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Return of the Space Invaders
pashdown writes "Get your two-liter bottles of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtapes ready! In honor of the 25th Anniversary of Space Invaders, Taito has commissioned Namco to remake the classic arcade game. The only thing not nostalgic is the price, increased from one quarter to two." We had a sneak peek of this cabinet as a Slashdot Games story a couple of weeks back.
Great history of Space Invaders.
be realistic, people. This game is 25 years old. You can play it on one of those joysticks you plug directly into your TV that costs $20. Who the HELL is going to pay 50 cents to play this thing. I haven't been in an arcade in a couple years. Does EVERYTHING cost 50 cents? Are there just no quarter games left? Is nostalgia really that powerful? I wasn't old enough to have any quarters the first time around. This is space invaders 25th anniversary and i just had my 24th. Maybe I'm young and dumb. Come on. 50 cents? Anyone?
HO
I've missed this game! You used to only be able to play it in small-town pizza shops anymore. I wouldn't mind owning one myself...it would make a great conversation piece for the livingroom.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
Not to mention, they want 50 cents a game! -- Jacob
two-liter bottles of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtapes
wow, and back then I though I was a loser...
Personally, I wish they'd reissue MK2 -- I kick *ass* when I'm playing on one of the cabinets. Nobody beatin' me when I'm driving Baraka....
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Why don't they bring out the classic video game that everybody loved-- Custer's Revenge!
What's surprised me is that I can often get in a quick arcade fix at the local quickie mart or laundromat for a quarter. Sure, anything reasonably new will be 50c, but a single quarter gets me as much fun as it did in 1985.
Wouldn't that be roughly the equivalent of playing Pac-Man for a 1980's dime?
As for this game, are they still planning to package it with QIX? That's one of the old school games I miss. That and my favorite game of all time, Mr. Do!. If anyone knows where a working Mr. Do! is within 100 miles of Dallas, lemme know and I'm there with a roll of quarters!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
"Taito aims to sell 10,000 of the standalone game machines at $2,772 a unit." At first I thought 'there's no way people would be willing to pay so much for a game', but then I realized that the intended market for the game is nostalgic baby boomers with a lot of disposible income... I'd bet they do end up selling out. I only hope that a few make it to the local arcades - it would be so much better than that Dance Dance Crap.
Although the game itself will not change, inflation has taken its toll. One play will now cost 50 cents, compared with 25 cents a generation ago.
Speaking from an outsiders standpoint, don't arcade games today let you set how much it costs to play? Not to say I wouldn't use it for 50 cents, but why mess with a classic?
this baby better be showing in 256 colors!
Get your two-liter bottles of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtapes ready
moron and Rush Limbaugh was not on the radio then either MORON
Note that the provide no Screen caps, so it will probably the exact same game that gets boring after 2 minutes, just like every other ROM you loved as a kid.
Do yourself a favor, stay away, keep the memories of your youth pristine and unmolested. Do not be a George Lucas.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Old video games just don't have the same appeal as they used to.
Coin-op is a dying breed. Arcades (the few that exist) are all moving towards dollar-a-pop big games that provide more of an "experience" than a "game" (like sitting in a jet-fighter cockpit or race-car that moves as you turn).
I can't see that many people would want to spend $.50 to play Space Invaders. Maybe once for the nostalgic value, but after that?
Fifty cents is too much. I'd toss a handful of quarters at it for twenty-five cents a play, but the nostalgia thing only goes so far. ...unless, of course, it's Asteroids. I'd play that game for hours -- at $0.25 a go, of course.
If there was demand for it, it would have been remade, and I haven't seen space invaders in an arcade for 10 years. The only arcade games to be remade and be successful are Mrs. Pacman and Galaga, most of which fell apart after 20 years, with the survivors suffering from horrible screen burn. Some games that used to be ubiquitous, like TMNT and Mortal Kombat II, are now becoming increasingly scarce, but will probably not be remade just because they were popular in the contemporary sense only.
