State of the U.S. Arcade Industry 2004

Gamaroo writes "1up.com has posted an article on arcade game machines, the loss of the profit margin and the future of the industry. In their words: "There was a time when an arcade operator in America could buy a Ms. Pac-Man machine for less than $1,000, let it sit in an arcade, bar or storefront, and see that game make back over 30 times the initial investment. In 2004, that kind of profit margin is little more than a pipe dream.""

Comments

My Dream....

[Anonymous Coward]

My Dream of always wanting to own an arcade is still existant, even if I barely make money. I remember spending hours a day because my parents both worked after school was done. I ruled at SF2, which I believe has caused me to be the genius that I am today, along with decent hand-eye coordination.

Re:My Dream....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with both of your points. First, I too would like to own an arcade. Actually, more than JUST an arcade, more of a 70's-80's nostalgic joint. Imagine D&B with a simpler feel. Cheap pizza, good music (Pat Benitar ROCKS! :-)), table top Asteroids, a gallery of old PLAYABLE home systems. Basically, my dream basement hang-out I drew when I was 9 years old (1983).

And as for hand-eye coordination, I learned the mechanics or driving a stick on Atari's "Hard Drivin'" when I was 15-16 years old. My parents tried the game, agreed it was somewhat realistic, and after watching me play, agreed I could try learning a stick for real on their new turbo RX-7.

Nothing can substitute real world practice, but my parents and I credit the game for helping me internalize the motions and mechanics of driving a stick. Sure, I had to adapt the motions, but I didn't have to think about the complex (for most folks when first learning a stick) sequence of events.

Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[garcia]

The fact is, players need to practice titles like Virtua Fighter to be any good at them, because games today are more complex than ever. Some titles -- specifically fighting games -- can even be overbearing for players, as these games demand a significant amount of time and money for a player to learn the gameplay intricacies.

Exactly, you can sit down at Arkanoid, Centipede, Ms. Pacman, etc (the "old-school" arcade games) and immediately grasp 90% of the necessary game play. With newer games such as just about every fighting game after Mortal Kombat and racing games you need to A) sink $1.00+ into the machine to even play, B) read instructions on how to just do the most basic of moves, and C) you get about 3 minutes of playing time almost regardless of your previous skills with similar games.

Golden Tee (which they don't seem to mention by name) has been taking off because it is absolutely addictive and it is ALL over the place. My group of friends used to play GT two or three times a day, every day. We were ok, nothing super spectacular (-20 or so), but we had fun doing it. Try sinking $12.00 into a racecar game and playing with four friends and that $12.00 is gone in less than 5 minutes, at least 18 holes of Golden Tee takes almost an hour...

The home market I suppose has something to do with it. It happens to be driving the industry into making these super flashy games that they think will compete... They don't because of the never-ending costs. A $50 console game will allow you to play forever. $50.00 will give you 10 to 20 games of some random Racecar X 2054! arcade game.

I'll stick to the old-school games and Golden Tee, at least I get my money's worth and actually enjoy the time spent playing.

Cut down the prices to 25 cents again or make the games have better game play. That's what I think will work.

Recently, hole in the wall arcades have started to be replaced by bigger entertainment centers like GameWorks and Dave & Busters.

While these two places serve their purpose they aren't exactly what I would consider something I would prefer over "hole-in-the-wall" arcades. They are basically overpriced bars with a lot of arcade games for adults. Sure they have a lot of titles and they have the old-school games (up and out of the way usually) but they are more into serving food/drinks than they are about charging reasonable prices for the games. I am sure they make plenty money w/o having to overcharge for the games, yet they do. So instead of going out and blowing $5.00 on games you blow well over $50 + food/drinks. Bring back the old-school arcades!

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Tran]

Dave and Busters also seems to have as many if not more gambling type games as video games. Which I also think is an indicator on the lack of viability of the arcade video games as things stand now.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

With regards to fighting games, don't forget that other factor that drives would-be gamers away from the arcades: the Fighting Game Master.

You probably remember him as the guy who seemed to live in the arcade and was always playing the cool new game that you really wanted to try out. Eventually, you'd get up the nerve to challenge him, but he somehow selected a secret character that wasn't available from the main screen, and proceeded to unleash every special attack under the sun to dispose of you in about three seconds. Then, he looked over, sneered, and let forth a sarcastic "good game."

I know the Fighting Game Master personally drove me out of the arcade and to the home consoles.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Japan, they still have arcades all over the place, and they are full of people. I really miss Japn (that being one of the resons). Also what happened to all the arcades in the malls here in the US?

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Rkane]

You're taking me back to the good old days!

I can remember standing in an arcade with 10-15 eager young kids with quarters lined up at the bottom of the screen to play "Killer Instinct." The introduction of "fatalities" in Mortal Kombat and other such games was a huge draw. It became a form of domination and a way for us scrawny guys to actually put someone to shame.

Back in the day, however, it wasn't common for you to "accidentally" stumble upon a combo that suddenly did 30-40% damage. Nowadays, games are getting so hard that combos sometimes require 10+ button presses to execute.

It's a tough equilibrium to maintain- making games hard enough to keep people interested, yet make them easy enough that people won't get bored after 30 seconds (have you played the new Soul Caliber?)

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[yacineparis.com]

Yes... Often, in modern video games, the winner is the player who can press the buttons the fastest. I get my video games in librairies in Algeria, 0.3 $ (cracked).
Here in France they cost 60$ +, and everyone buys them anyway.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[kyoko21]

Grrr... Dave & Busters blow. Places like that is like an unglorified Las Vegas wannabe.

Old school arcades in the corner 7-11 is where it was at. People just standing around the old Street Fighter and get their groove on. "Watch, learn, and be entertained" as I smack you with my four fierce combo. Muhahahahah :-)

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Threni]

> I know the Fighting Game Master personally drove me out of the arcade and to the
> home consoles.

The secret move you're looking for here is to remove your hands from the joystick, form a fist and punch the nerdy fucker square in the face. Then you can have a fair, balanced game with your friends.

This special move seems to work on all hand to hand combat games.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Joseph Vigneau]

I completely agree. Nowadays, the only way arcade machines get my quarters are if they are "old-school" (childhood nostalgia value, from the golden age of arcades: Pac Man, Tempest, Galaga, Robotron 2084, etc.), or Golden Tee. Home console gaming lets me play my games on my terms when I want to. Arcades these days are full of genres I generally don't care for: driving (cars, boats, snowmobiles) or fighting games, which are three minute multi-button mash-fests.

As the article alludes to, the only way the arcade industry has any hope in the US is to add the online element, and especially a way to have the player feel like they are actually competitive within the game. There's no point to have a player ranking system where there's just no possible way I'll ever be better than 2324th place. A tiered system would really help to get the player more involved. I know I'd play a lot more if it got me from 24th place to 9th place, than if it got me from 2320th place to 1387th.

So, 25c machines with simple, yet addictive gameplay, and online action for more complex games are necessary for the arcade to survive beyond 2010.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[proj_2501]

You do that and the nerdy vietnamese kid's 50 buddies show up and beat the shit out of you.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[rworne]

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in Los Angeles the city is trying their very best to not issue necessary permits and drive these places out of business.

Dave and Buster's wanted to open up a place in the city and later bailed out because of the city insiting on a "conditional use permit" that would allow the city to revoke the permit for any reason (or no reason) 6 months or so after the permit was issued. D&B wanted to sink millions into the building they were considering converting into a restaurant. Instead they went elsewhere. Now of I want to go to a D&B I have to drive to Orange County or Ontario.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember sitting in an arcade while my parents went shopping, I'd have money say $10 and would love to play the games there. Games of Frogger, Rampage, etc.. cost 20c and I could play for the hole hour or so. There were lots of other kids around me, and we were all 'playing together'. Then the newer games game along, fancy 'teenage mutant ninja turtles' and the like, they cost $1 and the other games had been jacked up to 3x20c .. suddenly my time in the arcade was shortened. I would spend the time, looking at the machines.. too expensive for me and most other kids to spend our idle time on. Some kids left. I left. The atmosphere was gone. There where some kids of course but they had, 'new' money, and would spend it have a quick game and leave. The gaming industry tried to follow the consoles with these fancy new games, but the consoles still had their inherit advantages of being 'free' to use, and at home, (or the friends house). When the social culture of going to the arcade changed, came the end of the 'profit'. Arcades started doing, SUPER sessions, where you had free games for parties and such, these were great, the atmosphere was there again. But not for 3x20c. And not for the 'cash cards' the 'hope you won't notice you're money going away' cards.

Bring back CHEAP idle time games for kids, and you'll have that stable revenue again. IF there's that social atmosphere, and not one of disapointment.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Bendebecker]

I agree with you: the old school arcades rocked. There was nothing like standing in a dark smoky room with the sounds of video war being raged all around you. The real reason those places began to collapse though is not just becuase the games got more complex (any RPG beyond Cadash would never work in an aracde) but also becuase the atmosphere of those hole-in-the-wall arcades changed. You have a bunch of teenagers running around a darkened room, their pockets filled with cash. You just knew crime would become a problem and it did. The arcades began to be populated by gangs and older kids who would steal the cash off the littler kids. Arcades became a place were children should be afraid to enter. That's what led to the rise of the family arcade places (which were no fun for teenagers.) That's what probably hurt the arcades most - they became dangerous. Then gradually as the NES and the consoles began to not only match but outdo any game you'd find in the arcades (during the atari era the console games were cheesy compared to the arcades), people could no longer justify putting $50 in machines when they could just buy the carts. So one by one the places shutdown. The only thing keeping the arcade business running now, I bet, is the children who can't afford a console, the supermarket arcade machines (play video games while I shop), and the arcades that try to recapture the feel of what the arcades were in our youths (i.e. nostalgia).

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[PMAvers]

Indeed, Soul Calibur's a good thing to bring up when we talk about fighting games.

I believe the Soul Calibur line's a great example of a good arcade fighting game, since everyone can play it. It's perfectly possible to play through it by just button-mashing, but it's also possible to learn how the moves system works. You can do a lot of rather cool moves by just using the basic "push in a direction and hit a button" method. Of course, it's harder for random button mashers to compete with people who know what the moves do, but it's still possible to win.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[RegalBegal]

just call INS...

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[carn1fex]

Yea i remember that kid. He dominated Joust, and when i was like 8 years old or something i played him. He said "they call me Master Blaster".. ahh still the funniest thing ever.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[proj_2501]

It's not supposed to be funny. You think getting beat up by 50 kids sounds like fun?

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's going to be new D&B near Los Angeles by late this year. It'll be located in Arcadia (there's also Santa Anita race track) right next to Pasadena.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[PKugler]

With regards to /.ing, don't forget that other factor that drives would-be posters away from the boards: The post-whore master.

You probably remember him as the guy who seemed to live on slashdot, and was always posting the cool funny posts that you really wanted to post. Eventually, you'd get up the nerve to post before him, but he somehow deletes your post before you even post it!

I know the post-whore master personally drove me out of ./ and onto the other forums.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[shirai]

I was with my girlfriend at the time and one of these virtua fighter type games was hooked up to the big screen. I wanted to try it out but there were a group of about five of these virtua fighter masters sitting around, playing, smoking and basically owning the virtua fighter joint. I had never played before.

So finally these guys aren't playing and I play against my girlfriend and I beat her. So I start the beginner rounds with the computer with basically NO IDEA what I am doing when one of the masters challenges me.

I can't play and my GF is saying get him and jump on him after he's on the ground. Well, I was just screaming back, "I don't know how! I don't know what I'm doing!"

Embarassingly for them, I beat him and the next three or four of the virtua fighter masters, all the while screaming, "I don't know HOW to jump on him when he's on the ground!" which was a basic move that I saw EVERYBODY doing after the victim had fallen.

I was finally beaten by one of the guys but they looked pretty pissed being beaten by a first time player who didn't even know how to do a kneee bash on a fallen victim. It goes down as one of my favorite moments in arcade history.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[zaffir]

You hit the nail on the head with the cost problem.

I hardly ever go to the arcade, simply because i can't afford it. I love the atmosphere, it's tons of fun to play with friends, but nobody wants to blow $20 for playing for an hour or two.

The only game i am willing to pay $1.00/game on is F355 Challenge because it is such a great game. I love it. But i still have to limit how much i spend on it. And the initial investment in that machine is tremendous - i the machines are all well over $10,000 new. The arcade will probably never make that money back.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Stiletto]

Then you had some pretty rude "masters". I was in the MK2/3 crowd and got pretty good (not the best in town but close) and basically, when a newbie player would step up and challenge we'd be graceful. Offering to let the guy win one out of 3 rounds, and allowing the rounds to last the full 60 seconds before beating them so we both got the maximum amount of time at the machine. Seemed to be allright with most of them and there were no fist fights or anything!

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[SonOfThor]

I remember when I turned 14, and I found out that the local arcade that I had loved so much from ages 9-11 was also THE place to pick up drugs. Every friday night, every drug imaginable (to a 14yo anyhow) was available at the arcade if you knew who the 'players' were... My fist hash, my first acid, my first scam, my first illegal duty-free cigarettes, all at that arcade. Ah the good old days..

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[DraKKon]

I remember years ago at hte 7-11near my house.. my friends and I would sink literally hundreds of dollars into SF2 fighting each other and the game itself.. beating it with 1 quarter.. with each different character... playing pinball when we were not playing sf2... good times..

then one weekend, we showed up and the games were gone. The owner, Kevin, said the home office said to pull ALL arcade games from EVERY 7-11.. Naturally, he did it, but was BITTER. He was getting a lot of coin from those machines.. that was the last day I have gone to 7-11..

I still want to buy a SF2 for my home.. and someday I will... and Samuria Showdown 2.. badass..

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Dun Malg]

There's going to be new D&B near Los Angeles by late this year. It'll be located in Arcadia (there's also Santa Anita race track) right next to Pasadena.

Dude, Los Angeles City is HUGE. Orange county and Ontario already qualify as "near Los Angeles", but unless you live at the outer edge of the city, anything outside is too damn far.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Pope]

But did he also rule Bartertown?

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[enjo13]

This hits the nail squarely on the head. When every game costs me at least a buck to play, I look at it for a second and just go home. Why sink 20 bucks into an hour of gaming when I can get all of the time I want on my console/pc/whatever at home?

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

or san diego

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[NanoGator]

"Back in the day, however, it wasn't common for you to "accidentally" stumble upon a combo that suddenly did 30-40% damage."

Man, that was always quite a sight. That's the closest I've ever come to understanding how a football fan feels during a game.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[edbarrett]

any RPG beyond Cadash would never work in an aracde

As someone who's only ever beaten Cadash on my (ex-)TurboExpress (man I miss that machine), does anyone know if the last boss *really* says "He who is the strongest survives, or don't you know the teachings of Carl Sagan?"

The closest I've gotten to proving that wrong is This google search that reminds me it was translated by Working Designs, so I have no problem saying that was their work.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[jdeitch]

Back then, I was the technician that was unpacking and setting up that Killer Instinct.

I distinctly remember wheeling the box into the store and within 30 minutes, the "grapevine" had gone out concerning its arrival.

The kids were sitting on the ground, encircling the work area, as I unpacked and setup that game.

They were playing it the second it initialized after first powerup (I never even got a chance to run diagnostics) as I was still standing on the top of the game, after plugging it into the ceiling outlet.

This was at 7:30 in the evening. By close at 11:00, that game had pulled in almost $500.

- JD

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. If you left out that part about having a GF I might have believed you.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[LineNoiz]

I used to be that punk who could whomp just about anyone at fighting games. I got into a few fights over it too... I learned early on that if the person I was playing could beat me up (there were a lot of Polynesians in the area. Those dudes could whomp a gorilla.) - let him win.

Personally, what drove me out of the arcade was the fact that in EVERY arcade some 75% of the machines featured something broken - anything from a stuck button to a controller that wouldn't move in a certain direction. That, coupled with the rise in cost, was very annoying. Sink in a dollar (which at the time was like 10% of my weekly income) only to find out that I can't block because the goddamn controller doesn't work.

I would still be spending oodles of money at arcades if the damn things were maintained properly.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to move to good ole redneck Ohio. If you aren't black or white and try that shit you'll get summarily whacked.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[jandrese]

Your 7-11 still has arcade machines? I don't think I've seen a machine in a 7-11 for years now. Where do you live?

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Tofino]

Why don't you play it on a MAME emulator and find out? I don't remember that from the arcade version, though, and my brother and I beat it several times.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[cfuse]

A) sink $1.00+ into the machine to even play, B) read instructions on how to just do the most basic of moves, and C) you get about 3 minutes of playing time almost regardless of your previous skills with similar games.

1. Insert coins
2. Waggle joystick dementedly
3. Laugh at results
4. Repeat as required

I always do this, because I am a total spastic.

The last time I did this was on a fighting game - it was weird.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Jenova]

SF2 comes close, you could throw your (screen)opponents for some ungodly damage.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[IsItWashable]

I too was routinely humiliated as a child - now I get great satifaction from annihilating Tiger Woods on my X-box...

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Beating up is the dickens though!

I love watching pre-teens bounce through a plate glass window. It's a reaffirmation of everything that I old dear-- namely that I'm bigger than they are.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of cource there is the "Ignorant Master"

The moron that doesn't know that you putting a quarter on the plexiglass and thinks your being a nice guy and you want him to beat the game using your money.

This has happened to me twice.

Both times it took more than 4 guys to pull me off the schmuck.

Then there is the "New CHallenger"

The guy that puts his quarter and presses the player 2 button when you have M.Bison down to like 2% and you have gotten perfects on every single fighter.

Again 4 guys to pull me offa him

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[0xfc]

It always seems the one who brags will never do what he says.

nerdy fucker you say? you mean all of slashdot?

you remind me of childish people i went to high school with. Your joke especially. I dont understand why you got modded funny for play ground humor.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the Fighting Game Master personally drove me out of the arcade and to the home consoles.

A similar "fighting game master" got me back into arcade gaming!

Graduatin' collage, marriage, kids, etc... forced my gaming into the 10pm-1am timeslot all by myself. My fighting game skills atrophied as I focused on thinking man games (read: slower reflexes) like MGS, GTA:3/VC, etc.

While arriving for Matrix Revolutions 2 hours early (hey, I haven't totally lost the inner geek) I see some kidz duking it out on some Teken variant. I expertly slide some quarters into the "I'm up next" position at the bottom of the screen. (Yet another piece of gaming ettique I had to explain to my wife -when will she ever get it all!?)

The local game master thrashed some other kid who limped away with broken dreams. I was up! I fought valiantly, but slow. And I had forgotton all the special moves from years ago (plus, many of them had been modified). I lost. That's okay, I had stacked TWO sets of quarters so it was MY turn AGAIN! Take that you lamers!

Aha! Ling Xiaoyu! I think I know a couple of her moves! Round 1: I'm thrashed. Round 2: It's coming back to me, just like riding a bike. Close, but I WIN! Round 3: Hooooyaaa baby, here it comes: storming flower, windmills, phoenix combos! "Ling Xiaoyu wins".

The game master walks away in shame, nursing his bruised ego along the way. Well, strolls back to his 18y/o hottie girlfriend with a Britney outfit I probably shouldn't look at too long. Damn kids! Where were those chicks when I was in school! Anyways, I remained king of the mountain through another 5 punks.

