3 is perhaps the best gun game ever. F-Zero will provide connectivity between the soon to be release GameCube F-Zero game and the arcade one. The arcade still has a use. It is the place to play games with peripherals that you can't have at home. If companies started making more really great games with interesting peripherals, the arcades would be packed. If more people opened up arcades...
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I think there's some money to be made in opening up retro arcades. A step back in time for those of us who grew up in the video arcades of the 80's. You'd have mostly classic games, but some new ones to keep things interesting. Throw some 80's music on the speakers and set up a hot dog stand and you're in business. Anyone want to be my sponsor? I just need the funding...
Also, I think the future of arcade gaming has to do with VR. VR will start to hit the gaming scene again in the next few years. Since the equipment may be too expensive for home users, arcades will pop back up offering people the chance to play them.
And really, arcades aren't dead. Isn't an internet cafe almost like an arcade? Lots of people go there specifically to game. Especially in Asia.
arcades still rock big time. why?! for games that use "new" type of interface (DDR, Gun Games, motion sensors, etc.), there is NO WAY the online version would be better if the game needs a new interface.
true, DOA/SF2 has been standardized to hell... ever since the mid-90s... but there's still a hell lot of interfaces for games beyond keyboard/mice/PS2 controller (which is the ONE TRUE controller!) we're JUST getting interesting.
plus, trash talk rules so much more when the other guy is begging for "seconds"... (evil laugh)
IMHO, two major things have created the sorry state of arcade games these days: the tech arms race with home games, and Street Fighter 2.
Allow me to elaborate. Ever since way back, the arcade people have been threatened by the home. Why? Because they felt the experience they provided was fundamentally a technological one. When home systems began to rival the arcades in technology, the arcade companies got scared. So, they pushed the arms race, making their games bigger and more advanced, all the while pushing their prices to an outrageous limit. Some posts here already have mentioned games like DDR and Time Crisis. While, as games, those two are damn fine accomplishments, when you're an operator paying $20k for a game, it can't possibly earn its keep. Thus, arcade companies (like Midway, Sega, and Namco soon) have put themselves in the role of the Soviets, spending their way to their own extinction while missing the point completely.
Second, in the early 90's, a little game caught fire you might have heard of: Street Fighter 2. Before that point, you could hop into an arcade and it hadn't been bitten (as much) by the genre bug. Since Street Fighter 2, genres got firmly entrenched, and 95% of games are either fighting, driving, shooting, or sports. And when I say shooting, I mean games with a gun you hold.
Arcades *used* to be about the purity of play. A post here mentioned control, and that's an excellent point. Arcade games spent more time working on control because they could customize it. If you've played Robotron, Defender, Tempest, Spy Hunter, or Ridge Racer, you've seen this. Arcade games provided a better game experience by focusing on the game. Recently, the games have gotten caught in the same trap that home games have. Namely, that technology sells games, and that sequels and genres are the only way to go. The difference between home and arcade though, was that prices haven't skyrocketed (yet) for consumer prices. Arcade games did that, and everything fell away.
I personally think that there's still a viable market for games in social situations, and that there's a large crowd that remembers the days of the arcade and longs for that experience back. I myself still get goosebumps every time I see that sweeping shot of Flynn's arcade in Tron, remembering back to what the buzz in a crowded, loud arcade used to be like. I don't know if we'll ever get that experience back again, but if we do, the games won't be huge, expensive behemoths.
Arcades have traditionally been a distribution medium for new software, not a cultural medium facilitating communication. While there were cultures of PacMan, Super Mario Brothers, and Q-bert players, the games were very solitary in nature. The lone guy with a row of quarters playing space invaders is a perfect example of this. Games in those days were single-player affairs on jamma-compatible boards, utilizing a 4 position joystick and two or (gasp) three buttons. Because such hardware was so expensive to own personally, people needed to go to the arcades to have the best play experience, and to play a wider variety of games.
That is no longer the case.
During the NES / SNES period, arcade conversions were getting to be "good enough" that one didn't really need to go to the arcade to play excellent games. While the 2600 may have choked on Pac Man (and don't even bring up Q-bert), the Genesis could reasonably approximate NARC, and the SNES did a great job with Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles. It was during this time that arcades transitioned from distribution centers to competition centers, thanks in no small part to the phenomenon of fighting games. The 4-player TMNT: Turtles in Time and the 6-player X-Men were all hits in the arcade, as were a plethora of multiplayer shooting games, fighting games, and car racing games (polygons were an arcade-exclusive back then).
But that changed with the Voodoo 3dfx and the rise of the computer as a competitor to the console, as well as the coming of networked gaming. Not only were computers capable of delivering compelling realtime 3D to rival (though not, at the time, beat) arcade gaming, but it also could connect separate players to people across physical boundaries. At first this led to neighborhood games of Bolo, later to direct dial-up competitions, and finally to the remote multiplayer frag-fests and Massively Multiplayer Role Playing worlds we see today. The anonymous instant competition with strangers of similar skill levels previously provided by arcades is now available right at your desk. Likewise, the graphical advantage once held by arcade machines has eroded to nothingness... To reduce overhead the machines are based heavily on existing console and computer equipment, which in turn leads to low acquisition costs and very low porting expenses, but leaves little to differentiate the two platforms. Add in direct competition with rental industries, and you have very little reason to go to the arcade.
The arcade does remain, however, and with one last, best reason. Hardware. Light-gun games, dance mats, digital batting cages, etc are prohibitively expensive for the average person to afford, yet can provide fun and unique experiences. Likewise, they are intuitive enough to be picked up and used without instruction by the casual or incidental gamer, the kind that is not likely to have access to many other distribution options at home (consoles or up-to-date graphics cards).
Sadly, as a distribution medium the arcade is faltering badly, in no small part due to the inefficient economic model behind it. 'Core gamers often go to the arcade looking for the "latest and greatest" in entertainment, but find perhaps one or two first run games, with a smattering of older games they don't wish to play. This would be like a movie-goer wanting to see Die Another Day, but only being able to watch Tomorrow Never Dies because the movie house couldn't afford to buy a new reel of tape from the studios. Game distributers still sell boards to the arcade owners, who in turn try to recoup their investment from the gaming public. This is a very inefficient way of going about making the highest profit, as the distributers feed from the arcade owners, who (in their financially weakened state) attempt to feed upon the customers. But it is the customers who bring money into the system as a whole, and it is they whom both the producers and the providers should be focusing upon.
For example, a Capcom vs. SNK machine may lay dormant in an
The ______ Agenda
Somehow I doubt I'm the only one who feels there are certain, uh, advantages to playing DOA3 at home... with the curtains shut.. and the door locked Not sure I'd want to get THAT interactive at an arcade
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
A few weeks ago I went to an arcade for the first time in years... started playing Soul Caliber and a few other games, and before long I had blown ten bucks. I walked away from the arcade rather upset and disappointed in myself, not only losing most of the games I played but wallet now $10 lighter. Arcades are evil. I'd much rather continue paying $50 a year for my Xbox Live account than going to the arcade and going broke. Besides, the games in the arcade suck, anyways, and if you don't play a game anymore, you cant exactly trade in your spent arcade tokens for new ones, unlike an console game.
Insert clever one liner here.