2,772 divided by .50 is 5544. That means each system will have to be played 5544 times to just *break even*. Quick, boring fad gone in 5, 4, 3, 2, ...
Heh, I'll just just go back to playing my 2600 Space Invaders I got, for, um, $10 bucks (including console).
-Sean
From article:
Taito aims to sell 10,000 of the standalone game machines at $2,772 a unit.
That is a bit expensive if all you're looking for is nostalgia since you can buy the original for $1295 or maybe off e-bay for $369 (current bid at time of comment).
that seems like a lot for such an old game, I mean why would a play something my old vodoo 3 could play... (right out of my brothers mouth...kids thease days)
As discussed here , there was a trick with the original game that allowed for ultra high scores. Basically it involved timing the shots at the bonus flying saucer, to maximise 300 points whenever possible.
;)
I found out about this trick as I met Mr Furrer through work just recently. Basically many a night was wasted in The Bombshelter at Waterloo University (Ontario, Canada) playing that game before he gleamed on the pattern. Last he knew, he had the world record for Space Invaders.
Now he's a J2EE programmer working on Weblogic platforms. Unfortunately playing Space Invaders never turned into a full time career for him.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
I'm going to rest now. My work here is done.
40 megs is all my first harddrive held, so I will only download 40megs of mp3s today.
These double game re-releases (Galaga/Pacman, Centipede/Missle Command, Space Invaders/Qix) are really pretty lame, they always cost significantly more than buying the two original machines themselves! Granted they're marginally easier to maintain and take up half the space, but really, is that worth $1000+ to you? I would bet they get less in revenue as well -- if an arcade game costs 50 cents I'll usually only play 1-3 games, but when it's only a quarter I tend to pump at least a few bucks into it (if it's a good game like Galaga).
I picked up a non-working Mr. Do! a couple of years back, was gonna do the MAME cabinet thing but never found the space to put the cab.
:). The speaker was unplugged, so the guy I got it from just assumed it was busted. I finally managed to cobble together a cable to interface into an old Tandy RGB monitor. So instead of a nice 19" screen, I play on a sad 9" screen :(
As it turns out, the only thing wrong with the game was that the monitor was blown (and no, I'm not up to re-capping it, thanks
I've been debating looking into the cheap LCD monitors you can get for PSX/GC/XBOX, and basically making the world's stupidest gameboy. The original Mr. Do! board fits almost perfectly into a standard sized briefcase, so it would be a fun luggable to show off.
Anyone know if any of these screens can accept straight RGB inputs? Or are they composite/s-video only?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
My favorite from the old days was Tempest.
I was not co-ordinated enough for Astroids and I really never played Space Invaders much.
I also liked Bagman.
--ken
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Space Invaders is an old, old game and definitely looks it. I'm sure their target demographic are the people who grew up playing this and want to relieve a little bit of nostalgia for old times sake. And those of us old enough to be in this demographic are certainly not hurting for money so 50c is pretty much the same as 25c to us. I'm not going to squabble over a few cents, for chrissake. We just want to relive how we felt in the days when we played videogames in arcades, listened to Journey and got raging hardons everytime Jodi Jackson walked by our desk in 8th grade algebra class. If I gotta pay 50c for that experience, big fuckin' deal! Besides, it's not like we're going to play it over and over all night long. We'll just play it once or twice, laugh, and then get back to drinking with our friends. 50c is a big increase over 25c to kids but I'm sure they wouldn't really be interested in Space Invaders anyhow. They'd probably just laugh at the graphics and repetitive sound effects and say "That's something my dad would have played!" -- and they'd be right!
As for Qix, I'm simply direct you to my earlier post. That game really rocked. Big time.