Finally, making sure I went out on top, I simply stopped playing and let one of the kids finish up my game. Ahhhhhh the perfect gaming exit: an un-beaten champion!

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[G-funk]

Hey! I was that kid! I was poor tho, so I wasn't playing for hours. It was always good to be one of the few white guys who could beat the local asians at street fighter :-)

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[MegaFur]

Perhaps they were not as masterful as they thought they were. Just knowing all the moves is not, by itself, mastery.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[coopaq]

You do that and the nerdy vietnamese kid's 50 buddies show up and beat the shit out of you.

just call INS...

But you are in Vietnam. Is the INS gonna save you?

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

It only takes about 20-30 minute drive to reach Pasadena from downtown LA on non-rush hour traffic. Take the 101.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Man...you just brought back some funny memories for me.

When Mortal Kombat came out in arcades, my friends and I would play in a video store and tried to elevate our skills before hitting the big leagues at Cook's, a "hole in the wall" arcade in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

We heard often about a mysterious character named Luka. When my friend Anthony got really good with Raiden, the kids at the video store would hiss, "Oh, wait till you play Luka. Luka knows ALL the moves, and he will kick your ass."

Sure enough, as fate would have it, we ran into Luka and his posse one day at Cook's when we decided to play hookie from school.

And Luka kicked our asses in MK, to the delight of his entourage.

Ah...the only thing that was missing was a girl who would fall for the winner and some cheesy 80s metal songs for the sound track.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Dun Malg]

It only takes about 20-30 minute drive to reach Pasadena from downtown LA on non-rush hour traffic. Take the 101.

But nobody lives downtown, and when is it not rush hour on the 101 over the hill? I live 20-30 minutes from orange county via the 405 in "non rush hour traffic", but since I never have to go there at 3am on a sunday, it takes me at least 45 minutes. Driving an hour to Arcadia to play video games is a waste of effort anyway. I can get drunk and play games at home.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Wolfrider]

--I agree, you don't want to whup them so bad that they don't wanna play no more. If it's 3 rounds and I'm playing against someone I don't know, I'll usually let them beat me 1 or 2 rounds -- or even it up till the "last round" -- and then rally back. That way they don't feel like it's a rout.

--Recommended viewing: Rounders.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0128442/
http: //hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=66& reviewer=38

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[edunbar93]

and proceeded to unleash every special attack under the sun to dispose of you in about three seconds.

Oh, so you have played Counterstrike...

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[squaretorus]

With newer games such as just about every fighting game after Mortal Kombat and racing games you need to A) sink $1.00+ into the machine to even play, B) read instructions on how to just do the most basic of moves, and C) you get about 3 minutes of playing time almost regardless of your previous skills with similar games.

The last time I went to a reasonably big arcade (about 12 months ago) was the first time for years. An hour in I found that I'd spent over 75 (whats that - 180 dollars with the fucked up exchange rate just now) on some mediocre games which I SUCKED at.

I then asked the spotty change dude if there was a corner full of shit old metal slug machines and spent the following hour having WAY more fun for just 15.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[kyoko21]

The 7-11 in Va Beach where I grew up down the street from my parents house still has an arcade... crappy one though. I think it's mostly cops playing because everytime I come home to visit, it's always has at least 2 patrol cars hanging outside. (I'm also a hokie) *gobble gobble*

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[qoa]

Omaha Nebraska has a nice arcade gaming scene. Street Fighter is where most of the non-dance game action is at now days though.

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Zangief]

When I started to play Street Fighter Zero 2, there was a Fighting Game Master (in fact, a group of them) who kicked my ass, and the ass of all my friends.

I played when he was not around, and eventually (I mean a year here) was able to drive him and his group out of sfz2 (but towards other machines, kof97/98 and tekken mainly).

For some time, I basically dominated the sfz2 machine (with the character that gives me my username), until I had not the time to keep playing. I was, for a time, the FGM...

This sound like some dark story of power and corruption, but also sounds like some behaviour from chimps, gorillas, or some other animal :(

Re:Bring back old-school arcades/games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Broken controls. I live in an inner city neighborhood where there are a bunch of laundremats on the corner near my apartment. Each of the 'mats has a bunch of old videogames. Cheesy fighting games from before the release of Street Fighter 2. I think one of the games is Brawl Brothers which ain't bad. The games are only a quarter to play. The problem is that they are so poorly maintained that almost all of them have something broken on them.

Rightly So

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

The door has swung the other direction. As a child, I wasn't the richest kid in town, and I didn't play arcade games much. It was a quarter a pop, and if you aren't much good (which you can't be without experience) your quarter doesn't last long.

I remember quite vividly getting my first nintendo, and how amazing it seemed that I could play Duck Hunt for half an hour with no line, and no quarters.

Why go back?

Re:Rightly So

[kevin_ka]

Why go back?

Having arcade games in Bars is fun that's why. You can combine drinking and playing (i.e. winner buys the next drinks). This is the reasen why our dorm bar has a Mame Box with lots of old games set up.
But Mame just dosen't give you the same feeling as one of those old machines.

Re:Rightly So

[Mattcelt]

I don't know, I sort of miss the old arcades. It seems that unless you go to the beach (where all they have is crappy old games, sometimes not even pacman) or to some malls, there's no place to play more than one or two games. (I.e., there are only one or two cabinets to choose from.)

What's worse is that the price for cabinets has gone through the roof. In 1989 you could buy a used Ms. Pac Man for less than $400. Lately I haven't seen one for less than $1500. The revival in their popularity has driven the price up substantially. It irks me too that the combination Ms. Pac Man/Galaga machines now charge .50 per play - why is it double the price to play an old game??

I liked the old arcades (as opposed to home consoles) because 1) they didn't cost $50 for a game you might not like; 2) when you finished one, you weren't stuck with a used game you won't play again; 3) the arcades tended to rotate their stock every couple of weeks, so there was always a new game to play; and 4) there was almost always someone new to play against. You just don't get the same diversity with consoles.

Re:Rightly So

[Benw5483]

In addition to this, there is also the appeal of playing the arcade games with custom setups that you couldn't imagine having in your home and would be much too expensive to realize for home consoles. Games like Daytona with the hydraulic car and the Skateboarding game with the board that you moved to do tricks.

I personally enjoyed the rafting game that came out a few years back where two friends could sit down and work their arms into a frenzy trying to paddle out of a whirlpool. It was insane fun even if it did cost a buck, and you can't recreate that at home no matter how hard you try. That's where appeal is being created. You constantly see the new machines with features that they know can't be recreated at home and are appealing enough to bring people back.

And then there's DDR, which is now available at home but people play that in arcades simply to show off their skill to everybody there or meet new challengers.

Re:Rightly So

[Phillip Birmingham]

What's worse is that the price for cabinets has gone through the roof. In 1989 you could buy a used Ms. Pac Man for less than $400. Lately I haven't seen one for less than $1500. The revival in their popularity has driven the price up substantially.

It irks me too that the combination Ms. Pac Man/Galaga machines now charge .50 per play - why is it double the price to play an old game??

Hmm, I wonder. Could the two be somehow connected?

Re:Rightly So

[pfguy]

Winner buys the next drinks? What kind of crazy system is that?

Re:Rightly So

[Chris Pimlott]

It irks me too that the combination Ms. Pac Man/Galaga machines now charge .50 per play - why is it double the price to play an old game??

I don't know; maybe inflation? Ms. Pac-Man came out in 1981, over 20 years ago. With inflation, 50 cents is nearly spot on the same price.

Re:Rightly So

[edrugtrader]

personally i like the "talk to girls" game at bars much more than video games.

winner gets pussy. can't compete with that.

Re:Rightly So

[Anonymous Coward]

Having arcade games in Bars is fun that's why. You can combine drinking and playing

Hell, just add automatic weapons to the mix and have some REAL fun!

This is exactly why we need

[kurosawdust]

Celebrity endorsements! Thats just the ticket to get the arcade industry back! Anyone up for a game of "Danza Danza Revolution"?

Re:This is exactly why we need

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Danza Danza Revolution

Just the mention of that name makes me shudder...
Uh~h~h~h~h

Re:This is exactly why we need

[RufusFish]

I can just imagine getting a really good 'score' during one of these games and a cheezy head pops out accompanied by 'Who's the Boss?! Who IS THE BOSS?!'

Re:This is exactly why we need

[tommck]

mmm... Alyssa Milano...

Re:This is exactly why we need

[nicedream]

Then when you lose.....

"a-o, o-a..try again"

Re:This is exactly why we need

[kaellinn18]

Insightful?? WTF?? Who are you people?!?

Re:This is exactly why we need

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to know this big fat guy whose hands were so big that he could wrap his palm around your skull the way that a normal person wraps their hand around a golf ball. He was huge. Then he fried his brain by smoking crack everyday for a couple years. After he fried his brain he was always really quiet. Then every once in a while, when all was quiet, for no apparant reason he would just say "Tony fuckin Danza."

I don't know what was going on in his head but I really think that he didn't like Tony Danza for some reason. Anyways, your comment just made me think of that forgotten part of my past.

Re:This is exactly why we need

[Gothic_Walrus]

Ironically enough, the parent to this topic was modded as "Insightful" as well...

Re:This is exactly why we need

[SmittyTheBold]

>>Insightful?? WTF?? Who are you people?!?

>Ironically enough, the parent to this topic was modded as "Insightful" as well...

Instead of "fair" and "unfair," we need a way to meta-mod the moderation as "funny."

Games are expensive now...

[192939495969798999]

First of all, games cost more now because the systems are more complicated. If you could make 30 times the current investment back on some of the more expensive games now, it would amount to over $100k. Second, Pac-Man is arguably one of the greatest games ever created in terms of popularity. Hence the reason the "game" icon on /. is what else, but Pac-Man himself. How much has Tetris made? A ton. Is there still room for profit? Yes. Does every game generate the type of profit that Pac-Man or Tetris did/does? NO!

Re:Games are expensive now...

[ackthpt]

Oh, sure, there's a market. The laundromat I do my clothes at has had the same video machines in there for 3+ years. There's about 1hr of waiting, assuming you don't go somewhere and risk someone stealing your clothes or dumping them in a basket because you didn't get back in time. Nothing fancy, just toss in a Pacman or Asteroids and you've got quarters coming in. I drew the line back when they upped the ante to 50 cents a game. Charge me a quarter and I'll play a few games. Charge me 50 cents and I won't play any. Got it?

Re:Games are expensive now...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a matter of how much these games cost to play.

Quarters seemed easy enough to cough up, even though you don't even notice you played 3-8 dollars worth of games.

But games nowadays, you see that it costs 1dollar to 3 bucks to play. Some arcades try to stop you from thinking about the price by having a card scheme; pay 5 bucks for a card, and get 5 dollars with of gaming.

It's easier to let a coin go than a buck.

Re:Games are expensive now...

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, games cost more now because the systems are more complicated.

Greater complicity isn't driving the cost of arcade games up. Most of them aren't less technically advanced as a PSX2, which costs $200.

Re:Games are expensive now...

[gmhowell]

First of all, games cost more now because the systems are more complicated.

Yup, just like my Pentium IV laptop costs more than my Apple //e did. Oh, wait, no it didn't. Particularly with fighting games, development costs are relatively nil these days. You don't need to mock up controllers and cabinets, just slap in another JAMMA board and call it a day.

Profit loss...

[DecimalThree]

I remember back in the day when I'd drop a few buckets of quaters at the arcade. I could probably retire if I had all those quarters back! Now with the increase in technology and such "large" games being condensed to compact disks one would almost think that arcades "should" be obsolete. The future of the industry has changed because the technology has changed. Much in the same way the courier business had to change it's entire model in the 80's due to the big boom of fax machines. While the arcade business may independantly suffer a loss it is the end consumer reaping the benefits. That is one of the things that makes technology so wonderful.

Re:Profit loss...

[garcia]

Do you really enjoy sitting at home learning a game by yourself? I don't. The simple reason for this is that by watching someone else play (in an arcade or at least in person) I learn something new that I probably would not have figured out in any short order.

Golden Tee is a perfect example. You learn all the trick shots, shortcuts, methods, etc, by watching some random guy just kick the shit out of the machine. He might not know what you know and he learns from you back.

It's unlikely that you and your small group of friends will know everything there is to know like the rest of the world does.

It gets you out of the house. You might be surrounded by other geeks but at least they are likely to be different people than you are used to.

Why must video game playing be so solitary?

Re:Profit loss...

[DecimalThree]

RTFM

Re:Profit loss...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't aware that every single aspect of every game was available in the manual. Wow, newer video games must be lamer than hell.

Re:Profit loss...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's not in the manual is on the 'net. What better way is there to 'learn' from someone else than to pull up a site with every special move possible on it?

Re:Profit loss...

[cardshark2001]

Golden Tee is a perfect example. You learn all the trick shots, shortcuts, methods, etc, by watching some random guy just kick the shit out of the machine. He might not know what you know and he learns from you back.

Golden tee is also a good example of what is wrong with arcades today. The Golden Tee 2003 machine has the same crappy graphics that weren't all that great five years ago, but in this day and age are completely archaic. Compare it to Tiger Woods 2004, and I really don't see how you can plunk down money for Golden Tee.

Gameplay matters too, of course, but when gameplay is roughly the same, and an arcade game has 2600 looking graphics, and your home system has state-of-the-art graphics, you just stay home.

Re:Profit loss...

[88NoSoup4U88]

I agree with you all the way, but you overlook consoles and their internet compatibility nowadays (with PS2 and XBox that is , at least). I learnt alot from watching other players on-line, but i gotta admit that it rocks alot to just ask to the guy doing the grueling moves, how he did it :)

Re:Profit loss...

[YaRness]

Why must video game playing be so solitary?

it doesn't always have to be, but a big draw for a lot of video games is immersion. it'd be hard to get immersed in something like splinter cell at a chuck e. cheese.

Re:Profit loss...

[garcia]

Wow, this is "Insightful"? Hmm, no, it's really not. Golden Tee (now at 2004 BTW) has graphics that suit the game just fine. Although, honestly, I am far less interested in seeing a game that looks realistic and one that plays realistically...

Re:Profit loss...

[Fjord]

GameFAQS.com

Re:Profit loss...

[mushroom blue]

You see, the arcades tried to go the route of "hyper-realistic graphics" quite a few times in the past with games like "Mad Dog McCree", and "Holosseum". they tanked horribly, as the niche market those games tried to fill was horribly small. games with great visuals generally cost far more to produce, and to purchase. A system that would support the level of graphic detail Tiger Woods 2004 would require is far more expensive than the Golden Tee hardware. admittedly you could just put a high-end PC in the machine, but that'd add another $2,500 to the cost of the unit.

But I think the biggest mistake you're making is thinking that great graphics mean more profitable games. Golden Tee is an amazingly addictive game, and when stuck in a bowling alley or bar, will pay for itself within a very short time. stick a Virtua Fighter 4 or Tekken 4 machine in the same location, it'd take four times as long to make the same amount of money.

Besides, you put a Tiger Woods 2004 machine in an arcade setting, very few people are going to play it, as the tempo of the game crawls compared to a Golden Tee game. the GT series is just a better game in the setting.

Re:Profit loss...

[slagheap]

Project Gotham Racing 2 on X-Box (X-Box Live) is great because you CAN see what the other players do from the comfort of your own couch.

In any of the single player events, you can download a ghost of any of the top ten players worldwide at that event. You can then watch the ghost, or race against it.

It's great seeing how people can accumulate 50,000+ kudos in one race... or millions of kudos if they "cheat".

Slagheap

Re:Profit loss...

[cardshark2001]

A system that would support the level of graphic detail Tiger Woods 2004 would require is far more expensive than the Golden Tee hardware.

Are you saying a PS2 is more expensive than the Golden Tee hardware?

The PS2 version of TWG has enormously better graphics than Golden Tee.

Re:Profit loss...

[mushroom blue]

the arcade JAMMA hardware that uses the PS2 is much more expensive than the Golden Tee hardware. so yes. yes I am.

The ability to play at home changes everything...

[bc90021]

...why, after a long day's work, would I then want to go somewhere else to pay money (two quarters at a time) to play video games? Granted, the arcade may be more social, but if I can pay Counter-Strike online from the comfort of my own home, for an initial fee (the purchase price of the game), it's just a better deal than pumping in quarters in for limited replay value.

There is only one reason for arcades now

[DarkFencer]

There is only one reason for arcades now. Games that require special peripherals beyond keyboard/mouse/gamepad. They could be basic driving games, or they could be things such as Dancing Pads for DDR.

I may drop a quarter now and then to play a good racing game in an arcade. I'm not going to drop a hundred bucks for a steering wheel/gear shift/pedal set for my PC/console.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[Eccles]

I may drop a quarter now and then to play a good racing game in an arcade. I'm not going to drop a hundred bucks for a steering wheel/gear shift/pedal set for my PC/console.

Especially for consoles. If you get a good one for the PC, it may last a long time. But if you get one for a console, it may not work for the next generation of that console, and almost certainly won't work with other consoles.

The consoles do have the advantage, however, that the input device almost certainly works properly with the racing games for that system; I can't say the same for PC controllers.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[bwalling]

There is only one reason for arcades now. Games that require special peripherals beyond keyboard/mouse/gamepad. They could be basic driving games, or they could be things such as Dancing Pads for DDR.

I may drop a quarter now and then to play a good racing game in an arcade. I'm not going to drop a hundred bucks for a steering wheel/gear shift/pedal set for my PC/console.

The problem is that those "special peripherals" cause the game to be $1.00 a pop. Many of the games are timed, so a poorly skilled player is paying $1.00/minute to play the game. I bought a DDR mat on eBay for $20 and the game for $20. My wife and I have probably played 500 games on it.

I'm not paying $1.00 a pop to learn to play a game. They're too damn complicated to be paying to learn it. There wasn't much to learn in Pac-Man or Galaga, and you definitely didn't have to waste a bunch of quarters to find out that up-down-fire-fire-jump would do a super ninja roundhouse, where up-down-fire-jump or any other combination will just get you killed.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one reason for arcades now. Games that require special peripherals beyond keyboard/mouse/gamepad.

That is it exactly. I'm reminded of James Cameron's comment on movie theaters. They have a similiar problem in that theaters are facing stiff competition with home theater / DVD / amazing flatscreen HDTV systems.

His view was that theaters need to offer an experience that cannot be duplicated easily at home to lure more people to theaters. His suggestion was that 3D films would be that atraction.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[Jacer]

or $300 for a good set of the DDR pads. Even splitting the cost with my room mates stretched us a bit thin.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[jjshoe]

When you can purchase a metal dance pad for DDR and lose some weight playing non-stop at home i would have to say that ddr is a bad example :) I do agree however especially when it comes to things like flight simulators or racing games. The quality of the equipment is usually significantly better at the arcade places.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[cens0r]

Depends on the console. The playstation 2 uses USB for it's wheel and pedal setup. And the same logitech setup works on the computer as well.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[Anonymous Coward]

About dance pads...

If you bought a $20 mat and a $20 copy of DDR and have played 500 games on it, then, and I mean no offense by this, chances are you're not that sophisticated of a player. A $20 mat will simply not survive the tougher songs at the tougher difficulty levels, and a $20 copy of the game probably doesn't even have those songs in the first place.

To really get an arcade equivalent experience of DDR you pretty much have to shell out $100+ for metal pads. They're a bitch to carry around, too.

Re:There is only one reason for arcades now

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a DDR mat on eBay for $20 and the game for $20. My wife and I have probably played 500 games on it.

I'll just bet your downstairs neighbors love you to pieces!

Will Eat Dots For Food

[ackthpt]

Who didn't see this coming? While I have some issues with "quality" of games at home (mostly because few are original ideas), they now have the graphics and sound I went to the arcade for, even when I had a plethora at home. Playing over networks (whether mud or NSnipes) was exciting in its infancy, and had the same issues the online player has now (campers, noobs, thugs, spoilers), but short of a Game Cafe approach (which would be great in airports, BTW) I can't see where these companies and products had much of a future. That they planned poorly says something about their business acumen. (1. Start Company, 2. Collect Huge Salaries, 3. ...the medium advances..., 4. Profit?)

I'm still happy with mining all the old 8bit games, though, so I can't get too worked up about the current state of games (most bore me just looking at the box, "Oh, another FPS") and haven't bought a game box in years. Longing for the golden years of games I've been working on some game builder ideas and maybe they'll amount to something in the coming months.

There'll always be a tender spot in my heart for the hundreds of bucks I spent at Alladin's Castle, back in the day, and some of those really cool games, but most of them are available on collection CD's for $10 now. All that's missing is the atmosphere and that's unlikely to be coming back in any form, let alone a living room.

Re:Will Eat Dots For Food

[AntonyBartlett]

but short of a Game Cafe approach (which would be great in airports, BTW)

Really? How many planes do you want to miss? ;-)

Re:Will Eat Dots For Food

[Anonymous Coward]

The chain or the one in Parmatown Mall, suburban Cleveland? I still love that place they have fast PCs setup with good netpipes and hold conterstike tourneys

Triumph

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, where are you holding the wedding wedding reception? What arcade?"

Re:Triumph

[Thud457]

Dammit, they said "What happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas"!!!!

Re:The ability to play at home changes everything.

[El]

Granted, the arcade may be more social If hanging out with rude, pimply faced pre-teens, drug dealers, and pedophile's is your cup of tea...

What's needed now.

[Moderation abuser]

Realtime UAV control.

OK, so it's a bit pricey at the moment but on the bright side, you get to shoot real people while flying over trouble spots and it'll hone the military skills of thousands of teens ready for the big world domination push.

Re:What's needed now.

[WormholeFiend]

Ender's Game?

I remeber those days

[MajorDick]

My dad owned a small vending company, just him and my uncle, they even picked a know Italian name in the area so as not to be bothered by mob types (it worked)

They started in the days of PONG and quit in the age of Tempest , They bought a COUNTERFIT pac-man when pacman was hot, not because it was cheaper (it wasnt) but because you simply couldnt GET a pacman without waiting on backorder, its patters were different , the kids loved it for that and would gamble on its outcome regularly, the gross for the machine was nearly 700 $ / week, 1/2 of that went to the "house" a roller rink. It was insane we would go every saturday moring to all the location, and collect, You know how much 2000 $ in quatrers weighs :) Tempes would clear $400/ weeke gross and the pinballs were about $200 / week. Asteroids twoards the end was only clearing $100 a week or so, so it was the first to end up in the garage, by the time I was a SR in High school 88 all of the machines were in the garage, it was great for parites 10 pins 10 vids a couple of jukes, lots of fun, I still conten I am the BEST tempest player that ever lived PERIOD, I would play for hours every day, If anyone knows what the LAST level looks like, befroe it recycles, I will acquiesce that you may be as good of a tempest player I was.

Hardware competition

[Cutriss]

One of the reasons cited for arcade losses lately is that home consoles have comparable power to the arcade machines, meaning that there's little reason to go to the arcade when you can just play the same game at the comfort of home. It's one of the same market transitions that the MPAA fears like crazy.

I feel that's why Bemani games like Dance Dance Revolution and Drummania are so popular - They offer a unique experience that isn't easily recreated at home without a substantial hardware investment. Sure, you can buy softpads or metal pads for DDR, but the arcade is still where it's at for both ideal configurations and the social factor.

Everyone always says that console peripherals never sell well...So, perhaps the games needing the peripherals should be tried more in the arcade. What games are really popular in arcades? Silent Scope...Bemani titles ...things like Mo-Cap Boxing, Martial Beat, and Police 911...and big-screen fighters.

Re:Hardware competition

[ooby]

I think everybody ignores one of the key reasons for the arcade downfall: savegames. Remember playing The Legend of Zelda in the arcade? What about the original Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior? No? Maybe it is because those games were too long to play in one sitting (or at the arcade, standing).

Arcade games used to be the film analog of a theatrical release. I remember pumping out quarters for every Street Fighter game between Street fighter 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 2. I couldn't wait for them to be released to console. When adventure and role playing games skipped the arcade, instead of having the "straight-to-video" reputation, kids shelled out their paperboy money to play games they could save (and also to play "paperboy").

The only genre that still uses the arcade to console model are the fighters.

In response to your list of arcade titles: Mo-Cap Boxing is one of the worst arcade games I've ever played. The game does not detect when I duck because I am too tall. If a game is going to be as interactive as Mo-Cap, it better be self calibrating.

Re:Hardware competition

[Anonymous Coward]

"kids shelled out their paperboy money to play games they could save (and also to play "paperboy"). "

Which, by the way, was much better in the arcade! The bicycle handlebar with "throw paper" buttons on the grips was so much cooler than the cheesy square NES controller.

Re:Hardware competition

[Cutriss]

The article repeatedly mentions Sega's mag-stripe card systems and how this helps to alleviate the savegame system...but it also ignores other manufacturers that have done this, Konami, Capcom, and SNK in particular.

As a matter of fact, in most of these cases, the Japanese cabinets have had memory card access, but the US cabinets have had it removed for whatever reason.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 was originally supposed to have unlockable characters which could only be unlocked by taking a Dreamcast VMU to the arcade with you. In theory, it was also supposed to store game records and stuff. However, the US version had the VMU slots removed. SNK's Neo-Geo AES system cabinets usually had memory card slots as well, so that the games could function exactly as the home versions did.

As for Konami, many of the Bemani games feature PSX memory card slots so that, depending on the game/version played, you could do scorekeeping, customized step/beat patterns, Internet Ranking (via password saving), and other features.

I seem to remember that Midway also produced some NFL Blitz and similar sports games that had a slot for N64 memory packs...

As for your examples, like Zelda, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy...The problem is that these games can't easily be "metered out" into credits - That hasn't been done since Nintendo's Play Choice 10. The only games I can think of offhand which can be played "infinitely" are pinball and fighters, provided that someone keeps popping in credits to play versus. They're designed to be short-term, so that people keep pumping in credits.

Re:Hardware competition

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Also, when it comes down to it, the home version isn't always the latest and greatest. Sometimes it's several upgrade cycles behind. In Japan, the newest release of Beatmania IIDX is right now at 7th Style, whereas in the Arcade, 10th style is currently running in a location test, and the GuitarFreaks/DrumMania line is at like, 4thMix/5th mix and in the arcade it's like, 10th/11th.

MAME cabinets

[Chuck Bucket]

If they were able to run MAME cabinets with all of our fav games from the 80's, then they'd make some coins.

CB

Re:MAME cabinets

[Anonymous Coward]

The MAME license specifies that MAME cannot be used for profit. There is a product thats intended for commercial use in JAMMA cabinets that has multiple games in it called Ultracade.

Re:MAME cabinets

[Chuck Bucket]

how is this -1 Funny? I really don't care about my score, but I think my point was valid; *IF THEY WERE ABLE* to run MAME cabinets (ie- for profit), then they'd make money. I'd pay to play those old games on a nice MAME cabinet, but I would not pay to play the new games of today. mark me as 'redundant' if you want, but I thought this was a good point.

P

Re:MAME cabinets

[mojotooth]

Mod parent down. This suggestion has already been implemented in several different forms. Just the other day I was in a piano bar playing the original Joust, Defender and Root Beer Tapper, all on the same physical cabinet, all for one quarter a pop. There were also a bunch of relatively more recent games bundled in, like SF2 and such.

Re:MAME cabinets

[Anonymous Coward]

>Mod parent down. This suggestion has already been implemented in several different forms.

Yeah but are those implementations legal?

Re:MAME cabinets

[guacamolefoo]

Yes:

http://www.bmigaming.com/games-video.htm

Re:MAME cabinets

[Chuck Bucket]

But that was my point, if they *had* systems like these (you state they do) then I'd *pay* to play those, but I don't pay to play today's games because they don't have the allure that the old ones do. thus; old games in a Mame cabinet = $ while new games = 0

Mod me down if you wish, but your post proves my arguement.

CB

Re:MAME cabinets

[shadowbearer]

WRT to Mame, it's unfortunate that they had to put that clause in (it protects them from lawsuits from idiot companies IIUC, but that's another topic - as I understand, might be wrong there.)

I wonder if there could be a serious arcade revival if one could build arcade hardware with Mame...it's an interesting question (and not a new one by any means)

SB

Re:MAME cabinets

[runderwo]

They'd have a tough time enforcing that against the right of first sale doctrine. Essentially, it is a EULA clause, and when I compile and install MAME I have agreed to no EULA. Only when I distribute it do I agree to their license, which means I can't sell it. But that doesn't mean the terms of their license are binding to me as a user, charging for play on my machine.

Who Cares?

[dasMeanYogurt]

I can see why. I have no reason to go to the traditional arcade anymore. Between my PS2 and PC I have no urging to waste quarters at the arcade. To return to the arcade I need something different. Way back when the arcade offered better graphics and range of games. I want to see something I can't do at home, be it VR helmets/pods, floating holograms, or some other new fangled contraption.

Re:Who Cares?

[toyotaboy]

I agree. About the only thing that would get me back into an arcade is to play something I can't play at home. Seems that virtual reality may not make a decent comeback for another 5 years, but that will likely be the next big thing in arcades, if arcades even exist by then. The only other thing making a profit out there is either bar games (golden tee golf), an occasional new pinball machine by STern, or a LAN computer place that rents out fast computers with hi-speed internet.

Re:Who Cares?

[demo9orgon]

You're spot-on. As someone who dumped more money than I should have in the arcades during the 80's I now have a couple of consoles (picked up the cube over the holiday) and a small home LAN and there's nothing the arcades or even the commercial gaming lans have to offer me.

Now, when you can "jack-in" and fly-around/run-around with a team of other people from anywhere on the planet with a full-sensorium and 360deg-freedom of movement and the ability to take non-human form, with hardware/software beyond anything the home-user can even touch, I'll be back. Until then, I'll be tooling around on the LAN with the family attacking capital ships, fighting the (zerg/terrans/protoss), exploring with Lara Croft on the console, and getting all "Norrath" with the whole family, or any number of other distractions which backs up my assertion to the kids that,
"No, we just saw a movie and spent nearly $40, we play video games at home because they're better and they don't cost $1 for less than a minute. All these things are too complicated and expensive now."

They think about it for less than a second and start suggesting activites, not all of them involving video games. Been getting more than the normal amount of requests for the library. It's enough to make a geek get all misty and stuff.

Vintage Arcade Games

[dankney]

The old classic games are still a great investment for small establishments. In Seattle, at least, old pinball, Pac-Man, Tetris, etc., games are popping up all over in coffeeshops and bars. And they're doing great. In places where they sit alongside the latest 3D subwoofer-enhanced consoles, I see them occupied a lot more often. Is it because they're not $1.00 to play? Or is it because there's something intrinsically more entertaining about playing the older games in public spaces. One has to wonder, is the home console market (where complex 3d graphics reign supreme) fundamentally different from the arcade market? Or is what I'm noticing just nostalgia?

Re:Vintage Arcade Games

[Pfhreakaz0id]

I'm sure these types of comments will get echoed a lot. My 10-year-old son has a GameCube and we play some stuff on that (the light saber duels on Jedi Knight II are pretty damn fun), but we enjoy playing MAME games more on the PC. wizard of Wor and Mario Brothers (not super, the first one, where two played at once and it didn't scroll) are our current favorites.

Re:Vintage Arcade Games

[relaying denied]

There is a small bar/restaurant right around the corner from work. Three of us go there as often as possible to eat and play Galaga. We spend a couple bucks in it everytime, at least. They eventually put a super Pacman machine next to it. Which has many versions of Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Pirhana, in fast/slow versions and everything. It gets used by us almost as much as the Galaga machine. And there is an older regular who comes in and tops our scores by hundreds of thousands, every once in awhile.

We like it so much we looked into buying a cabinet for the office, but found the prices outrageous. We may just build our own cocktail version using xmame and as many roms as we can find. It would be a neat project indeed. Maybe we can get the boss to pay for materials since he never got us the foosball or pool table he said he'd get :)

More places should get vintage games. But the high prices are probably what keeps that to a minimum. With the average age of hole in the wall bar patrons, they probably remember these games fondly, as do we.

Re:Vintage Arcade Games

[relaying denied]

Oh, and thankfully these both are still only a quarter.

Re:Vintage Arcade Games

[Dravik]

It's not just you older people. The new arcade games that cost a doller have great graphics and no gameplay. galaga and pacman are some of the best games ever made. I wish I could find a galaga machine around where I live.

Really?

[El]

Chuck E. Cheese's is apparently still making money. Sure, they charge you $35 for a bad pizza and drinks, but then they give you 100 free tokens! Well... my 3-year old likes it, anyway!

Re:Really?

[LostCluster]

Chuck E. Cheese's is apparently still making money.

Yeah, it's going to be a good long time before the home console can recreate the ball pit...

Re:Really?

[RESPAWN]

Hey, I had fun the last time I was at Chuck E. Cheese's! Then again, I'd had enough alcohol by that point that I probably would have had just as much fun watching the traffic drive by on the freeway.

Still, it was somehow satisfying to beat all those 5 year old kids at the racing games while drunk. :)

Re:Really?

[brer_rabbit]

Yeah, it's going to be a good long time before the home console can recreate the ball pit...

And even longer til the home console can recreate the smell of urine that's constantly wafting from the ball pit...

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

He meant the huge pit that's full of rubber balls, not the pit inside your undershorts, moron!

To preclude the inevitable karma whoring

[Anonymous Coward]

Build your own

Re:To preclude the inevitable karma whoring

[Peale]

I think you meant http://www.arcadecontrols.com, right?

Make sure to check the forums.

One word.....

[vwjeff]

Money. Back in my day (not to long ago) the price to play a game was 25 cents. Today if you go into an arcade many games are $1.00 or more. I can't afford these prices. What do you expect children to do? (If you answered go to their parents for money you are right)

Well what does the parent (me) say. "Well back in my day, playing these machines only cost 25 cents."

Other Games

[millahtime]

I dunno if this is complete true. That nude find the difference in the picture game in almost every bar is packed all night. is that considered an arcade game?

Ironic that games no longer exemplify ease-of-use

[dpbsmith]

In the eighties, games were the existence proof that computer programs could be accessible, quickly learned, and usable without reading a manual. What a pity that they, too, have succumbed to bloat, complexity, and featuritis.

Arcades

[Threni]

I went to an arcade the other day with my brother and nephew. The games cost 1 UKP each and typically lasted about a minute - 3 minutes maximum. When I used to play arcade games a lot more you'd get more for far less money - 3 to 5 minutes for 10pence. It's not something I'm likely to ever do again. I'd rather spend the money on a couple of drinks at the bar and then get a game for my PC or console.

Re:Arcades

[TwistedKestrel]

You have pay a whole freakin' POUND to play those games? Wow ... I thought a Canadian dollar was a lot at times. That is unquestionably too much damn money!

Aside from that, though, I have a little bit of a different perspective on this article from the rest of you folk ... I'm only 20, but I still never played things like Pacman or whatever in the arcade. I'll never remember what the first game I played was, either :P ... but I still play them occasionally today (well, not today literally, as I'm unemployed, heh). I have a few Initial D cards, and I've played Virtua Fighter 4 a bit, as well as the Time Crisis series. I can still relate to some things, like Virtua Fighter being extremely complex. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a good game ... I'll just never be good *at* it. And arcade units are massively expensive ... I go to an arcade that imported a Battle Gear 3 unit, which is indeed a cool game, and has got some neat features over Initial D, like a built-in Internet score uplink, and instead of magnetic cards you get these cool car keys. The problem is that said keys cost six dollars and they had to charge $3 for two games for a long time on it.

I remember this one arcade machine that seems to have come and gone, but it was recent. It had no video screen at all, instead it had a real moving object or two and a mirror ... all it was was simple shooting gallery, but it could still rank you on your 'shooting' ability ... and it was a modern-day quarter! The first time I saw it, it had a line of people waiting to play it.

Anyway, I hope the arcade machine never dies!

Dance Dance Revolution

[somethinghollow]

There was a time when an arcade operator in America could buy a Ms. Pac-Man machine for less than $1,000, let it sit in an arcade, bar or storefront, and see that game make back over 30 times the initial investment

Once upon a time, games were good. But can they expect teenagers / young adults to take games like Dance Dance Revolution seriously? If they would make some decent games, that might help.

Not to mention kill off home consoles. This is like the RIAA bitching about losing sales on cassettes when people are buying more CDs.

Re:Dance Dance Revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if you've noticed, but TONS of people take DDR seriously. And we're not talking weird Japanese fringe groups here either.

I was at a friend's going-away party a few months ago (his unit just got sent to Iraq) and discovered that literally everybody at this crowded house party was crammed into a single bedroom, watching the t.v. I thought it was just some video or something, until I peeked around the door and noticed that everyone was watching my buddy and his commanding officer play DDR.

Where's Golden Tee?

[BlackjackGuy]

Unreal how an article discussing the state of the arcade industry can completely forget to mention the most popular arcade game in the past decade: Golden Tee.

Golden Tee is today's version of Pac-Man.

Re:Where's Golden Tee?

[winwar]

Well, if you had actually read the article, you would know that it was mentioned on page 5.

Re:Where's Golden Tee?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA!

Golden Tee is definitely mentioned.

Re:Women...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ms Pacman understood me. She accepted me as I am. And most of all, she did what I told her to do without question.

Arcade Vs Console systems

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is on a faster pace then the 80's and we are doing more with less. I don't want to drive to an arcade and wait in line, I got more crap to do then I know what I should do with. I can barley justify to myself to sit and play my Xbox or game boy for more then half an hour a day, much less to drive to an arcade, wait, and then play.

Plus back in the day people would rather pump a few quarters in a machine instead of buy a much less powerful console system. Now everyone has a console or at least almost everyone, and they are not that far behind the power of the new arcade machines.

Plus, I don't even have a dollar to spend on a song on Itunes.... And I would get to keep that song forever, how can I justify one dollar for 3 minutes of playtime.
Sure, a game boy game is 30 bucks, but then again, you get it forever, the same with all console games, and if they have online service, this adds to their value and makes them a much more economical solution in the long run. I don't get out much, but I don't know of many arcades that have internet multiplayer games.

Plus with consoles I can eat my food, use my toilet anytime I want.

Sad state of supposed 'arcades' today.

[tigerknight]

Likely because the games were actually FUN back then. Sure they were simple little platformers, but you could go for as long as you had the skill to survive. Not to mention the fact that everything now is almost a dollar or more to play for 2 minutes, thanks to timers and 'checkpoint' play there's just no way to feel satisfied out of the money you put in.