GMD
watch this
Not the actual price depending on your location. Most modern(post 1990?) coin op games have some sort of pricing setting in the service menu and can be set as high as 8 coins, whatever coin you may use. Whether it be a quarter, nickel, or loonie.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Haha! Oh, you anonymous cowards, what will you think of next?
are they still planning to package it with QIX?
Why would they package Space Invaders with an Etch-a-Sketch?
my favorite game of all time, Mr. Do!
Isn't that game just "heavily inspired" by Dig Dug?
Get your two-liter bottles of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtapes ready!
Why would I want to listen Rush Limbaugh? I would rather have some of his good drugs while I am playing the game.
Space Invaders reminds me of a time, a time that seems perfect to me.
For me, I was a youngster in NYC in late 70's thru early 80's. Penn Station was my playground. They had all the videogames you could think of down there. They even had those old football games with the rollers that you had to smack at with the palm of your hand, which would inevitably get pinched by rolling too far and falling into the small crevice next to the ball.
All games were 25 cents. All of them.
The Penn Station arcades are no longer there. It doesn't seem the same to me.
A NYC slice of pizza and a water down soda, invariably from one of the 50 "Original Rays" would sustain me for hours of game playing. The grease would run down your arm...but you didn't care. It was all about the game. Even now, the smell of a NYC slice takes me back to that time.
Most pizzerias back then had a couple of game machines. Most do not these days.
I remember a small videogame place named Simon's on 8th avenue between 17th and 18th st., if I remember correctly. I'd walk there from JHS 70 and play pacman and asteroids and missile command for hours. I'll never forget the time this guy was playing and left 50 cents in the game for me to play as he left. He was my hero that evening.
It's no longer there. Some hip new eatery has long ago replaced it.
But Space Invaders was my firs love. How I loved that game. Beautiful in its simplicity. When I run into a machine, I have to play at least one game. No matter where I am. It brings me back to fun days. Days not longed by worries about job and mortgages and terrorism. Kids need those days.
I hope this release of a classic will give kids of today memories like I have.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
it would be so much better than that Dance Dance Crap.
DDR == "crap"? You're just jealous because you have two left feet.
This site has versions of Pacman and Space Invaders which run inside an Excel spreadsheet.
You would think that the red and green celophane would screw up the appearance of Qix....
a fool and his money...oh whatever.
And you shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain like that.
A remake of space invaders is like a remake of Tolkein ... its been knocked off so many times unofficially, what in god's name would be the point of paying someone to knock it off?
I think it is going to be hard to sell 10,000 units of a 25 year old video game. There may still be a bit of a market in Japan, but the coin-op market in the US is pretty much dead.
About the only place left in the US that video games still make a buck are family entertainment centers (FEC). In recient years, the trend in FECs has been toward simulators and games with LARGE screens. back in the 80's a 15" screen was the standard. Now-a-days, most cabinets have at least a 22" monitor.
The sad part of this is that pinball machines got nixed in the process. Midway shutdown there operation in 1999, and the only company realy pouring money into it these days is Sega.
If it weren't for MAME and Visual Pinball, a lot of the old games would be forever lost, or locked away in some companies code vault.
The band, that is. Never really cared for them.
"Hi, come on in!"
"Hey what's that thing?"
"Oh this, it's my Space Invaders cabinet. Isn't it awesome to behold?"
"Uh, yeah. Neat. How much was it?"
"I got one used for around 500 bucks and it only took around 350 man hours to refinish."
"That's...um, great."
"Did you want to have a game?"
"No...thanks. Um, where can I sit?"
"We have to sit in the kitchen."
"I should get going."
ewwww Rush? Why would you want to ruin the game experience with Rush? :)
webmaster shirts and more
MAME don't cost shit.
Spread the RC luvin'
Sure, while everyone's complaining about the $0.50 price tag per game, only one other person (so far) has mentioned the actual sales cost of the console -- $2,772(!!)
Considering the game itself can be played on a cpu less powerful than that in today's cell phones or children's toys, a 20" TV can be had for $69.99, the rest of the cabinet is particle board and laminate, and there are no incremental R&D costs to amortize, why the hell are they charging so much?