I'd gladly throw $20 or more at an old quarter arcade from the early 90's (and would gladly do so again if they had some today), but today's 'arcades' simply aren't. You have a few hulking machines taking up all the space because shooters need distance from the screen, driving games need chairs and such, and heaven knows what else (silent scope et al that need rediculously large gear).

Where $20 used to go 60-80 games (some games were $.50 *GASP!*), it'll now go maybe 15-20, and anything that's still the same old cabinet type is just a fighting game with no creativity or amusement to it at all. No thanks.

Re:Sad state of supposed 'arcades' today.

[tazanator]

Yeah I loved silent scope, and being a hunter/sports shooter, I could last a few levels, but the fact it was about a $1 a go drove me away. I called to see about buying an old Silent Scope machine and was told $5,000 for the first generation machine (price was last year was hoping for Xmas...), I said no thanks I'll find the cheap version for the playstation on ebay. If they charged a quarter and droped the check points the games would get played more (it is more fun with friends) but the way it sits now arcades will keep shrinking.

Japanese Arcades

[yar]

I really, wish that our arcades were half as good as the arcades I saw in Japan. My (now) wife taught English in Japan through the JET program, and when I went to visit her I was blown away by the number and amount of games that they have (even in incredibly rural areas, although as you might expect Tokyo arcades were very impressive). The article mentions that one of the downsides to arcades here is that the game are targetted towards the Japanese market... but I don't know. Given the chance I'd play those games constantly. I did, and I don't speak the language at all. ^^;

Having lower prices, as others in this thread have mentioned, would be nice... but in Japan, games were 100 yen a pop. Even so, Namcoland or Sega City would be welcome... There was a Sega City in Austin for a bit, but their game selection wasn't comparable to the ones I saw in Japan.

Re:Japanese Arcades

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please give a few examples of such games in Japan?

Re:Japanese Arcades

[Kircle]

How about Gameworks? And there's one in Grapevine, TX (right outside Dallas; I would say about 3 hrs away from Austin). They usually have all the newest arcade games. It's always a fun place to hang out, though instead of popping in 2 quarters per play it usually is at least a dollar. But if you want selection, they def have that...plus pizza upstairs.

Re:Japanese Arcades

[yar]

Sure, but its kind of difficult to give specifics since I don't know many of the names. First, there were video games all over the place, not just arcades. My experiences in Japan were that most "malls" were completely open, with no walls separating the stores- there were kind of like very very very large department stores (but the different sections were actually run by different people, and you definitely can't take items from one place to another). Many had at least part of one floor dedicated to video games. Another gaijin and I drew a crowd when we were playing the shotgun-style House of the Dead III (which hadn't come out in the US at that time). ^^; At one such store I also saw the Taiko Drum game (http://www.the-nextlevel.com/reviews/ps2/taiko_no _tatsujin/), which was a lot of fun. (There were also lots of Print Club machines just about everywhere, with all kinds of different themes.)

The smallest I arcade I went to was a NamcoLand in the Akita prefecture. It had one story, but it was still fairly large compared to arcades I see in the US. It seemed very much like a "family" place- well-lit, vending machines with ice cream and drinks, and so on. Unlike in the US, most arcade machines in this game didn't have custom frames- for the most part, they looked like eggshells, rounded on the top. I assume that's so that the games can be changed out fairly easily (think of the Neo-Geo systems we have here), but I couldn't ask anyone. There were stools available for people to sit or stand, if they wish. I did play HoD III, Guilty Gear XX (which wasn't then out in the US), and a few other fighting games that probably won't make it over here. They each sat one person. However, the two-player fighting games sat back-to-back and were connected, so that you could play against an opponent (whom you couldn't see while you were playing). That's how I got schooled by a twelve year old the first time I sat down to play Guilty Gear XX. ^_^;; The arcade also had a whole lot of puzzle games that seemed to be fairly popular. (There were, surprisingly to me in a family establishment, a couple of semi-ecchi ones that some school girls were playing... dunno.)

The largest arcade I went to was Sega City in Tokyo (I believe in Akihabara). It had a different feel. It was a bit darker, a lot noisier, and a lot more crowded. There were several floors, and each floor either had its own theme or had its own features (I couldn't read many of the signs, but followed the advertising pictures. ^^;) The shooting games were in one section, the fighting games were in one section, the racing games, sports games, side scrollers and puzzle games... etc. The sheer number of games available was staggering. ^^; A lot were new, but they also had older games available (and they were less expensive, too). I went through and played DarkStalkers 1, 2, and 3, and then went to play an anime-based puzzle game (Azumanga Daioh), and went to play some space side shooters that I'll probably not see elsewhere. They also had lots of link-ups for their racing games, so many people could play at once. They also had a mech game (like Virtual On, but I don't think it was actually Virtual On or a sequel) that was a lot of fun.

And don't get me started by their console selections... The Sega Building in Ginza... sigh... ^_-

Re:Japanese Arcades

[kamapuaa]

I've been to Japan a number of times, and while I'm no gamer, I've had a look at arcades (which often have signs saying children aren't allowed past certain hours).

Japanese arcades are dominated by rhythm-based games - for instance DDR, except maybe you scratch a pad, hit a drum, or whatever. These games aren't popular enough in the US to anchor arcades, as they do in Japan. Also, in places where they serve alcohol (and the US equivalent might have Golden Tee or those touch-screen games), lightly pornographic mahjong games are common, where cartoon characters strip depending on the progress of the game.

The other arcade games (half fighting, half wacky shit) will get brought over to the US if they're popular enough, maybe half a year or a year after it comes out in Japan.

Re:Japanese Arcades

[prockcore]

I really, wish that our arcades were half as good as the arcades I saw in Japan.

Go rent Lost in Translation. There's a scene in the movie that shows the insane style of arcade in japan. The crazy bongo games, the guitar playing game, etc.

Re:Japanese Arcades

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you forget such Japanese classics as "Boong-ga Boong-ga"??

Re:Japanese Arcades

[ocie]

I'm in Japan now. I hae see na few good games, but they seem to have succombed to the same fighting game/driving game mediocrity as in the U.S. They have some nice skee-ball type arcades where you play for tickets. Two interesting games are one where you have a frying pan and try to toss meatballs through a ring, and another where you have a knife and cutting board and try to chop fish.

The two lamest looking ones were the train driving game (Woo, stay on that track). and the dog walking game complete with treadmill (although I could use the exercise).

The best game I saw was a downhill BMX racing game where you actually had to pedal to pick up speed, steer and pull on the handlebars to make jumps. There was force feedback on the pedals, so when you were airborne, they would turn very easily. That one was a real workout. Wish they had it at the gym.

Re:Japanese Arcades

[yar]

Aw, I know people who love the train games. (Densha something or another)

Re:Japanese Arcades

[RailRide]

"The two lamest looking ones were the train driving game (Woo, stay on that track)...."

Sounds like that's Densya De Go! (Let's Go by Train!). I happen to have home versions of this in my collection, in Saturn, Dreamcast and PC formats (along with the special motorman's controller for each, the Dreamcast one having been the toughest one to locate, possibly rarer than the VO:OT Twin Sticks)

Densya De Go! is a lot tougher than it's premise seems to indicate because it's a contest of precision, not speed or endurance. You start off with a set number of points, shown by the big "30" in the top center of the screenshot. You earn or lose points depending on what you do right (blowing horns for crossings, bridges and tunnels) or wrong (running late). The main object is to run from station to station, which seems ridiculously easy on the surface.

The hard part is stopping the train. You see, trains are very slow to react to control inputs (but you knew that already, right?). Where this affects you in the Densya De Go! series, is that you must time your arrival so that your train not only stops within one meter of a stop marker at the end of the platform, but you also must make this stop within a three second window to be considered on time. (and earn bonus points).

-Arrive late and you lose one point (two on harder levels) for every second your train is still moving after time is up (your arrival time is the white time in the upper left corner, current time is in yellow below it).
-Overshoot the marker by more than one metere and lose a point for every metere beyond that point (the distance to the next stop marker is in the lower right corner--green if you're stopping, white if you're bypassing it as an express).
-Slow down too much once in the station, and incur a 10-point penalty for throttling up to avoid stopping short of the marker--you're supposed to use brakes only.
-Even if you are bypassing stations as an express, you must reach the stop markers by a specific time to avoid losing points,(OTOH, if you manage to pass the marker at the exact second posted, you get the second-biggest bonus in the game--the biggest bonus reserved for slamming on the brakes and stopping short of a truck stuck on a random crossing)

So even though you aren't steering the thing, it's still a massivley heavy contraption that must be brought up to a (relativley) high speed, then made to a stop at a very precise spot within a short time frame to gain bonus points and prolong game time.

So, what keeps you from simply flooring it and sliding into every station early? Posted speed restrictions for sharp curves for one thing (violating a posted speed restriction is a 10 point penalty, violating a signal gets you an emergency stop) and your real mistress, the train ahead of you. Run too fast and you start encountering yellow signals from the preceding train, which forces you to slow down. The part that gets you here is when departing a station, you don't get additional time to make it to the next station just because you arrived early. Which means that if you were tailgating the previous train when you arrived, you have to contend with yellow signals and their associated speed restrictions, while the schedule assumes a normal-speed run. It's possible to spot this coming on an express run, as you can see how far ahead or behind schedule you are at every local station and adjust your speed accordingly, but on a local, you're in trouble if you start passing yellow signals that don't turn green as you come out of the station, unless you've built up serious brownie points beforehand. It's the only really unrealistic part of the game, but it was thrown in to keep you honest.

I think I read somewhere that the commuter train operators in Japan are allowed about 6 minutes of accumulated late arrivals (due to operator error) in their entire careers. Exceed that an

focus

[Docrates]

To me, the whole point of arcades are to 1) be on the leading edge of gaming as a preview of things to come to the livingroom, and 2) a social medium to interact with other gamers.

Now add the Internet, high quality console and PC games and better bang for your buck in the living room and you'll see why they're failing.

If there's gonna be a place for Arcades in the future, they need to borrow a page from the Cinema history book: be the best possible experience, and have an edge, quality wise, in comparisson to the home experience. And then charge a premium for this.

They're just plainly not doing this. The last few times I've gone to the arcades I haven't had more fun than playing at home and the prices just don't justify the gaming experience. This doesn't mean it can't be done, it just means that companies became lazy and just focused on milking old ideas instead of coming up with new ones. Just look at that SNK story that Slashdot ran the other day (from gamespot, look it up): They're still sticking to king of fighters!!!!

Who Here Remembers Old School Arcades?

[Didion Sprague]

My question -- slightly off topic -- but I'm really curious: who here actually *remembers* the old school arcade games? Pac-Man? Donkey Kong? Frogger? Tron? Pole Position? I mean, arcades back in the 80's were something pretty spectacular. I had the misfortune a few weeks ago of hitting a local place called 'Dave and Busters' (no idea if it was a chain or not) but I was *astounded* at how arcades have changed. I still have fond memories of Aladdins Castle in our piddly mall. Getting five dollars worth of tokens (around 25, I think), and spending the whole afternoon in front of Tron or Pac Man or even -- my little guilty pleasure -- "Journey": the arcade game named after the band. You controlled Steve Perry and his band mates. I don't remember it too well, but I remember we played it a lot -- and listened to 'Separate Ways' and 'Faithfully' a lot, too. Memories.

Re:Who Here Remembers Old School Arcades?

[Alphi1]

I definately remember the classic arcade games... I remember as a teenager (in the 80s) there was a pizza parlor a few blocks from my house that had a small arcade attached to it. I'd go in there after school, blow a few bucks (and a few hours), and have a great time, plus keeping me out of trouble.

Yes, "Dave & Busters" is a chain, I've been to one of them a couple of times. The thing that gets me about D&Bs, is when you go to the "classic" section of D&Bs, and the old arcade games (which always cost a quarter) are up to 50 cents...

I will admit though, whoever came up with the idea of a card-system for paying for these games (at D&Bs you get a card like a credit card, and you can go up to either a counter and pay someone to put more money on the card, or you can go to the automated machines to do it) is a genius.
From a game-player's standpoint, no more worries about having enough quarters. Just drop $20 onto the card, and go for awhile.
From the owner's standpoint, as the games no longer take quarters, but instead just take "credits" off of a card, it's MUCH easier to convince game players to spend more money per game (somehow spending 3 or 4 credits on a game doesn't sound too bad, while spending nearly a dollar for a single game is a little pricey).

Re:Who Here Remembers Old School Arcades?

[millahtime]

I love those old school arcade games too. I was in a bar a couple weeks ago and they had a couple old school games. They were packed all night with people playing them. I too have been to Dave and Busters and the games have changed so much.

Re:Who Here Remembers Old School Arcades?

[rgremill]

We went to Dave & Busters this weekend in Houston. I think the card system is a scam for two reasons. First, you end up with unusable cards with 1.1 credits on them. And Second, you have no idea how much you just spent on a game. We still had fun playing Daytona 500. You just can't replicate a game like that in your home.

The Check E Cheese near us has gone to 1 token per game. It is a much better deal. BUT, they have only 1/5 as many games.

Re:Who Here Remembers Old School Arcades?

[Wateshay]

I remember going to the arcade with my dad when I was little (we're talking early 80's here). He'd give me a bunch of quarters to go play Centipede or PacMan, and then head into the back corner where the pinball machines were. Whenever I'd run out or quarters, I'd go find him, watching in awe for a while, until he'd finally lose his ball, and then get another $5 to go get more quarters.

Those are some good memories... ... and even though I'm a damn good pinball player in my own right, my dad can still kick my ass handily.

Ah... the mis-spent youths of father and son.

Re:Who Here Remembers Old School Arcades?

[Quixadhal]

Tempest! Omega Race, Robotron, Zoo Keeper, Dig Dug, Joust. Yep, those were all good.

I read an article a few months ago about the original Atari developers, and how they were forced to be creative because of the limited hardware resources they had to work with.

If you look at games today, most of them start with a design like "How can we simulate a guy moving through a jungle, shooting anything that moves"? You then build rendering engines, figure out how much of the terrain you need to model, and what can be repeated. Do physics to try and simulate impacts, etc without using too much CPU.

Back then, the design was more like "What can we do in the 17ms we have left before the vertical retrace kicks in"? Lots of abstract games, lots of original ideas that probably evolved as much from what drawing routines would work in real-time as from what game-concept was in mind.

Hardware bloat encourages software bloat. If a resource is available, it will be used. That's why we don't see really NEW ideas in the video game world anymore, everyone is trying to build a better mousetrap without thinking about ways to get rid of the mice.

I hate to be a whiner...

[belgar]

..but, while the article was fairly interesting, the images are absolutely brutal. They literally look like someone ran around an arcade for 10 minutes with a digital, snapped some crooked, crappy shots, and dumped them into random places in the article.

The one bright point was the dude givin' it at the DDR machine. :-)

Not worth it

[HarveyBirdman]

Probably redundant, but the last time I walked throguh an arcade (with people probably thinking I was a child molester on the prowl) the place was full of obvious gang members (clothing and gang signs and lingo were prevalent) and the damned games were 50 cents each. I've had similar reports from friends who have popped into an arcade for old time's sake.

Other than the obvious answer of the boom in home gaming tech, I think many arcade owners did just what you suggest: they bought the games and sat back waiting for a profit. No one ever thought to innovate or turn an arcade into anythong more than a hangout, and hangouts will invariably go doenhill until it attracts only the lowest common denominator.

Another problem might be the complexity of the games. You could walk up to Pac Man or Asteroids and pretty much have it figured out in a game or two. The downturn for me came with games like Mortal Combat where you had to read a book on the side just to learn all the moves. I got a hint that others were hitting their patience limit early on when I'd walk up to a Defender game and notice the previous player lost without expending a single smart bomb. ;-)

I've wondered what would happen if someone opened an arcade full of emulated old time games (cabinets with PCs running MAME, assuming you could work out licensing for such a thing).

entrance fees

[Savatte]

There is an arcade near me that seems to have a relatively successful business plan: Get a bunch of old video games, skeeball machines, pinball machines, etc., charge only a dime to play, but collect an entrance fee. I'm more than happy to pay the 2 dollars for continuous access to lots of great games.

Wave of the future maybe?

Re:entrance fees

[tweder]

Yeah, we've got that here too - it's called the Nickelcade. For $2.25 admission you can play for as much as you want. Older games are $0.05, newer games are $0.10 - and things like DDR are $0.25, which is still a bargain compared to the buck or two you'd spend for 1 game (3 songs) elsewhere.

Don't worry about it

[Progman3K]

Organized crime has found other ways to launder its money.

Re:Don't worry about it

[Nonillion]

Yeah, they're called the RIAA..

Re:Don't worry about it

[Night Goat]

Funny you mention that. I know a drug dealer whose day job is collecting from those vending machines that you see in front of grocery stores. There's no record of how much money goes into those, no records at all. It's perfect.

Re:The ability to play at home changes everything.

[dr_dank]

If hanging out with rude, pimply faced pre-teens, drug dealers, and pedophile's is your cup of tea...

You saw that very special episode of Webster too?

The only reason I play at an arcade...

[Zakabog]

The only reason I play at an arcade anymore is the specialty games, things you can't get at home without actually buying a cabinet, racing seat, all that stuff.

Games like Time Cop, I'd go to an arcade to play that because a light gun can't hook up to my computer (it can hook up to my TV but my TV is smaller than my PC monitor, in the arcades you can play it on a 50" TV, if I wanted to have the same experience at home it'd be over $1,200 ($900-$1,000 on the TV, at least $170 on a PS2 or any other next-gen console, and at least $30 on the game, with controllers, probably used.)

There are racing games too, like a Ferrari F550 game, it's very fun to play, the seat shakes when you hit something and rumbles when you're on gravel, it has a clutch (I really like driving with a MT and it really adds to the experience) and it supports up to 4 players at once. Sure if I could make one, or buy one, or had the room (I live in an apartment with a pretty crowded bedroom), I'd prefer my own racing seat, pedal kit and shifter (dunno where I'd get one though) but that'd take a lot of money.

I'm sure if there were more virtual reality type games at arcades more people would go to them too. If you've ever been to Disney World they have this one park that's just a giant arcade with a cover cost. Everything inside is free, but it's $45 or so to get it (VERY WORTH IT!) I love arcades like that because you can spend all day their, know how much you're gonna use BEFORE you get their, and play some of the greatest games out their. They have a bunch of team games, like one game where you sit inside of something that slightly resembles a tank, there's like 4 seats or so (maybe 6) and each one of those seats has a turret, then a commanders seat. The commander drives the "tank" across an alien planet to rescue some people (or something like that) and while he's driving the 4 gunners have to shoot at enemies. It's a great experience and I wish more arcades had games like that (but then again the average arcade would charge $10 for each play.)

Re:The only reason I play at an arcade...

[ooby]

You can buy/build an adapter to connect console controllers to your PC.

Back in college, my buddy built an el-cheapo racing seat arcade machine, using a broken chair, some 2x4s, and a cheap PC steering wheel and pedals modified to be compatible with PS2 Dual Shock. Then whenever he wanted to play , he'd lug over his TV and PS2 and pop in the game.

Re:The only reason I play at an arcade...

[ThrasherTT]

BTW, DisneyQuest entry is included with the "Ultimate Park Hopper" passes. Not only are there lots of new and crazy games there, but they also have a "classics" floor with enough games to make me misty-eyed (Mr. Do!!!). On top of that, there are artsy "games" where the kids can paint animated scenes, digitally alter self-portraits, and all sorts of other stuff. There's even an area with air hockey tables... Next time we go, I'm making sure the wife and kids are prepared for a long DisneyQuest session!

The Real Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason people don't go to arcades anymore is because they don't offer enough humourous old games. For example, T-MEK v5.1 "The Warlords" contains a large number of hilarious, out-of-context quotations. This is the reason that I continue to play it. I don't bother with those "new" games. "I SEE YOU'RE HERE FOR THE TOURNAMENT!"

Hobby

[TheRealMindChild]

Arcade gaming used to be an easy worth while hobby. You could go to the local Arcade, Movie Theater, or even Grocery Store/Convienient Store, and spend a roll of $10 in quarters on it.

Now I have to LOOK for video games, and all I see anymore are the sick and tired genres of "Light Gun", "Driving", or "2/3d fighter". Back when this stuff was profitable, every game seemed to have a little uniqueness to it.

Its not hard to see why things are the way they are

They should hire the RIAA

[dcocos]

The reason that they are no longer making money hand over fist must be because of _piracy_ (ie MAME)

Re:The ability to play at home changes everything.

[yacineparis.com]

The arcade is more social because you can meet new people, show them how good you are, and humiliate your opponent(s) (like in multiplayer games).
And if you lose you can beat them up.
When you play at home you don't get as much satisfaction.

once again, following the porn trend

[JSkills]

Just like the advent of the VCR, people immediately got what they wanted in terms of porn - without having to go to a theatre. Watching porn at home is much more preferable to most people than doing so in public.

With arcade games, the home systems initially (Atari 7800, Ninendto, up to the PS1) were simply not as good as the arcade versions. The PS2 however, produces games that are pretty much on par (and sometimes better if you read the article) than it's arcade counterparts.

Arcade games need to provide people with something they simply can't get at home - and in my opinion it has to do with the user interface. Arcades should attempt to shift the focus to virtual reality type games - ones where you're sitting in an actual vehicle or cockpit - something where the hardware to produce the experience simply could not be replicated in the home environment. I played some wacky Mech game at the local Jillians, where we all were sitting in these darkened close-door pods and seeing nothing but first person view. The game was $10 for 7 minutes of action and then we all got to watch a video reply of all the action in 3rd person view. It struck me as a step in the right direction ...

Oh and BTW if porn theatres want to get customers back, they'd also better provide a VR experience that we can't get at home ;-)

Re:once again, following the porn trend

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Oh and BTW if porn theatres want to get customers back, they'd also better provide a VR experience that we can't get at home ;-)

I don't know about you, but I would rather have the porn theatre provide hookers, rather than some VR stuff.

Re:once again, following the porn trend

[Chibi]

Oh and BTW if porn theatres want to get customers back, they'd also better provide a VR experience that we can't get at home ;-)

How about forgetting about VR and going with reality? They are called strip clubs. :)

Re:once again, following the porn trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and BTW if porn theatres want to get customers back, they'd also better provide a VR experience that we can't get at home ;-)

Most porn theatres and peep shows provide extra "services" for a price ... ya just gotta ask the hostess/door person. (Thank god for preview ... i forgot to click the "Post anonymously" button)

Re:once again, following the porn trend

[makapuf]

You KNOW you some can have this at home ? Oh, maybe more ./ people have arcade cabinets than SO ...

Re:once again, following the porn trend

[shadowbearer]

Dude, if you're getting laid, it isn't a strip club.

SB

Those places aren't here anymore

[millahtime]

The roller rinks i used to skate at and play video games as a kid are no longer around. I looked like a year ago and there was 1 and it was an hour and a half drive. There are less bowling alleys. They have torn down 2 near my home in the last 2 years. Those places where we used to go play those games are not around anymore. People aren't going out bowling as much anymore. The decline of these other industries has led to the fall of some of the arcade games.

Re:Those places aren't here anymore

[micsaund]

We only have one roller rink left in town - which was open in the 80's also. The interesting thing is that it's NEXT DOOR to the only titty-bar in town also. I guess that Dad can drop the kids off at the roller rink and then go oogle a few boobs while he waits.

Re:Those places aren't here anymore

[sirinek]

The roller rinks i used to skate at and play video games as a kid are no longer around. I looked like a year ago and there was 1 and it was an hour and a half drive. There are less bowling alleys.

Well, yeah, the skating rinks are disappearing fast, but bowling is getting new life breathed into it. Every Bowling Alley I see is jam-packed full of kids who want to spend $5/game (or $30/lane/hour or more) bowling with blinky lights and loud music playing on Saturday nights... cosmic bowling has been a boon to many bowling alleys that struggled thru the 90's.

Re:Those places aren't here anymore

[Skater]

As an avid skater, I just have to point to my site's list of skating rinks with websites (rinks without websites won't be on the list, a concept many people have trouble grasping):

http://roller-skate.org/rinks/rinkpages.html

Enjoy. :)
--RJ

Yeah! Pre-pubescent punks!

[revscat]

I know the Fighting Game Master personally drove me out of the arcade and to the home consoles.

Damn straight, brother! Personally, I quit playing when I became a college grad and was consistently beaten by those little punks whose balls haven't dropped yet, and have vastly more amount of time to waste practicing on these damn things.

Yeah, it's humiliating to be smacked around with one of those super-cool 50 hit combo moves, when the person doing the smacking weights 50, 60 pounds less than you.

Smart ass punks. Kids today man, I tell ya what. NO respect, man, NO respect.

Re:Yeah! Pre-pubescent punks!

[Anonymous Coward]

"punks whose balls haven't dropped yet..."

You notice this type of thing? Scarry...

Re:Yeah! Pre-pubescent punks!

[scorp888]

punks whose balls haven't dropped yet..." You notice this type of thing? Scarry... You think he could see the scars then?

Re:Yeah! Pre-pubescent punks!

[NanoGator]

"You notice this type of thing? Scarry..."

It's a reasonable assumption to make given how feminine your voice is.

Re:Yeah! Pre-pubescent punks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, when I was in HS, the people who cleaned up on arcade and pinball games were college grad students (Xenon @ WWU's Viking Union and Arnold's, in the UDistrict). Of course, they played the SAME machine all of the time, and knew just how to get the weak left flipper to actually still work.

Amazing to watch someone good playing a pinball machine.

First pinball, now vids

[cellocgw]

This is old hat to us pinfans. There's only one manufacturer currently building pinballs, and it's harder and harder to find pins in arcades. Actually it's worse for pinfans, because poor maintenance can cripple a pinball machine, while vids can run forever so long as the joystick doesn't break.
There is a very popular open-source simulator engine over at VPinMAME but, going by the chatter on rec.games.pinball this is not cutting into pinfans' real-world play time.

MAME

[Anonymous Coward]

In all seriousness, what the industry needs is a company to license x number of games from companies A, B, and C and put them all in one machine, using a hardware version of MAME.

Think of it as Choice 10 done right.

There is NO reason that I shouldn't be able to walk up to any one of 10 Choice 1000 machines in an arcade, plop in a quarter and choose the game I want to play by title, year, or genre.

It should NOT be time based (huge mistake on Choice 10, and the reason I never played them).

Ultimately these machines (which shouldn't cost more than any other machine to make, since I can make one for my basement for $1,000) should be made en mass by each of the major companies. Sega would have their own machine with almost every Sega game on it.

The other change needs to be in revenue stream. The arcade should pay a flat monthly fee to rent the machine, not buy it outright, and then should pay per game, with the machine recording games played (including logging which games were played and how much).

This data would be invaluable, and the business model would reward everyone.

I'd tell you more, but I have to run patent this post...

Re:MAME

[mlilback]

I think that is a horrible idea. I never play multigame machines because they don't have the original controls and they just don't feel right.

Why play MAME at an arcade? Play it at home. For an arcade, I want the big box with the original controls and artwork.

I doubt you'd ever see a MAME machine be popular in a bar. But put an original Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, or Asteriods and you'll find it making a lot of quarters. A generic box isn't going to bring back nostalga.

Also, any games with unique controls won't work. Guantlet, Rampart, Spy Hunter, Paperboy, Gorf, Centipede. Those need to be in the original case.

Re:MAME

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll notice I mentioned hardware emulation on dedicated hardware, not just MAME running on Windows 95 in a plywood cabinet.

No crap not all games will work with 1 set of controls. But 6 or 7 different contol sets (not on the same machine) would cover 95% of games.

One machine could be dedicated to Commando / Super Mario Bros / Galaga / Pac-Man style games, while another would be dedicated to racing style games, with yet another dedicated to fighting games.

Once playing the actual game, you would NEVER know the difference. Look at Happ Controls and show me the Pac-Man joystick, or the Galaga buttons. They don't exist. One button services almost all games. Only a handful of joysticks, spinners, and steering wheels service every game around.

And if you're playing games just for the stickers on the side of the box, you're a retard. Many, many classic games in arcades, stores, and bowling alleys are in cannibalized cabinets anyway, where the stickers are either destroyed or wrong.

I think with a variety of these (6 total, for instance) in bowling alley A, and the normal hodge-podge in bowling alley B, you'd see the cabinets with a large variety of games outsell the games in bowling alley B 3 to 1 or more.

Not only that, with the advances in electronic paper it is very likely we'll have the technology within 3 - 5 years to have the cabinet artwork completely update when the game is selected anyway, and feature the most popular game(s) when not being played.

I think it's a great idea.

It's really a case of an industry not adapting...

[neelm]

If arcades continue to use a bussiness model from 10+ years ago, and not adapt, then it's no wonder why they will fail.

First of all, they need to work with makers of cabinets (after all their fate is tied) and design systems that play more than one game. Put a DVD drive in the thing for god's sake so when game X is past it's prime, your not buying a new machine just a new DVD. Also this would allow an acrade to run several copies of one game across several machines, so when the demand for one game was high they could easily scale to meet that demand.

Games need to also provide what lacks in the home market. All the frills need to be there, like force feedback etc. While most games will have no troble with a standard cabinet (which standard could still be per maker), those that go for a cockpit or bike you ride need to be there as well but should still not have the software hardcoded into the system such that another game can't be run on it.

Last, arcades need to understand multiplayer is big; really big. Networking the cabinets into a lan so that several can play in the same game at once would be great as well. We can all play two player at home, many of us 4, and most can even network a consol with a friends now. A game is more fun with a friend, and even better wwith a bunch of friends.

If arcades adapt they will be around for sometime to come; people like to have fun after all.

There are a few real arcades left

[Peale]

FunSpot in Weirs Beach, NH, is the second largest arcade in the US. Their classic arcade, though it runs on tokens, is a quarter a game. Much less if you get your tokens in quantity. Far, FAR less if you use the coupon on their site.

Re:There are a few real arcades left

[claud9999]

We have a couple "nickel city" arcades in the area, where most/all games are $.05. There's an entrance fee (I seem to remember $2) and many many "classic games" for free. Too bad they're all > 30 minutes from my house, or else I'd be there daily.

That, and California Extreme where all of the rare games go. All games on free play and seminars and whatnot to boot. Whoo!

arcades games are so expensive these days

[jkcity]

In the uk, most places with arcades charge a really insane amount like 1 and some places have started charging 2, now this would'nt be a bad price but when an averge game lasts 60 seconds, it can get very expensive so I never play them unless I'm drunk, yet a few years ago there was a shop near me that only charged like 10/20p per a game, not bad arcades either and they'd change them often, would have me sinking a ton of money in, as I was getting valur for money, I just don't think there is much value for money in current arcade games, nearly every arcade machine I see these days has no one ever playing it.

another point is evan if you get good at these aracade games you find these days they mostly only let you get so far (the games are really short).

They should just charge less per a game and they'd probably make alot more money.

Re:arcades games are so expensive these days

[jkcity]

sorry I meant "like 1 (uk pound) and some places have started charging 2 (uk pound)," slashdot must have cut out my uk pound symbol.

pinball

[Anonymous Coward]

Pinball ruled for me from 1972-1984 and still does.

It take a lot more skill to max out a decently setup and clean Addams Family pinball game than to beat the boss in any fighting game.

Pinball wins hands down since I was able to get my friend from complete novice, never played, to expert player in under $8.00 worth of games.

Ah now for the list:
Count Down
Ro Jo
Firepower
8 Ball Delux
Jungle Queen
Addams Family
Captain Fantastic
Meteor
+
hundreds of other pinball machines I've played.

Anybody know of a pinball museum with accessible games to play?

Re:pinball

[HexRei]

First you claim pinball takes far more skill than any fighting game, then you claim that your friend became an expert in what... 20 or 30 games?
It takes hundreds of games for most of my friends to become "expert" at a single character in Soul Calibur 2, and we play quite a lot of that game.

Then again, we are competing against each other, not a machine, which means being an "expert" also includes knowing your opponent and predicting their next move.

Re:pinball

[Tackhead]

> It take a lot more skill to max out a decently setup and clean Addams Family pinball game than to beat the boss in any fighting game.

Problem is, it takes even more skill to find a decently set-up and clean Addams Family pinball machine these days than it does to play it. In other words, finding a good pinball joing is damn near impossible.

> Anybody know of a pinball museum with accessible games to play?

Google for a pinball collector named Tim Arnold. He has semiregular "fun nights" in Las Vegas that'll give you a chance to play some of the machines in his astounding collection.

Tim has also set up a nonprofit to found and fund an open-to-the-public pinball museum that would be a welcome addition to Vegas.

If you're in the Bay Area, be sure to attend the annual CA Extreme classic coin-op convention in San Jose, and Pin-A-Go-Go (link to one of many 2002 show reviews) in Dixon, near Sacramento.

Re:pinball

[Anonymous Coward]

>It takes hundreds of games for most of my friends to become "expert" at a single character in Soul Calibur 2,

My friend was able to win a replay within 30 games against a decently difficult pinball machine.

That pinball machine was setup correctly and since it was Addams Family it was a balanced game. This is opposed to pinball games which are A. designed for you to lose on the left or right side drain in a few seconds, or B. are setup to make you lose faster (steepest playfied slope, slanted to the right or left, non-functioning ball save).

A good pinball machine in decent shape is just as challenging as playing billiards, straight pool, 9 ball, eight ball, snooker, etc against a friend.

Just that the pinball machine does not require 2 players.

Some more machines:
Strikes and Spares
Six million Dollar Man
+
some of those old 1950s types with no flippers.

Re:pinball

[_anomaly_]

There's also Pinball Expo held in the Chicago, IL area: pinball expo
I've been the last 4 years... it's pretty good.
My friend's pinball website: shameless plug

Re:pinball

[xkenny13]

Problem is, it takes even more skill to find a decently set-up and clean Addams Family pinball machine these days than it does to play it. In other words, finding a good pinball joing is damn near impossible.

Plug: I have an Addams Family pinball machine on location at Barbella Piercing in Fountain Valley, CA ... and I do my best to keep it in good working order.

If you are in the area, you are more than welcome to come check it out. If you can take down my friend Brian's 735M high score, then all the better (I'm saying this because I know it will piss him off :-)).

Re:pinball

[nukitsuke]

some of the best pinball games ever
-mars attacks
-the machine: bride of pinbot
-indiana jones
-dracula
-earthshaker

the top three were designed by Brian Eddy check out the internet pinball database

Re:pinball

[bev_tech_rob]

I loved Black Night meself :)

Re:pinball

[bev_tech_rob]

I meant Black Knight....

Re:pinball

[jdeitch]

The biggest problem with pinball today is the price.

Not to play, but to buy.

Because, as noted above, it's damned near impossible to find a decent machine in the field that is playable. And when you DO, so does everyone ELSE. So it quickly becomes UNplayable.

The solution is easy, but not cheap : buy your own.

Decent older games from the early/mid 90s (ie: the "heyday") can be had for around $500-$1500.

More popular titles tend to cost more. New games average around $4k retail.

But a little TLC, a lot of cleaning, some investment in parts, and you can have your very own machine that plays in tip top shape.

Word of warning however : owning a pinball machine is fun, but quite addictive. They also breed like rabbits. Make sure you have room for more than one.

- JD

Re:pinball

[jez9999]

Yeah? Well I've become an expert at Street Fighter Alpha 3 in $0 of games... but I use Final Burn Alpha...

Re:pinball

[DZign]

Anybody know of a pinball museum with accessible games to play?

Well, actually, yes I do.

Check this website: http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

Currently they're still raising money for the museum, but one of the main people behind it is Tim Arnold who has probably the largest pinball collection in the world (he has all Gottliebs ever made).

He lives in Vegas and has over 400 games set up for play and a few times a year everyone is welcome.

Pictures of his collections are online on my homepage http://users.pandora.be/averhe/pinball/

Re:pinball

[jdvuyk]

StarTrek TNG was a killer pinball. Not too many pinballs had dual playflield cannons and a video-mode that was truely playable rather than just a gimmick.

Re:pinball

[britain]

It's not a museum, but Pinball Pete's, on South University in Ann Arbor, MI, has a pretty sizable pinball collection amidst all the oversize Bemani and DDR machines, and they have a couple of guys who clean and maintain them.

Testament

[DragonMagic]

I route arcade machines (place them out in locations to be played) and repair and convert them.

There are two major costs of these machines. Monitors and PCBs. A standard arcade game uses a 19" monitor (cabaret, the smaller uprights, tend to use 13" monitors). These 19" monitors brand new range from $200 to $500, and used ones need to be in good condition to be useful, so they're not much cheaper.

The PCBs, mostly the entire game, except for some of the interchangeable systems such as the NeoGeo MVS and the Naomi Systems, are quite expensive. Although these are mostly based on how new they are and how popular they are, if you're lucky you'll find a PCB for a game that may bring in quarters for about $50 on eBay. For a game like Tekken Tag Tournament, you'll be spending $250-$350.

Then there's the cabinets. You need solid enough wood to hold the monitor in the upper part of the machine and make sure people can't easily access its guts. At least $75-$100 to build your own from scratch, and at least that much to buy a decent cabinet to convert to a proper machine.

The controls are relatively cheap. Buttons are about $1-$2 each, $3-$10 for the joysticks, $25-$40 for the trackballs, etc. Since these are universal, buying in bulk if you do what I do is a way to save money without anticipating which games you'll have in the future.

Okay, that's out of the way. For me, I'll spend between $300 and $1500 to purchase parts or fix-me-ups and rebuild them into fully working and restored games. To make it worth my while, I have to assume that I'll make that money back in under nine months, or I feel it'll be a costly venture. This is just my estimate, since I'm the only one who works on these machines, I have a much lower overhead.

When you route a machine, instead of having them in your own location, the standard of the industry is split. That is, for every two quarters you get in a machine, one goes to the location and one goes to you. They pay for the electricity and just make sure that the machines aren't abused, and I keep them working and buy more machines. In the end, I have a higher cost, but I also choose where machines go more than the locations and can always sell them if I need the space or money.

Yes, arcades will be unprofitable these days for one specific reason, and that is what I described above. To drag people into an arcade, you need to make sure they want to go there. When I route machines, people are going to the location mostly for the location first, and if they have spare change, or a need to play, they'll plunk quarters into the coin slots. For an arcade, they're going to the arcade mostly to play the games, so you need to make sure you have some games for those players.