Given the state of arcades in the US, I think they'd sell more if they charged $699 (still a robbery) and went after the niche of geeks wanting one in their living rooms.
This is ridiculous.
Parents always complained about the place, as parents are want to do. Not that anything ever went down there. The owners were parents themsevles and wanted to make sure it was just a fun place to hang out.
Long story short the mall they were located in got tired of hearing parental complaints so they forced them out by jacking up the stall price quarter after quarter after quarter until it got too pricy. About a year after it left, the mall sold the stall and the one next to it to a Fun Factory.
Now, the place is all lit up, bright and shiny, and costs three to four times as much for each game. There a couple of guys who stand behind the counter and occasionally play a game or two, but it is now home to a few mall rat gangs and has had more fights break out in the last couple of years over high scores than the old place ever did in its lifetime.
Wiggum: Aw, yeah. That was a pretty addictive video game.
Willy: Video game?
-Tom
Are you implying that there's something *wrong* with all-Rush mix tapes?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
From Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part Two:
Willy: I'm telling ye, I could nay have shot Burns.
[uncrosses, then recrosses, his legs; everyone groans]
Eddie: [cocking pistol] This is your last warning about that.
Willy: It's impossible for me to fire a pistol. If you'll check me medical records, you'll see I have a cripplin' arthritis in me index fingerrrs. Look at 'em! [holds them up] I got it from "Space Invaders" in 1977.
Wiggum: Aw, yeah. That was a pretty addictive video game.
Willy: [surprised] Video game?
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Watch, as I fire upwards through our own shield!
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Sure -- when he can manage to get his dick out of Shepherd Smith's asshole.
Wow, imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Scitne aliquis remedium potimum crapulae?
The 80s are coming back full force, it's expected that the games that helped shape the 80s and the whole game industry would make a small retro comeback. Hell I still boot up the old Atari 2600 so I can use a large orange box with a sword to kill a dragon that looks like a duck on crack...
This is no different than your crazy neighbor spending his life savings on restoring a Ford Edsel (and I swear that is a toilet seat not a grill)! People like nostalgia, remoinds them of times when things were simple and fun.
Don't you mean...
The sad part of this is that pinball machines got nixed in the process. Williams (the maker of Bally tables) shutdown their operation in 1999, and the only company realy pouring money into it these days is Stern. (who inherited the Data East/Sega legacy)
Those who complain about affect & effect on
If it was about authenticity and having the "real deal" then surely people will buy the originals from eBay rather than the re-released version.
Im still sure though, that would they have released it on bigger scale, with a lower price to buy it, they would prolly be making an equal ammount of money, ifnot make Space Invaders even more legendary
As a poor gamedesign and development student , i DO love the game, but i find it a ridicilous ammount to pay that it goes for.
One day though... One day... *muhahahahaha**
Now that's just sad.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You are correct, It was Williams. My memory must be slipping in my old age....
At my favorite bar there is a Namco Class of 82' machine that has both Ms. PacMan and Galaga on it. Costs 25 cents a game. Personally, I think Galaga owns Space Invaders, but granted, it came out a few years later. But 50 cents a game? Whatever. No one is going to pay that to play Space Invaders when they can pay the same amount to play the "What 5 things are different in these 2 pictures of this naked woman game." It just doesn't add up. 25 cents is a lot more resonable, and I bet you'd get more than twice the quarters to make up for it. The people who would spend 50 cents in the first place are definatly going to spend that same amount on 2 games, and everyone else will be more apt to put money in when they wouldn't before. Thankfully, I think most machines have controls for setting the price, either through flipping a dip, or in software. (FREE PLAY Baby!!)
On a side note, with the demise of the local arcade in the past few years, where is the market for the machines anyway? Bars? Laundrymats?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
So irritating watching that crap. Those clowns couldn't really dance if their lives depended on it.