The investment to insure you have enough of the big machines or new machines, like DDR or SNK vs. Capcom, is extremely high. A DDR will set you back $15,000 easily for a two player machine with a new mix inside. Plus the space for this will drag your rent upwards. When I route, I just need to make sure there's enough clearance at the location, where they pay the rent.

Then, if you have too many people coming just to play games at an arcade, you need to make sure you have enough copies of the popular games. If you have one DDR, one SNK, one Ms. Pac-Man, one Galaga and, let's say, one air hockey table, along with several other less-played machines, people will be waiting around to play the popular games, and may just leave and not come back. Therefore, many copies of these are very necessary, higher costs. For me, having one DDR, one SNK, one Ms. Pac-Man and one Galaga in a location will be perfectly fine, as there won't be as many people playing at once, and people will return to the location for the location anyways.

In conclusion, arcades are a dying breed. They need to find a new angle to survive, such as what sportscard retailers did when sportscards were bombing (they got into Magic: the Gathering and other games), or what comic shops did when the comics indust

Re:Testament

[claud9999]

Have you been to a Super Auction or other game auction? Tons of vids from various eras, most working and in good shape...Many going for $500. (Decent cabinets for $25, easy!)

But if you want Tekken Tag Tournament or DDR or some other crap, you'll pay $$$.

Console games too

[millahtime]

Even console games have changed a lot over the years. Kids today won't even play the old console games. I have an old nintendo and my cousins who are teens and preteens thought the controller was archaic. They won't even look at the game. They couldn't handle the lack of buttons and things they could do. So, it's the direction video games have gone.

Re:Console games too

[tepples]

They couldn't handle the lack of buttons and things they could do.

Put WarioWare in front of them, and they will see what one button can do for them. WarioWare gives them an excess of "things they can do" while keeping the control scheme minimalistic (everything is mapped to up, down, left, right, or A).

why not get more arcade LANs

[WormholeFiend]

with the popularity of FPSes, why not have arcade machines (w/ comfortable seats and controls) lined up? Give like 5 lives for 25 cents to play Counterstrike, Unreal 2xxx, Halo, BF1492 or whatever...

Just have each terminal present the list of games being played and enable it to connect to the appropriate server.

it would sure beat lugging your whole computer system to a LAN party... and there wouldnt be any cheaters.

Re:why not get more arcade LANs

[iantri]

This is what most Internet Cafes have morphed into -- rows and rows of people playing FPSes. It's a little pricey, but for some reason people do it anyway.

Re:One word..... NOT

[cellocgw]

Back in my day (not to long ago) the price to play a game was 25 cents. Today if you go into an arcade many games are $1.00 or more. I can't afford these prices. What do you expect children to do? (If you answered go to their parents for money you are right)
People have been uttering this same whiny fallacy for years, both about vids and pins. Take a look back: what is your salary now compared to, say, 1980? What is the value of a given house? Car? Movie ticket? NFL ticket? (ok, so computers are cheaper :-) ).
I submit it's a purely psychological barrier: the most valuable common coin is the quarter. Any price above that threatens to get into paper money, and that makes everyone freak.

I find this hard to believe...

[dethlejd]

Based on the number of quarters that I recall shoveling into Asteroids, Berserker, Joust, Defender, and Space Invaders games in the 80s, there's no way they could have run out yet.

Plus, since I missed so much school, they probably have my engineering degree in a closet someplace.

- Jim

Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Mongoose Disciple]

I'm not really sure what D&B's business plan is these days.

There was a time, circa 3-5 years ago, that my friends and I would go to our local Dave and Busters about once a week to have lunch or dinner and play a bunch of games. Every time we went there there'd be at least one new arcade game to play, and the food was always excellent.

At the time, their business made a lot of sense to me. You have this whole generation of kids who grew up going to the arcades that's now grown up. You get them back in and make money off them as adults with a combination of the fun and nostalgia of their arcade days and great food/drinks. By making it this upscale, adult-oriented establishment you turn what was seen as a niche quasi-geek activity into something more acceptable and mainstream.

Their restaurant/bar quality has gone way downhill in my opinion over the last few years, while the prices have gone up. Now new arcade games at the D&B are rare in the extreme (is this because they're buying less or because, as the article suggests, less are being made?). It used to be that as an adult professional I could make a case to even non-arcadeophiles to do a lunch at the D&B because the food was so good -- now that's just not the case anymore. I'm just not sure what the draw is supposed to be, now.

The Gameworks I've visited still has fairly good food, though I can't say I like their layout/setup as much as the D&B's.

Is it possible that one of the problems with the arcade industry is mismanagement of the arcades themselves?

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[the_mad_poster]

Is it possible that one of the problems with the arcade industry is mismanagement of the arcades themselves?

My bosses have assured me on numerous occasions that mismanagement is never a possible problem.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Jboy_24]

My biggest disapointment to D&B was when i went there... there were kids there.

WTF?

I guess if your with your parents you can go. But it just turns it into some chunk-e-cheeze type place.

That place should be 21+ only.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and the food was always excellent."

Listen, just because the food is better than what you're used to at Long John Silver or Olive Garden does not make it "excellent." D&B food is shit, plain and simple.

Then again, I'm sure the "Tequila Lime Chicken smothered in Montery Jack Cheese" you got tasted mighty fine to your pallet.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Mongoose Disciple]

If I remember correctly, it's 21+ at certain times of day but not others.

One of the guys I used to go with completely agreed with your viewpoint, though. He used to say he wanted to open a place almost exactly like D&B, but with exactly one stripper off in a corner pole-dancin' -- just to make sure that children would never, ever be allowed in there.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Urox]

Definitely a mismanagement.

My SO and I would go to D&B to play particular games, one of them being Dance Dance Revolution. It cost $1.25 more than a local arcade, but we could get a decent bite to eat and there weren't as many kids running around. Their fatal mistake? They bought one of the DDR rip off / patent infringing PUMP machines and put it right next to DDR. Listening to the music was impossible when they both went at the same time. There was always a line for DDR which often spilled over into the PUMP machine.

Then they did the unthinkable: they got rid of the DDR machine. I never saw the PUMP machine in use after that. They lost a serious money maker.

Another problem with D&B is that they are control freaks. There is a time of day where anyone can go in provided they have someone over 25 with them. So your soccer mom goes in with her two boys and she isn't carded. I go in with my SO: he is carded and quite over 25. The guy insists on seeing my id. I tell him I'm with my SO and start walking on by. He asks if I have my id. I tell him he doesn't need to see it knowing full well the policy. He says something incomprehensible about checking my id if he sees me "unattended" as I'm walking past him into the place. Makes you wonder if some people are welcoming in a new reign of facist, paper-checking leaders.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[siobHan]

D&B has no idea how to run an arcade. It's basically a restaurant business. You have to rotate the games to maintain interest.

D&B bought Pump machines for all of their locations as far as I can tell. It's a more suitable game for adult players when compared to DDR, IMHO, but in any case, it's easier to purchase than DDR. And it's not patent-infringing - the court cases were settled years ago, and I'm surprised to find anyone on Slashdot who thinks the position of buttons you hit with your feet should be patentable! Am I taking Crazy Pills or something??

J

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[einTier]

Is it possible that one of the problems with the arcade industry is mismanagement of the arcades themselves?

I think it's both.

In the mid 90's, I often drove to Houston (an hour away) just to party at Dave and Buster's. The food was good enough, the drinks good enough and cheap enough, and the arcade was killer. They had games that you just didn't see anywhere else, and they seemingly bought one of every type of machine there was. They also had the special BattleTech MechWarrior setup, the VR games, and many specialized games that took up small rooms just to play.

Today, I go to the one in Austin (where I live), and I can't figure out why I'm spending money there. Granted, the happy hour is good, and the drinks are still good, but everything else is poorly executed. There's a large section devoted to food, when the food really isn't that great. The pool tables are nice, but they are twice as expensive as comparable tables in town. They certainly have a lot of games, but none that I'd call noteworthy. The 'premier' eight car racing game complete with cameras to watch the drivers is still Daytona USA. The game dates back to 1994 or 1995, and it shows. Many of the video displays are sub-par, and the entire machine shows signs of extreme wear. Does it cost any less to play? Hell no.

Is there a DDR machine (which is the most popular arcade machine in our area)? Hell no. Is there any game in the joint that I can't find somewhere else in town? Hell no. Anything truly groundbreaking? Hell no. Do I see new games in the club? Hell no.

It's like a pale imitation of D&B past. If they are going to make me pay extra to play their games, then I want to see something unique for my money. As it is, it's no different from the Sega Gameworks that closed a few months ago -- which hadn't gotten a new game since early 2000 and offered $10 "all you can play" Wendsday nights.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Jboy_24]

I agree... I mean a girl stripper on one side, male on the other... (for the girls, so they can't complain)

but 100% no kids.

Even Vegas is wising up that people don't want freakin kids around

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Urox]

I stand corrected (with regards to the infringement). Last I had heard (which I fully admit was some time ago), Pump was ruled against, not for, and was ordered to stop making the machines.

DDR has a much nice user interface than Pump. It was played far more than Pump in any demographic from what I observed at D&B. The songs were better (both style and use.. Pump slaughtered Take On Me)and the variance in difficulty choice is better.

You are taking crazy pills if you're getting this excited over someone's comment as well as jumping to conclusions. I never said that the position of buttons should be patentable. Pump, however, was still clearly a rip-off of the orginal idea.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Fjord]

It's possible, but in reality, it's probably just that the economy sucks so they can't lay out the cash it takes to buy a whole lot of new machines, and they are probably still paying interest on that 8 player Daytona setup. Their cash still mostly comes from the bar and the food, and upgrading the machines has a low priority.

This is the same reason I only spent $500 on my new computer (still good, Athlon 2000 w/ Radeon 9700 and DVD+-RW) rather than a few thousand: I just don't make as much money anymore.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, the one near me (bethesda maryland) is always packed.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Holi]

oh and regard to your sig... yes.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Tofino]

What a time to have no mod points! I often have to endure my mother- and sister-in-law talking about the "absolutely goooor-may" meal that they got at brother-in-law's TGI Friday's. :|

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[gmhowell]

The favorite restaurant of my half-Italian BIL is Olive Garden.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[Mongoose Disciple]

D&B food is shit, plain and simple.

I done told you that already.

Five years ago, though? Not so. The menu was about five times the size and the food was much better.

Did it compare favorably with $100+ per person meals I've had? Of course not. The special dinner my girlfriend painstakingly handcrafted for Valentine's Day? Not even close. Can I get any of that at a place where I can grab a quick lunch with my coworkers or play games with my friends? Again, hell no.

The D&B food, in its time, was good for what it was. There's always going to be a market for food made well that tastes good, even if it's simple or fast. I'm sorry if find these simple truths so offensive, but that still won't alter reality to suit it.

Re:Regarding Dave and Busters:

[DeadScreenSky]

Eh, everyone I know prefers the Pump music, which has a lot more variety, if nothing else. Most DDR music only really appeals to a very small niche of people in the USA.

one problem...

[Pamplemousse]

I think one problem is that so many people look for the ultra spiffy graphics. Unfortunantly those old arcade games dont have the best graphics. Too many people judge games by how they look, I am guilty of that too. The first time I played FF7 I only played for about 10 minutes because I let the not so steller graphics get me down. After playing it a while I realized what a great game it is! I personally would trade my PS2 for a nice arcade machine with PacMan or space invaders any day!

Heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I prefer Soul Calibur. Slap your coins in, pick Rapheal or some other masher-friendly character, and mash buttons until said Master is pwned.

$

Re:Heh.

[DeadScreenSky]

That is probably the best defense of SCII's unbalanced (IE too offense heavy) game engine I have ever read. Kudos. :)

For those of you kids too young to remember...

[VValdo]

..or those who want a big burst of "holy shit that's right!", here's a little sample of what an arcade SOUNDED like, circa 1981...

By 1983, game audio was getting more advanced, and sounded a bit like this.

A couple more are here.

Pacman fever. It's driving me crazy.

W

Re:For those of you kids too young to remember...

[shadowbearer]

Hmm...the second link seems quite a bit quieter than the first...but with more variations in the sounds (I can only identify most sounds from the first link...)

SB

Size of machines factor

[failedlogic]

The machine size is a factor as well. Pacman and the other old-school games were the size of a regular cabinet.

Newer games have larger cabinets. They're either 4 player games, simulators (cars, etc) or the boxing simulator (think its on the 3rd page ... that machine is huge).

Even with higher fees to play, the machine size alone means less machines in the arcade. With lower attendance, your revenue per sq/ft has plummetted.

Arcades have been replaced by LAN centers.

[MongooseCN]

People want games where they can interact with other people. They want a more social atmosphere to go with their gaming and this is a gap LAN centers have been created to fill. Check out lanparty.com and igames.org for a listing of sites. LAN centers have competitions for prizes and money. Some even have overnight LAN parties. I think of LAN centers as social center, like a bar except for smart people. :)

LAN centers are the next evolutionary step in the high tech social scene.

Re:Arcades have been replaced by LAN centers.

[alphaseven]

LAN centers are the next evolutionary step in the high tech social scene.

Wouldn't surprise me. The article mentions how popular these places are in Korea and I've been seeing them crop up all the time in Toronto. Plus they seem to get a lot of business from non-gamers just stepping in to check email and stuff.

Another thing that might work in the favour of LANs is that there's a new crop of games like DOOM 3 coming out that have high system requirements but a lot more people are getting by with sub $500 PCs who don't want to upgrade.

Namco's Class of 81

[ooby]

There was a time when an arcade operator in America could buy a Ms. Pac-Man machine for less than $1,000, let it sit in an arcade, bar or storefront, and see that game make back over 30 times the initial investment. In 2004, that kind of profit margin is little more than a pipe dream. Once I save up $3000, Who needs a big screen TV when i have the girl of my dreams, and galaga to boot! /drool

How the Arcades can come back...

[JavaLord]

The arcades fell when the fighting game Genre died. Part of what killed it was most of the fighting game fans moved on to online Computer games at home (at least it seems that way around here...) . In order to bring gamers back, the arcade needs to offer a better experence than gamers can get at home.

Personally, if it happens I think it will be Arcade games that are networked with other games across the country (and world) allowing for competitive play with worldwide rankings. This is better than playing at home because you don't have to deal with the cheaters, and you will most likely have a better connection.

No matter what it is that arcades manage to offer in the future, it will have to be worth getting people off their ass to go to the arcades. In the past it was competition and better graphics than the home systems.

Midway releasing a new Mortal Kombat game, and announcing there would be a networked tournament in a years time with a $100,000 grand prize to the winner would probably do the trick. Of course, Midways coin-op division is dead.

The arcade had tech you couldn't afford

[Matey-O]

Arcade games USDE to be about equipment, graphics and gamingin experience the average guy couldn't duplicate at home. Now that the average console has millions of polys/sec and 5.1 surround, the only other area an arcade machine can compete is the immersion. I don't know many homes that have a mechwar LAN, or a three monitor Ferrari F355 simulator. (I spend the first $5 in THAT game just turning donuts on the infield, giggling like a schoolgirl. It ACCURATELY protrayed the way that car feels and performs.)

What arcades should do...

[Bendebecker]

Is stress the social factor of the game. Anyone can go and play online alone. But what bout going to a place with a nice atmosphere like a restruant and setting up a LAN party or something (instead of trying to pack it all in your house.) You coudl have nightly tournaements. You could actually meet people in real life. You could... wait, this idea is great! There goes the millions I was going to make on the idea...

Not so fast...

[gosand]

The door has swung the other direction. As a child, I wasn't the richest kid in town, and I didn't play arcade games much. It was a quarter a pop, and if you aren't much good (which you can't be without experience) your quarter doesn't last long. I remember quite vividly getting my first nintendo, and how amazing it seemed that I could play Duck Hunt for half an hour with no line, and no quarters. Why go back?

If you have to ask, you just don't get it.

Seriously. I was born in '69, so I was there when all of the classic games came out. Maybe I am just being nostalgic, but it was an awesome time. Take your $5 that you saved and go to the arcade. You could play 20 games, if you didn't buy any chips or Coke. You could watch other people play. I remember when Pac Man came out. I bought the damn "Pac Man Fever" 45. I remember playing Moon Patrol and Joust at the Pizza Hut. I always went for the 5x in Lunar Lander instead of playing it safe with the 2x. Sinistar still scares the crap out of me. I spent many many hours playing Star Wars. Games like Gauntlet let you play alongside other people. I could go on and on. Check out Video Arcade Preservation Society (VAPS) or the Killer List of Video games (KLOV) if you want to go back in time a little. And there is always MAME for a more hands-on approach.

It isn't like home systems weren't fun, I broke countless Atari 2600 joysticks. But you just can't compare the classic arcade scene to home gaming or arcades of today. It just doesn't work.

Re:Not so fast...

[mmaddox]

And, like the article implies, the scene was there because the technology was there. Today's arcades (at least in the US) just don't have the same attraction as the interactive, inexpensive gaming console or pc. You get it, all right.

Man, you and I BOTH were there. Can you imagine anyone writing a song about the aforementioned "Generic Racer X 2450 blah blah"? Much less an entire ALBUM of songs (I bought the Buckner and Garcia tape for such classics as "Goin' Berzerk" along with "Pac Man Fever.")!? It's just not the same thing.

Now we have the pay-to-play PC and console bars; could THIS be the new model? Beer and Counterstrike in a never-ending LAN party?

Re:Not so fast...

[shadowbearer]

If you have to ask, you just don't get it.

You betcha.

Thanks for the nostalgia trip :) ( & links )

Robotron, Joust, Defender....the original Tron arcade game (I couldn't even get to the machine for a couple weeks, there were so many people waiting in line). When I first saw Joust, at a joint called Steve's Pizza, my friends and I were laughing so hard at the game we could hardly play. There was just something comical as hell about whapping your opponent on the head with your bird's ass...but I digress :)
Remember Space War(s?)? Vector graphics....first saw that at a County Fair in ?'79?

But we were hooked!

I broke a lot of firing buttons playing the Empire Strikes Back on the 2600. About the only way to make it thru was to have a fast hammer thumb on the firing button :) wham wham wham wham wham wham

Arcades were great, back then. Now I'm bored by them; I have better games on my PC... of course I'm not exactly in the age group anymore, either :)

Born '67, arcade player since '79 or somewhere around then.... I remember, during some broke times, riding around the mall parking lot looking for dropped change I could turn into quarters for just another chance at Robotron (which I eventually mastered - playing from 9:00 open to 4:00 in the afternoon on one quarter once :) till the owner kicked me out)

Addicted? Me? ::::))))) I developed blisters on the palms of my hand once from the Robotron controls :)

Those were the days, fer sure. You're right about not getting it.... just like at our age now, there are some things we "don't get" about the newest kids' crazes. Ah, the joys of getting older :)
Well, at least my reflexes are still good - mostly for fast paced 'frag' games, anyway. Heh.

Cheers, dude. Damn, in another twenty years nobody is going to remember those times anymore...oh, guh.

SB

Pinball is one of the few reasons for an Arcade

[McFly777]

Now days, playing pinball is another of the few reasons to go to an arcade, IMHO.

The reason is the same as has been mentioned for DDR, etc.... Speciality hardware that can't/isn't duplicated at home (affordably).

While there are video-game pinball simulations, they really aren't the same as playing on a physical machine. The video-game-pinball becomes closer to a twitch-game, where if you twitch at the right moment you get a predictable result. In contrast, the physical pinball can have spin and other effects that influence the ball behavior and make the game much more interesting.

When I go to a bar or other place with coin-op games, I almost always will stop and play pinball. I hardly even think of playing a video-game.

Re:Pinball is one of the few reasons for an Arcade

[cellocgw]

While there are video-game pinball simulations, they really aren't the same as playing on a physical machine. The video-game-pinball becomes closer to a twitch-game, where if you twitch at the right moment you get a predictable result. In contrast, the physical pinball can have spin and other effects that influence the ball behavior and make the game much more interesting.
Agreed they aren't the same, but if you're getting predictable results you're playing the weaker variety of sims (like, say, M$oft). The better products such as Empire's Pro Pinball series do a darn good randomization job.

Re:Pinball is one of the few reasons for an Arcade

[Junks Jerzey]

Now days, playing pinball is another of the few reasons to go to an arcade, IMHO.

Of course you realize that pinball is in even worse shape than video games. The king of pinball, Williams, bowed out of the market a few years ago. Ditto for just about every other pinball manufacturer.

Re:Pinball is one of the few reasons for an Arcade

[claud9999]

Unluckily, many operators put their pins right next to a DDR machine, driving us pinheads out of our friggin' minds! (I pulled the plug on the DDR machine at the local bowling alley after about the fifth time through the attract mode.) Unluckily, DDR and related music machines are fun for those playing and watching, but for other players at the arcade they're a big annoyance.

Not that it's a new phenomenon...I remember being annoyed by the Punch*Out machine at the arcade when it was the newest game and, hence, the loudest. "Left! Left! Uppercut! Knock 'em out!"

So who's surprised?

[digrieze]

Back in the late 70's when I went to grad school I used to fix PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong, Tempest (a real bear to work on that French X-Y monitor) and other systems for pocket money.

The games were easy to learn quickly so people could get addicted yet the upper stages would be challenging so they would keep coming back and not get bored. Also, there was a wide varience of themes so if someone didn't like shooting or bombing something they could just roll a marble around an obstacle course or something.

Nowdays if you don't want to beat the s**t out of someones on-screen avatar or shoot someone with a realistic gun you're pretty much out of luck. I used to go to the arcades (I was addicted to the AREA 51 series, no I have nothing against shooters), but my kids didn't like any of it until a local Putt-Putt operation got Dance-Dance-Revolution (and now DDRII). I quit going because the arcades in the malls turned into gang hangouts. The punks spent the day practicing shooting and beating each other up on-screen. Another favorite activity was getting arrested by the cops in the arcade since the cops knew where to pick up the punks that beat up or shot someone the night before. Since my kids didn't like those jerks they had no desire to go there, no matter what was there.

Back in the '70s I would fill in on shifts while I worked on machines (extra bucks). We had strict policies that the punks weren't welcome and that was what security was there to insure. Families were welcome, doctors, medical students, and college students were the advertised audience, and they dropped the quarters as long as the machines were running (which was where I came in).

If they want me and my kids to show up and drop our money (and we have it to blow, thanks to many years of hard work) it needs to be a place I don't feel a need to bring a REAL gun.

Incidently, we added poll tables, arcade games, foosball tables, and some tables and chairs to a side room at our church cafe' - it stays full. The problem with arcades is the same as the problems with bars, it isn't what's in there, it's who they let in.

Dunno about that...

[Second_Derivative]

The article makes reference to DDR at one point and I think that's a good example. I'm an avid DDR fan, and it is quite hard to get a home setup that is of comparable quality to that of the arcade system (Arcade DDR platforms are incredibly complex beasts -- there's several independent pressure sensors per arrow and the whole thing's very heavily ruggedised to withstand an immense amount of punishment). Besides, at home it just makes a huge amount of noise.

Compare to arcades whereby one can play on decent quality equipment, nobody minds, and you even get to meet new people whilst doing so. Admittedly this isn't really true in the UK where I live, but you can see shades of this in the big London arcades. Of course there may be little we can do about it if it all does go the way of the dodo (indications are Konami are planning to axe the Japanese DDR series as well), but I wouldn't go so far as to say that arcades are doomed. There's something about arcades that you just don't get at home, even if you had the actual machine yourself.

Mod up this rather insightful post!

[teamhasnoi]

I think you are right on the Money. If the arcade had several different control configurations, say one machine with a steering wheel, one with a couple of trackballs, one with joysticks and a few buttons, and perhaps one with the rediculous number of buttons that todays fighting games demand(how many damn fingers do you have?), I could see a nice spread of games with the controllers needed to play them.

I know there have been rotating 'All-Controllers' out there, but you need to be able to have multiple machines in order to distribute the people.

Why shouldn't I be able to walk up to a blank machine - order up Super Sprint, Cyberball 2xxx, Atari Castles (one of my all time favorites), or hell, even Rescue Raiders.

The tech is out there, but the industry is slow to respond. Of course, licensing will be a problem, but hey guys, you did it to yourself. It would be rather ironic if arcade manufacturers were killed by licensing issues.

Lastly, do we really need another fighting game? I stopped going to arcades when I couldn't find anything that didn't yell "FATALITY" at me.

Re:Mod up this rather insightful post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the original poster you responded to.

I don't think licensing has to be an issue. The games could come from the game companies themselves, either on their own hardware or hardware from one manufacturer that is sold to the different game companies.

Sega doesn't have to license their own games from themselves.

One of the reasons the game companies are dying, is that they don't make residual money, only the initial sale.

If you bought an arcade machine in the 80's, you might pay $1,000 for it, and profit over $30,000 for it, as the story said. Sega only made money on the initial $1,000, and only a fraction of that was profit.

Why not make $0.03 every time someone plays Pac Man? If the machines were less expensive and more flexible, the machine owner would be more than happy to pay the $0.03. Sega would make a VERY substantial amount of money off of these residuals.

And it would be good for the whole industry. If I could play ANY game I wanted at a bowling alley I'd be far more likely to spend $3 than if I have to choose from 6 games, 3 of which are totally screwed up and in cabinets with stickers from another game.

The arcade industry could be brought back from the brink of death, in a win-win-win situation.

You are right. If this doesn't happen, it's only because the arcade industry is a slow moving dinosaur that is completely out of touch with 95% of it's market and wouldn't know an opportunity if it bit it on the...

Re:Mod up this rather insightful post!

[shadowbearer]

Not only that, but those machines would be a lot cheaper to mass produce.

What wouldn't be cheaper, however, is the licensing for all those games.

There's the real barrier. Damn software patents anyway.

SB

Re:Mod up this rather insightful post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the original poster.

I have no problem with the software patents, in this case. A game is a creative work that they poured their heart and soul into, they have the right to own it, and keep the source private if they want.

But that isn't a barrier. Sega would be the ones to produce or authorize the machines, and would make a cut of every game played. They don't need to license games from themselves.

Re:Mod up this rather insightful post!

[shadowbearer]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of having several manufacturers games in one machine, rather than one; that would drive licensing up. You make a good point, tho.

Wrt to software patents, I was also thinking of old games that are far past their profit windows. It can be difficult or impossible to get licensing for those for an independent who wishes to build multi-game arcade machines...

SB

Legislation is needed.

[valintin]

Oh my an industry in danger of losing money. We must pass some legislation to protect their monopoly. They have a right to their business. Legislation is needed to curb the use of home gaming systems that threaten this vital American pastime.

AGAA should get a percentage of all sales of home game systems. They deserve this protection for all the bodies they are losing. Some of these proprietors spent lots of money in anticipation of great rewards, who's going to pay for that now? The consumer of course. If we don't start taxing Home Game Systems the arcade industry could collapse and we won't have any more arcade games at all.

AGAA says, "Do your duty America, report pirate game time today. If your not dropping quarters your dropping capitalism."

There are only 3 games anymore

[t1nman33]

The driving game, the shooting game, and the fighting game. :)

We have a D&B near me. Don't get me wrong, it's a good time. I love being able to have a beer while I'm playing video games. But it sure isn't like the arcades of my youth. My dad used to take me to the Space Port and let me play; I had to stand on a little metal stool to reach the controls.

Times have changed. Now, if you look at the business model, you see pretty clearly that: Video games = too expensive to have high-quality in your house, therefore put them in a public space where they can be played by anybody for a fee. In a way, arcades are the descendants of libraries.

Now, however, the quality of the game in an arcade is only on-par with what can be done at home. The business model needs to be updated to take advantage of that by, as has been said, offering VR experiences and multiplayer experiences that cannot be found at home.

I, for one, would love to go to D&B or any arcade somewhere if they had some sort of LAN-party setup where I could play UT2K3 or some such against people I could actually see and talk to in person. In fact, one of my favorite current arcade games is Galaxian 3, which is a multi-player rail shooter with about 6 people playing at once. I would also love to go to an arcade if I found more gametypes that were a little more innovative than just shooting things, punching things, or driving around things.

Offtopic: Does anybody remember a very obscure '80s game that involved a top-down perspective of a spaceship that moved at a fixed speed forward and could be rotated to the left or right, over a landscape where you could both bomb stuff on the ground and shoot down ships in the air? I used to LOVE that game back in the day, and I have no idea what it was...

Re:There are only 3 games anymore

[PhoenixFlare]

Offtopic: Does anybody remember a very obscure '80s game that involved a top-down perspective of a spaceship that moved at a fixed speed forward and could be rotated to the left or right, over a landscape where you could both bomb stuff on the ground and shoot down ships in the air? I used to LOVE that game back in the day, and I have no idea what it was...

Xevious.

Re:There are only 3 games anymore

[t1nman33]

No, it wasn't Xevious. Xevious was a top-scrolling shooter; this game was free-scrolling in all directions, which is part of what I thought made it pretty cool. It was similar to Zone 66 for the PC...

Re:There are only 3 games anymore

[PhoenixFlare]

Hmm, not really sure then...I have an almost full MAME set sitting around somewhere (yes, I know it's evil), maybe i'll take a look this weekend.

Re:There are only 3 games anymore

[t1nman33]

You know what...I might have found it...I think it was Ark Area. Klov.com says it was a Japan-only release, but I can't find ANY other game that matches...

Based on my memories of it, 1987 seems about right for the graphical quality of the screenshots that I see, and I probably would've been going to arcades around the age of 9 or so, with supervision, and I remember my folks being there with me. And it seems like almost EVERY other game is either a sideways or a vertical scroller. Based on the screenshots, it seems like there is some movement in every direction. And the graphics of the first level seem consistent with what I remember...

I guess I have a date with MAME tonight. :) Take that, UT2K4!

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Golden Tee was mentioned, numbnuts.

LAN PC Arcades

[ballylama]

... Arcade shops should wake up, and offer a PC Lan...
Bring the home PC to the arcade environment.... this is what I feel the industry is going towards.
Pinball machines and PC Lan Arcades....

-=-
um...yeah...

Re:One word..... NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

In the States maybe, we have 1 dollar (loonie) and 2 dollar (twoonie) coins in Canada.... our pockets get heavy...

Console compatibility

[tepples]

A $50 console game will allow you to play forever.

Unless it's only on the consoles that you don't have and it requires controllers that you don't have. One of the most popular arcade games is Dance Dance Revolution, which has been ported to the PS2 (well) and the Xbox (poorly) but not to the GameCube (at all). Most GameCube-owning minors can't justify a $220 impulse buy (a PS2 plus a copy of DDRMAX2) to their parents.

Re:Console compatibility

[DeadScreenSky]

I don't play it myself, but my younger brothers are DDR freaks, and they both prefer the Xbox version to the PS2 one. What are the deficiencies, exactly? The online play, four-player mode, better licensed music, and downloadable songs all seem to favor the Xbox version. As does the superior sound quality. Graphics don't really enter into a DDR game, of course.

Lack of innovation

[Fiz Ocelot]

I'll play an arcade game really only if it's something I haven't played before. I think the last game I tried (probably at least a year ago) involved standing on a skateboard that moved around. It was quite good, but not something I"ll really do again. At least it got my money right? DDR is also another innovate game. What's similar between these? The special need for very specific hardware, whether it be a dance floor or skateboard. These are generally far too expensive for the home gamer. (isn't there a mech game that needs a $200 controller?) In my opinion, what arcades have that should be utilized more are control setups that help immerse gamers. I would love a great mech simulation with 3 or 4 screen, full on force feedback controls and seats. etc.

I disagree...

[Ian_Bailey]

While I agree that I don't enjoy playing as much by myself, I do not agree that I play with other people to learn more about the game.

The way we learned tricks in games has changed over time. It started with learning from the masters as you talked about here, but it also began to spread through your networks of friends and the through the growth of strategy magazines.

Today, I don't know anyone who plays games and doesn't go to GameFAQs. It remains to be seen whether we are just too lazy to do this on our own, but places like GameFAQs are probably the staple of where most of the gamers learn the tricks these days.

I believe that the important issue of arcades is the SOCIAL aspect. The lure of becoming the expert and the arcade game to show off your skills is nowhere as prevalent as it is in the arcades. The crowds that develop around a master can't happen at home. The competitiveness in a racing game or the cooperation between two shooters is a great lure.

However, even this is under attack by consoles, with World-Rankings, Xbox live tournaments, and the growth of 4-player gaming.

This is the boss

[tepples]

And then the boss level comes up, and you completely blow your legs out trying to pass "MAX 300".

Too many special machines...

[NYTrojan]

I recently went to an arcade... I haven't been to any in a LONG time. Saw one in a mall and figured "what the hell, I have some time to kill" Every single machine there required you to climb into something, strap gloves on, pick up a bazooka/firehose/other huge gun, or stick your head into something. I don't want to pay 75 cents for 20 seconds of play just because I can jump on a giant plastic raft or pair of skis. I want to stand at a machine, grab the joystick (no jokes please) and punch some buttons.... no more than 6. I left the arcade after 5 minutes because I honestly wasn't interested in any of the games they had there. I'd have happily blown a few bucks if they had an old Killer Instinct machine. Of course, I didn't like the 3-d fighters when they came out either. I thought there was a little more gamesmanship involved in the 2d fighters. More countering and tricking your opponent, but maybe that was just me.

It's just the home consoles are so good now...

[sammaffei]

One of the main reasons I went to the arcade when I was a kid was that the home console versions of arcade games weren't as good. Yes, I owned Ms. Pac-man for Atari 2600, but it didn't come close to the arcade version. That's why I still came to the arcade to play.

Once when we were young...

[mseeger]

Hi,

i can still remember those days when you needed to be at least 70 if not 80 to whine about those good old days. Nowadays every kid in elementary school does it. Tempora mutantur....

Seriously: What do you expect. Video games were cool and new by then. Now everyone has a PS2 at home and a gameboy in his bags.

Regards, Martin

P.S. I think it was a fortune cookie (back in those good old golden days of limited bandwidth): Man invented speech to satisfy his deep need to complain.

Not everybody has the Right Console(tm)

[tepples]

I bought a DDR mat on eBay for $20 and the game for $20.

Does Konami make a non-ancient DDR mix for PC, PS1, Dreamcast, or GameCube? No? Then raise the price by $180 to buy a PS2.

Re:Not everybody has the Right Console(tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

There are good DDR simulators for the PC, and the mixes are easy enough to find and download on the web (ahem, though of course you may only legally do so if you own the game). And you can get a dedicated PC mat or a PS2-USB adapter with a PS2 mat. This is actually much better than playing on the PS2, because you have all the mixes in one location without having to swap CDs.

It's called inflation...

[WIAKywbfatw]

It irks me too that the combination Ms. Pac Man/Galaga machines now charge .50 per play - why is it double the price to play an old game??

That arcade machine hasn't shrunk. It still takes up the same amount of floor space. On the other hand, the arcade operator's costs have grown considerably. Everything from rent, to electricity, to maintenance, to wages, to whatever else you can think of has risen in price. It's called inflation.

Higher costs, plus more idle time (How many people are queuing to play Ms. Pac Man or Galaga nowadays?) means higher cost per play. Simple economics.

Don't get me wrong, I too can remember the day when you could play Space Invaders for 2 pence and I too shake my head when I see the cost of some of today's games (and, heck, I can remember the furore caused at school when the first moving cabinet games like Afterburner came out charging one pound per play) but I'm pragmatic about such things and I realise that that golden era of arcade gaming has gone and that being an arcade operator isn't the licence to print money that it was once.

Re:It's called inflation...

[Anonymous Coward]

That arcade machine hasn't shrunk. It still takes up the same amount of floor space.

It has shrunk. It's now two games in one cabinet.

...related social issue..

[SubtleNuance]

One related issue I believe is urban design. People are no longer required to leave their homes for an arcade experience. GOING To the Arcade for the 'marginally better' experience CERTAINLY isnt worth driving your car across the city (a long trip) just on a 'whim'. North Americans spend alot of time in their cars navigating our sprawling communities -- this encourages 'cocooning', people building their own private domains for all things. People just cannot be bothered to leave their homes and navigate the stinking, expensive, unsafe, endless roadways to get to the aracde.

If our urban spaces were designed more wisely, an arcade would be 'closer' and more accessible. The benefit of social interaction (with strangers, neighbours and friends) would be more easily realized... not to mention access to all the best games.

With Sprawl just getting to the arcade is a chore.

Old School Master - The Song

[Anonymous Coward]

For all those interested in the old school games...

A local band (soon to be nationally famous though) in Indianapolis wrote a song about old school video games, "Old School Master" - http://www.johnnysocko.com/listen.html

I especially like their comment about the Konami code - any song that can put "up up down down left right left right b a select start" into the lyrics is cool by me!

No surprise - the reason is obvious

[Clod9]

Twenty years ago, home arcade games were expensive and the games you could find in an arcade were much better.
Now, home consoles are comparatively cheap and the games are great -- and many fantastic games will run on a general-purpose PC.
Why shell out quarters (four at a time!) in an arcade any more?
This is a market which had to die when the price/performance ratio of home gear went through the floor.

You call yourself a geek?!!!

[Thud457]

It's called a self-correcting negative feedback loop.

You've hit the nail on the head...

[Weaselmancer]

I agree completely.

The only real reason arcades were a hit was because they gave you something that you couldn't get at home. We all had the Atari 2600, right? But it didn't take a genius to figure out that the gameplay was a little different. The 2600 sucked compared to what was in the arcades. So we kept on going.

Now fast-forward to today...is the version of Tekken 3 any different in the arcade as what you have at home?

To get me to an arcade, they're going to have to give me something I can't get at home. A good example of that would be the multiplayer Battlemech Simulators - I'd do that in a heartbeat.

But as for a standup arcade machine - it's a dead genre. A box to waste a little time in a BW-3 while waiting for your hot wings. The arcade culture is gone. Treasure your memories, play MAME...but know that the genie is out of the bottle and playing SOCOM in his living room.

Weaselmancer

DDR Solo

[tepples]

A DDR will set you back $15,000 easily for a two player machine with a new mix inside. Plus the space for this will drag your rent upwards.

Can't you put a newer mix in a smaller Solo cabinet and just leave the 2nd player's pad and start buttons disconnected?

Re:DDR Solo

[DragonMagic]

Yes, you can convert a 2nd Mix to an 8th Mix, for example. The problem is that a conversion kit costs between $500 and $1000 for the marquee, stickers and game software. The machines themselves barely go down in value when a new mix comes out, so you're still looking at a hefty sum of money to get even an empty machine.