Blar.
See also the Space Invaders wall art at ThinkGeek -- you get individual "sprites" which you can stick on your wall to arrange a life-size screenshot :). (My only concern is whether the images might leave an adhesive residue after they're removed.)
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
I wonder how long it'll take until somebody ports MAME to this platform - so we can finally play Space Invaders on it.
Oh, wait...
np: Monolake - Tetris (Momentum)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
I know it deserves respect as one of the earliest, but the game was very weak compared to most of its close successors. I never found it engaging, even when it was almost the only option.
Some years later, an arcade in my hometown had a Space Invaders machine running for free. No one touched it. I think I played a couple of games and got bored... I can't help thinking the same fate will follow this venture. Sounds like something no sane arcade owner would buy... more of an executive toy.
Now Donkey Kong, Centipede, Tempest... any of those I would pick up and play with some interest.
There are several classic arcade machines being made today in "anniversary editions" They usually contain more than one classic game. There is a Pacman-Ms. Pacman-Galga cabinet. There is a Centipede-Millipede-Missle Command cabinet.
m
Also, there are Multigame Cabinets that include dozens of classic arcade games, like the Ultracade and the new Arcade Legends.
Also you can buy cabinets that use the old CPUs but are in new cabinets with new monitors. They also can come with several games in one.
A dealer who I have good experiences with has a page that shows all of these machines.
http://www.homegameroom.com/catalog/newvideo.ht
I think something is seriusly wrong with there math. On the face of it, it seems fine. $0.25 in 1978 (year Space Invaders was released) dollars comes to $0.74 in 2003 dollars. In other words, $0.50 actually represents a price cut of about 1/3. Not bad...except for one thing.
While prices overall have roughly trippled since 1978, prices of computers, electronics - almost everything that uses transistors, in fact - have plummeted. The hardware to run Space Invaders wasn't far off cutting edge in 1978, and it was *EXPENSIVE* (hey, it ran at a whole 2 Mhz!). The price of $0.25 was as high as it was because the operators needed to pay off the purchase price. On the other hand, the hardware needed to play Space Invaders is cheap. Hell, a $8 embedded microtroller has enough grunt to do it. With hardware costs so low, I'd expect a MUCH lower cost to play, not just 1/3 lower.
Incidentally, I note it's now selling for $2,772. Anyone know what the cabinet cost when new? I'm wondering how big a price drop that represents...
You're obviously a subject-matter expert at the insertion of peni into ani.
Hmm, let's see.
1. Re-release ancient games that have been ROM ripped and emulated to the millionth degree just to show that you still have the rights to produce it
2. Grossly overcharge to set a baseline cost from which to calculate how much you're going to get when you...
3. Sue ROM traders gangland RIAA-style
4. Profit!
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Nobody remembers the "Anthology of Interest II" episode, where Fry defeats the space invaders?
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I personally welcome our returning overlords of the 80's
nothing.can.stop.me.now
Does he listen to Rush while his penis is in Smith's asshole? If so, Rush the band or Rush the flaming hypocrite drug addict?
If you're anywhere near New England and like classic arcade games, check out Fun Spot in New Hampshire. When I worked in Boston I used to go up there once a year with friends just to revel in old school arcade. http://www.funspotnh.com/
The second segment of "Anthology of Interest II" referred to in the post was quite possibly the best 10 minutes of TV, ever. What kind of world do we live in when a show that great gets cancelled?
this
The point you are missing though is that your are not paying to play a game. You are paying for a slice of nostalgia.
You didn't play Space Invaders in college, therefore you Aren't The Target Demographic, you young whippersnapper.
Finally a quote from my favorite scene in the entire Futurama run!
Leela: Invaders! Possibly from space!
[Cut to: Outside Lrrr's Ship. He opens a window and pokes his head out.]
Lrrr: People of Earth, I am Lrrr of the planet Nintendu 64. Tremble in fear at our three different kinds of ships!
[Cut to: Outside Planet Express.]
Fry: Alright, its Saturday night. I have no date, a two litre bottle of Shasta, and my all Rush mix tape! Let's rock!
[Scene: Player's Ship. Fry stands at an arcade console listening to Rush's Tom Sawyer (editors comment: YES!). He uses the console to control his ship and attack the Space Invaders. He shoots and destroys a few ships.]
[Cut to: Lrrr's Ship.]
Nd-Nd: We're losing ships sir. What are your orders?
Lrrr: Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!
[And they do.]
[Cut to: Player's Ship. Fry gulps down some Shasta.]
Fry: I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve. Watch as I fire up through our own shields.
[Everyone gasps.]
Bender: He's a madman! A madman!!
[Fry fires up through the shield and destroys several more ships.]
Guess you had to be there....
...and to think I thought had scared them away for good during their previous attack wave!!! Got... to... save... planet...
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I was near invincible as Raiden in I and II
I am planning on building my own arcade machine over christmas. Me and my girlfriend are going to slave away in the garage whilst it's freezing cold outside, cutting, sawing and glueing. In the end we should have a cabinet to be proud of! I already have retro joysticks, buttons and my MAME linux box and monitor :-)
Bored? http://www.dodgybloke.co.uk
Arcades appear to be completely immune from any amount of economic reasoning. I almost never see anybody in them and all the good games you can't play at home cost a buck to play. I tried some weird beat game, cost a buck, put it on the easiest difficulty and the controls were so awkward that I immediately lost. Had it cost 25 cents instead of a buck, I probably would have tried it quite a few more times until I got the hang of it, but a buck per play? There was absolutely no way that was going to happen, it was just a total joke.
25 cents just feels pyschologically like something you can blow on what might only be a minute or two of entertainment. 50 cents for pacman, street fighter, and the basics? Its nuts. $1 for 2 minutes of brief entertainment and a 'You lose' means -zero- repeat business.
I'd love to put virtually a whole arcade on 25 cents for a couple weeks and put a fat "95% of games 25 cents!" sign out front and see what happens. They do so terribly now, what do they have to lose?
http://barcode.melbourneaustralia.com.au/
Barcode is at the forefront of interactive entertainment by housing the latest and greatest arcade & pinball machines in the world. Barcode, the ultimate Hi-Tech experience, totally unique because it's actually a 'Game Bar', the first of its kind to be fully licensed.
Whether you like the old-skool uprights and pinball machines, the latest ride-on simulators and multi-player racers, or simply a game of pool over a drink.
As well as being licensed to thrill! The decor is sublime, sleek and streamlined, designed to maximise the great space of 10,000 square feet. It's easy to find your way to any of the 80 computer and table games, which include some of the most incredible virtual reality games to be seen. It's all at Bar Code. Games like Daytona and Final Furlong.
At the centre of it all is the ultra cool cocktail bar, perfect for a relaxing drink before exploring the games, or for interactive games of the social kind. Bar Code is totally wild, breaking all the rules to make its own code for the future.
Barcode is constantly updating its games and keeps up with the global scene. Some of Barcodes current games include Daytona, Vampyre Night, Star Wars Pod Racer, Final Furlong, Austin Powers and Payboy.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I must admit to having a lot of fun with this version
Took it over to my parent's house, had a hard time getting my dad to stop playing it (we used to stay up late playing this on the Atari 2600 "Santa" brought me as a kid - found out later that "Santa had spent two weeks before Christmas "testing" the system before he left it under the tree...)
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
22-14. If you don't know what this means, you're not a Space Invader fan.
... as soon as they let me use half-dollar coins.
Yeah, we have those. We call them "Dave and Buster's", "Jillian's", and a few other regional chains. My old home town even had a home-grown sports-bar/arcade chain going. Here in Raleigh, I've only seen a Jillian's.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
Does anybody remember the early 80s cable TV intermission that was loosely based on Space Invaders and Defender? What was it called and can I download it someplace? Just to jog some memories, it had a live actor with animated Space Invader type of characters with a flying Anubis type of enemy with Defender type of sound effects.
Thank You.
A lot of aracades where I live have specials (usually on evenings in the middle of the week, when business is slow). The way they work is you pay an entry fee of a few dollars, but all games (ALL) inside are then free and you can play whatever you want for a few hours.
Costs about the same as renting a DVD for the evening, and it's a lot of fun - particularly because you can try games you wouldn't normally play for fear it wouldn't be worth the money.
I've always wondered why more arcades don't do that - it's a business model that actually sounds like it could compete with consoles and PCs.
I will reject that out of principle. I recall when I saw the first game that ever that asked for 50 cents. It was Pops arcade in downtown Minneapolis. That place had all the newest games- always! The game was Hard Drivin'. Nostalgia be damned, I will NOT pay 50 cents for it now. Space invaders will not be getting 50 cents from me. Ever.
Dirty arcade running whores - 50 cents is the rule rather than the exception now, and frankly - they've lost out on zillions of $$$ from me.
Back in the day, 50 cents denoted a game that was amazing, ahead of its time, incredibly realistic. Now it's a ripoff. 50 cents for Mortal Kombat? For Golden Ax? For the gahdamn SIMPSONS? WTF are you thinking??
Qix, on the other hand, is worth 70 dollars a game.
I've seen the 2L bottles used as sink bongs. Cut the bottom off a 2L bottle, ditch the cap. Fill sink with water. Put the bottle into the water to just below the cap. Put a loaded bowl of some kind into the opening (the slide from a Graphix works well). Light the bowl, and pull the bottle slowly out of the water until it's almost, but not quite, out of the water. Pull the bowl out of the bottle, put mouth over opening and *slam* the bottle back into the water.
If you do it right, it only takes about 2-3 of these to get completely staggered. And usually by the third, everyone's gotten kind of wet from splashing the water. It's an amusing way to spend about an hour. Or so I'm told.
You need a tabletop/cocktail version, then! You can enjoy your frozen pizza, beer, or whathaveyou.
(I wanna pop, pop! I wanna - Shas-ta!)
... from The Simpsons:
Willie: ''...I have crippling arthritis in my index fingers. I got it in 1979 from Space Invaders.''
Wiggum: ''That was a very addictive video game.''
Willie: ''Video game?''
Think Geek has a cool way of reenacting your favorite moments from Space Invaders on your office wall. And here's their action shot.
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
I hope these things have wheel-chair accessible ramps to serve their clientele.
classicgaming.com's article on the new Space Invaders/QIX machine mentioned the possibility that the game contained at least one secret inclusion, along the lines of Pac-Man in the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 20 Year Reunion machines. Intreguingly, one of the possible names dropped was Zoo Keeper.
Zoo Keeper!!
Not the recent interesting, yet simplistic, web-based Flash Zoo Keeper, which is better known these days and is a completely different game. Zoo Keeper was released in 1983 and thus didn't get much of a chance in the marketplace before the big crash hit. It's been the game I've gotten the most out of in MAME lately.
There are three kinds of levels in the game. The "main" levels involve moving around the outside of a big brick cage in order to try to keep animals in. Movement is restricted to the outside, and in fact it's like running along the outside of a very small, rectangular brick planet. Wherever Zeke (your protagonist) walks, bricks are laid on the inside layer of the cage. Jumping Zeke is a little faster, and he can control his direction in mid-air, but he leaves no bricks while he walks.
Inside the wall emerges a number of animals, a few when the level starts and more and more as it continues. They bounce around the inside and eat bricks they hit. If one of them gets trapped inside a wall (almost impossible to avoid many times) they start bouncing wildly and eat a trail through the bricks. If one gets out, it's orientation switches to the same "surface of a small brick planet" perspective as Zeke's, and it starts running around the cage in the direction taking it away from Zeke. This is surprisingly important to coming up with a good strategy, which involves getting as many animals running in the same direction as possible.
Zeke's jumps cover a lot of distance, and every animal he jumps over in one bound increases the points earned. Jumping over more animals earns more points. When whole menageries start traipsing around the outside of the cage it becomes possible, though very difficult, to leap over ten or more animals as once. The scoring goes like, 100 - 500 - 2,000 - 6,000, then roughly doubling for each additional animal travelled over during that jump. It's possible to earn up to a million points on one jump!
Each cage level is basically a test of survival. There's a "fuse" at the top of the screen with bonus items scattered along it. When the fuse reaches an item, it appears somewhere on the surface of the cage. Some of these items are nets, one per level at first but with more once the game starts reaching epic difficulties, that make Zeke invulnerable and allow him to send animals back into the cage. When the fuse reaches the "END" box at the right edge of the screen the level is complete, and any animals still in the interior of the cage earn bonus points. Lions, which are usually very fast, are by far worth the most points, between 30,000 and 60,000 each.
One of the other levels is an interesting Frogger/Donkey Kong cross level in which Zeke must work his way upwards through a sea of moving, floating platforms to rescue his girlfriend Zelda (no relation to you-know-who, though she looks a little similar to Big-Z's original NES incarnation), while avoiding a bunch of highly annoying coconuts thrown bouncing around the platforms by a smal monkey. The last kind of level requires the player to jump over lines of animals and small cages (which must be completely cleared, and not run into the side of) in order to reach Zelda at the top of a series of floors. These levels are very challenging to a new player, but once mastered are not much trouble. The player gets an extra life when he finishes one of these.
Scoring in this game is very interesting. It's very difficult to earn much more than 3,000 points in the first level, yet my highest score on default difficulty is almost 500,000. There is little reason here to milk early levels for points, because their scoring opportunities are so limited when compared to lat
Actually, my correction's part of the commentary. The pinball market imploded in a very messy fashion, with consolidations and selloffs.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
The hardware cost, or any production/delivery cost, is merely a constraint in calculating the price. The most important rule in price is "what the market will bear", when profit is the motive. The cost of a Space Invaders arcade kiosk is merely the lowest possible price, ignoring "loss leader" subsidies for marketing strategy. The first amount to consider in pricing is "replacement cost" to the purchaser. Covered at least by a trademark on its name, copyrights on its appearance, and patents on its technology, Taito has a monopoly on the "Space Invaders" market. So they can charge whatever they want, until consumers replace their Space Invaders purchases with something else, like that rusty old Breakout machine in the corner, whose quarter slot still requires only one coin. In geek terms, it's like being fooled into looking for the Lowest Common Denominator, when the operative variable is the Greatest Common Factor.
The monopoly on consumer choices that accompanies technology cost deflation comes from PTO monopolies. People expect that since they can buy the parts cheaper, they can buy the integrated service cheaper, because their own cost to build it would be cheaper. But they're ignoring the cost of the marketing, in the right place at the right time for the right people, that makes a brand instance synonymous with a product class. And of course nobody's sophisticated enough to include the costs borne by the market when it chose a brand winner for that identification with a product. In a perfectly free market, all those costs would be factored into the price through the simpler universal law of "supply and demand". But the artificial PTO monopolies garner advantages to their owners upfront, while perpetuating market distortions down the line.
With the modern rage for IP perpetuity, the market fabric will become unsustainably snarled. Every Space Defender knows it's less costly to shoot invaders if you wait for point-blank, though it's perilous. Well, shooting Invaders is at a bargain price of 5E-14 US GDP now - it used to cost over 11.5E-14 US GDP the first time around. But if they get too close, there aren't enough quarters in the world to keep that "whump whump whump" sound playing just for you.
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make install -not war