CoinOpExpress, which sells many used systems (but the import fees are killer since they're in southeast Asia), has a DDR original for $1530 and an 8th Mix Extreme for $4995, both used. They weigh over 400kg, so tack on over $1000 just to ship to a seaport, and if you don't live close enough, probably $400+ easily to have a freight company take it to your door.

Here, retail on these machines if you pick them up are $10,000+, if you can find them. Most places know they're popular and jack that price up.

Best way is to get one that's completely broken from eBay close enough to yourself, and fix it up, then get a conversion kit to the newest mix. If you can muster a good deal and do the work yourself with minimal purchase of parts, you could get away with a working DDR two player for $1500.

Wow, brings back some memories

[88NoSoup4U88]

A looong time ago, we, in the Netherlands, still had Arcade coin-op halls. But nowadays , with consoles in about every home, all the arcades have been transformed in full-fledged gambling centers (only gambling machines left, no more gaming machines).

So after reading the parent post I had this flashback of about ten years ago, when I would regurlarly visit those arcades, mostly to play the game 'Streetfighter II' (before it had its thousand sequels).
The problem with playing in the arcade, and not being the most muscly guy out there, were the people that, without even asking : interrupted your 1 guilder play (about .5 dollar)by 'challenging' you.
Now Streetfighter II had one very very funny glitch : Blanka, the beast guy, was able to (very cheaply) drive someone in a corner, and then only jump and use his high-punch : Which would be unblockable for humans : thus an easy victory was quickly obtained.
Loved it to see that when those nasty challengers experienced once my 'leet powers' ;) of Blanka, but never felt the urge to challenge me after it.

Re:Wow, brings back some memories

[yunfat]

The technique you mention is easily beaten by ken or ryu's uppercut, or guiles kick, its not a glitch at all.

SF2 did have glitches that allowed me to beat people 100% of the time, but that wasn't one of them.

If you really know SF2 then you can actually reset the game using the controller, there is also the Guile "shadow throw". Either one of these glitches made it possible for me to beat all opponents. No one ever played me twice, that was the only problem.

It sucks when you always win.

DDR and it's spin-offs are hot!

[farrellj]

One of the major arcades here in Charlotte can hardly keep up with the demand of DDR, and another has seen revenues drop since the lease on their DDR machine ended...and the vendor moved it elsewhere. DDR machines are muchly in demand.

It looks like fun, but with bad knees, it looks like a shortcut to a bottle of anti-inflamatories.

ttyl
Farrell

I remember... (the trance!)

[PotatoHead]

Old arcades. Musty places, the smell of electronics mixed with the high hum of monitors all sprinkled with the 60Hz buzz from the neons lighting the place.

The first wave of games was the most interesting to me. Vector games, like Rip-Off, Crystal Castles, Asteroids, Tail Gunner, Armor Attack, and later Tempest!, all provided sharp clear visuals. Color cycling, or the intense bright spot used for bullets. These things made the games look exciting from a distance. That and the sounds... Walking in was always a good experience. The wierd sounds. You would hear the patterns and listen a bit more. It reminds me of whistling to a dog. They sense something in the sound that begs their attention. --That's how the old game sounds worked.

Some raster games were good too. Galaxian, Defender (I am going to build a cabinet for that one, I swear), PacMan, Sinistar, Cloak and Dagger, Wizard of Wor, Gorf, all were plenty of fun.

Most all of these games rewarded skill with playtime. This caused some problems, but hour limits took care of that for the most part. One arcade I played in would only enforce the limit if players were waiting; otherwise, you could play all day long. They did appreciate you buying a couple of sodas though.

Handwritten high score boards were one feature I miss today. Simple name, date, time, score. Was a chance for a geek to get a bit of attention. Being on that board was cool --that also drove lots of sales because 'there could only be one' --per game.

Thinking back about all of this makes me want to say a bit more about the experience I really miss, and that is the Trance!

Old games, with their patterns and simple play, trigger, in me at least, a sort of high that comes with experienced play. You reach a spot where thought is action, and reaction. For a while, you forget the ongoing din around you and focus on the task at hand --what ever that may be.

Early on, I remember discussions about the addictive nature of video games. Well, the old ones have it over most newer games today, in this area. (Many of the interactive games are close though. You can trance and burn calories at the same time playing DDR!)

Almost all of the great old games, allowed good players to play long enough to really enjoy the experience. Game play balance was more in favor of the player then. Today, it is calculated to the 95th percentile (my guess, but I doubt I am wrong). Only a few players ever have the skill or the money to prevail. Almost like a casino.

I remember Nintendo appearing on the scene about the same time I began to resent the Arcade a bit. They made games that actually ended. --Sometimes the ending was a long way coming, other times it happened right as you were beginning to reach mastery of the game. (Can't trance on a finished game, you know.)

Today, we know that trend has lasted. Seems the arcade has diminished in that time as well. Could they possibly be missing something here?

This dollars / per hour / experience thing is a mistake in the business model --at least at the amounts set here in the states. It simply costs too much to really enjoy the experience.

Re:One word..... NOT

[Golias]

In the States maybe, we have 1 dollar (loonie) and 2 dollar (twoonie) coins in Canada....

As an American, I gotta say that I love the twoonie.

When I was in a cafe in Red Lake, Ont. I had a $5 breakfast and then could pretend to be a cheap bastard by leaving one coin for the tip. I wish we had two-dollar coins, too. They're fun.

Funny, I have a different experience

[PotatoHead]

In my house, MAME on the computer, and the NES emulator, running on Dreamcast gets the most attention over PS2.

Every year, I break out the old Atari collection. The kids will play that for hours each time. (2600 with about 200 games + all controllers + Atari 400)

Welcome to internet gaming

[CBDSteve]

...where you can get beaten by smug pre-pubescent punks in the comfort of your own home!

Re:Welcome to internet gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a kid on Counterstrike about a year ago. Being 34 and an old hand at FPS type games, I kept getting the living hell stomped out of me by one Tango in particular. I then cranked the voice volume up just in time to hear what had to be an eight year old kid screaming into his mic "You don't want a bite from this snake, CHUMP!!!"

I about fell off my chair.

Would DisneyQuest work in another market?

[Aero]

My girlfriend and I recently spent a week and a half at WDW -- my first time in almost 15 years, and most nights, we spent at least a couple of hours at DisneyQuest. We had a pretty long discussion about whether or not they could run one of those in another city (or if not them, then some other company using the same concept). The conclusion we came up with was "probably not".

You could work around problems of operational costs and the like with a suitable pricing scheme. (The annual pass is a steal -- at less than $100, it pays for itself beyond 3 trips.) But the overall atmosphere and -- dare I say it -- "Disney Magic" just couldn't be recreated. I'm talking about the fact that anti-social behavior that is depressingly common in other urban environments is relatively uncommon down at Rat World. Not that crime is unknown down there (or else they wouldn't need a security force the size of a medium police department), but the atmosphere is relaxed enough that it's less of a concern.

Case in point: my checkbook fell out of my pocket while we were doing the VR whitewater rafting. (Pretty good upper-body workout -- not nearly as harsh as the real thing, but not for complete wimps either.) I noticed it missing when we got back to the hotel that night, and we picked it up at lost+found the next morning. If it had happened up here in DC, I would've been on the phone first thing in the morning with my bank to take precautions against ID theft and fraud. Instead, my stress-out lasted maybe 10 minutes, and while I'm still keeping an eye on the bank account, I'm not amazingly worried. Yes, it's hard to commit ID theft with just the information on someone's checks, but a sufficiently creative criminal could think of ways to take advantage of the situation. But at WDW, people usually turn in things like wallets and purses without rifling them first. Not that people don't do so elsewhere, but it's definitely more of a concern.

I'd love to see someone try, and I'd certainly plunk down the cash if the experience were truly worth it. Give me the Pirates game, and the VR swordfighting and flying carpets, something that I couldn't duplicate at home without needing to win the Powerball first.

Re:Would DisneyQuest work in another market?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We had a pretty long discussion about whether or not they could run one of those in another city..."

Disney tried just this in, I believe, Chicago. It didn't work and they closed it.

Monitor prices

[Chris Pimlott]

$200-$500 for a 19" CRT? That seems a bit expensive; from what I have seen, you should't have to pay more than $300, and some can be had for less than $200. Is there a particular reason the ones you buy cost more? Do they have special interfaces, are they more ruggedized? Have better performance?

Re:Monitor prices

[realmolo]

He's not talking about standard VGA/SVGA monitors. He's talking about specialized "arcade" monitors, that don't use VGA connectors, and run at different resolutions and refresh rates.

They aren't cheap, and they are the only thing you can use with the vast majority of arcade hardware.

Funny thing is, they're *inferior* in pretty much every way to your average $150 19" CRT that you get at Best Buy.

Re:Monitor prices

[DragonMagic]

Arcade monitors are different than computer monitors. Arcade monitors are more alike cathode ray televisions than anything. However, with the picture tube, there is a computer board where the power wiring and the output wiring from the PCB goes. This, and no real protection from the tube (people have died working on arcade machines without even working on the monitor, silly people), makes it a really strange standard.

Monitors also go from the 13"/19" ones, to 21, 25, 27, 29, 31, 40 and 50" screens, depending on the cabinet and type of game. You can order nealy any size monitor or type you want from arcade parts dealers.

And no, as far as I'm aware, you cannot put a computer monitor's tube into an arcade monitor chassis and make it work.

Re:Monitor prices

[shadowbearer]

Which just goes to show how stupid some of those engineers can be.

Use off the shelf components, fer chrissakes.

SB

Re:Monitor prices

[DeadScreenSky]

Many newer games do use off-the-shelf VGA monitors. And I am pretty sure for the bigger sizes you are still better off without VGA (25 inch or so and up). But it wasn't until fairly recently that those got as cheap as they are - you have more than 20 years of games that use the more standard arcade hardware.

And no, you can't just swap them in the vast majority of cases.

pay for time rather than per play?

[MrBallistic]

as an adult, i'm pretty happy that places like dave & busters and the sort are out there. you pay 20 bucks to get in, get a card, and can play as many games as many times as you'd like for, say, 2 hours. it's a great way to learn how some of the newer games work (like that ferarri sim that came out a few years back). everyone in this thread is complaining about ddr and the fireman sims, but places like this let you get over the initial hump of learning the skills necessary to enjoy the game.

for you old throwback folks, check out mr.driller (1 or 2) for some old school fun. it's a great, addictive game that you'll get in about 10 seconds, but will take you hours to get good at - just like donkey kong, puckman, et al.

I see you've been to Le Fun in Austin

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though it was near the end of the arcade era, the early 90s, I spent several post exam nights at Le Fun on the Drag. Between fighting off the scientologists offering a free personality test and the pervasive smell of urine, it is tough to go to that place now.

My stint as an arcade operator

[pnice]

I was a fan of DDR before the US arcade release a few years back and after seeing how much money it was pulling in at the metroplex Putt-Putt I decided to try getting into the arcade business.

I went through all the steps, getting a business license, registering with the state and county and found my first machine....an import DDR 3rd Mix Korean machine. It cost me about $1500 for the game and shipping from Korea to get it here. On the same note, a new US version machine was about $7,500. I cleaned it up and worked out a deal with a local store owner and put the machine inside. At times the machine was pulling in over $500 a week. I was splitting the profit with the store owner (a suggestion given by other arcade operators) so it was making me $250 a week at times. On average I would say it made me about $125 a week. This was in a town of 30,000 people about an hour from any major city. People would drive down from the bigger cities just to play it.

I eventually added a Beatmania IIDX 2nd Style machine to the lineup (later upgrading it to 4th Style) and a sit down Neo-Geo 4-slot. They made a nice chunk of change as well but nothing compared to the DDR machine. I ended up selling them off after a few years for more than I paid for any of them. It was a sweet little setup and fun while it lasted.

I wish I could have started my own import arcade at the time but couldn't come up with enough funding to do so. That's my only regret. I had big plans but couldn't get any financial backing. Splitting the profit 50/50 sucked but at least it gave me a place to put the games.

Re:Ironic that games no longer exemplify ease-of-u

[MaineCoon]

This evolution occured at the demand of the players. The majority of the game playing public - i.e, those who spend the majority of the money that the game industry sees - have developed an expectation that each new generation of games (about every 2 years) will become more involved and more in depth than the previous generation of games. That involvement and depth comes at the cost of complexity.

This expectation has come about because games were evolving, and the evolution is expected to continue, not cease on some happy medium of game play and complexity.

- MaineCoon

Haven't played an arcade game in years

[Sabalon]

I think last time I played is the mall's arcade (now closed) had a Rastan game stuck off in the corner.

I don't play anymore because everyplace wants a dollar to play and they all look the same. Hit anything that moves and see how fast you can hit button combinations. I think DDR is pretty dumb but at least it was original.

Just like hollywood, now games are trying to get by on flashy graphics more than content. I agree with what others have said - get something that'll play the old games and charge a quarter. At least then you have variety. Plus I'd feel better about having my 5 year old play some game where you have to shoot the alien space ship or inflate the monster than decapitate your opponent.

The simple solution...

[PortHaven]

A complete revamp of the "ol' arcade business model"

How can an arcade with high investment expect to keep up with home consoles?

I can play games at home on a large screen TV with way more detail than most games in the arcade. I can play over the net with lots of people...an arcade just can't compete. (Well, except for those ones that are in areas like malls and attract those strange beautiful creatures called 'females')

What I would like to see open is a place that doesn't charge per/play but rather 1/2 hour blocks, etc.

Takes 4-16 Xbox units and networks them. Has big screen TV's and comfortable chairs. And then charges a per hourly rate...

Now you have something to offer....

Multi-play, bigscreen, comfortable chairs....

=)

Re:The simple solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to one such place probably about 10 years ago.

It folded and is now (today) a clothing store....

You can't get the full arcade experience from some underpowered home console unless that console was a NEO-GEO, a compact, 'home verson' of actual arcade quality hardware and their expensive $200-odd dollar game cartridges. Even then, the only drawback were the controlers which were rather inadiquate for fighting games such as Samurai Showdown.

Two words:

[Darken_Everseek]

Market Saturation.

Play quality vs Graphics Quality

[4/3PI*R^3]

The biggest problem with the new console arcade games is that they are relying too heavily on graphics quality. The great things about the old console games was that since the graphics generally sucked (compared to today's standards) the games had to have real playability.

In most modern games the rules are basically as follows:

Figher : Kill everything in sight

Shooter : Kill evrything in sight

Racer : Get in front of everything and go really fast

Remember how popular Pac-Man was? All you had to do was eat dots. But you had to figure out a pattern to avoid the ghosts and you were rewared with humorous little movie clips. Remember how popular Donkey Kong was? All you had to do was rescue the chick. But you had to figure out how to avoid the barrels, fireballs, pies, bouncing rivets, etc. Even for home games, one of the most popular was the Atari 2600 game Fantasy Adventure. This games had the worst graphics ever but it had great playability.

This quality of playability is why MAME is so stinking popular. We can still play these old games. How many /.'ers still drop a quarter into a Galaga, Pac-Man, Time Pilot, or Space Invaders machine whenever they see one?

If console makers want to rebuild their market they need to make the games easier to control but make it more mentally challenging to play. I still play the Mario Brothers games on my old Nintendo Entertainment System. Who needs an XBOX?

Re:Play quality vs Graphics Quality

[sammaffei]

Then why is Sega dying?

The reason I love Sega's games are that they are easy to play but difficult to master. Virtua Fighter, Jet Set (Grind), Virtua Cop, et al. are simple games with great gameplay and depth. But somehow, Sega's software still fails to sell.

There's more to this than just gameplay.

Re:Play quality vs Graphics Quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you never played E.T. on the old Atari systems.

MAME is so stinking popular because we grew up with the games. Kids that are growing up with the X-Box, Gamecube, and Playstation 2 will look back fondly at these consoles when they move on to their new super consoles.

The other reason is simply economics. MAME has thousands of titles readily available, at low cost for maintenance, and literally thousands of options on how to play them.

Honestly though, most of the games from "golden" age of gaming were crap. E.T. and Pacman for the Atari had to be buried under cement in the desert, I still can't figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with Superman, Galaga was fun but after the 50th level, what the hell are you supposed to with a suped up ship against the same aliens over and over again?

Re:Play quality vs Graphics Quality

[DeadScreenSky]

And let's not forget that many of these Sega games also have great graphics as well.

Gamers are a fickle bunch - word of mouth and advertising are what sell games the most.

(And Sega isn't really dying. Their arcade divisions are keeping them in the black, however.)

Last tempest level

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that the invisible figure 8?

Ride on Pieces of crap

[netsavior]

In my opinion, the thing that ruined Arcades forever is Ride on games. Now nobody cares if a game plays well, it is all about how realistic the snow mobile you are riding looks. I blame Gameworks. That place is jam packed with 1.00 per play piece of crap ride on games. Now if you wanna play games that are fun instead of impressivly massive, you have to play a console. Upright arcade games are dead, Ride on games killed them, and Consoles took over their niche.

Photon

[autechre]

Photon isn't exactly a video game. For those who aren't familiar with it, you wear a battery pack, helmet, and chestplate, and run around a dark room with a cool structure (ramps, sniper points, etc.) shooting at each other. Sometimes you play as 2 teams, sometimes it's a free-for-all. It's sort of "real life Quake", although you all have the same weapon. If you get shot, you can't fire for a few seconds. Scores are updated in real time for your non-playing friends to watch, and you see them at the end when you leave. Sometimes there was fog.

I went there for my birthday for several years, and would have gone more often if I could have. It's just something that's really difficult to do at home. I guess you can get paintball guns and run around in a park, but that's not quite the same thing.

The social interaction is definitely there too, and on top of that, you're getting a bit of exercise running around with that heavy (to a kid) battery pack.

I've always thought it would be cool to have a fighting game which actually tracked your movements. Of course, it would be limited, and doing any grappling beyond quick throws would be difficult. You'd have to have some "gesture" moves for doing cool stuff like throwing fireballs, but it would certainly be better (IMHO) than having a joystick and 18 buttons and STILL not getting a great degree of control.

(a platform game like this would rock too)

Re:Photon

[Anonymous Coward]

"Photon" is called "Laser Tag" everywhere else.

Re:Photon

[benzapp]

Is Photon still around?

I used to go to one as a kid, but it closed won in like 1988 or 1989. Haven't seen one since anywhere in the country.

How to save the arcade game

[tgibbs]

Arcades need to get together to set up a consortium to develop arcade games. Not the fancy driving games with a car you sit in, but straightforward standup quarter munchers and fighting games. All must run on a common platform, like the old SNK systems, but with a few sets of controls (which can be plugged into the console as needed). Major upgrades to be issued every 5 years or so.

And the absolute rule: No ports to PC or console ever! You want to play these games, you go to an arcade. For titles not developed by the consortium, the manufacturer must agree to supply a "Special Arcade Edition" with levels or characters that will remain exclusive to the arcade.

In Japan they allready have those

[88NoSoup4U88]

I can't be bothered to google a picture for you ;) : But I read a few months ago how alot of Arcade boots in Japan introduced an Arcade version of Counter-strike : So yes, i DO think there's a future in that.
On the other hand, that's what Internet/game cafes offer at the moment.

Initial D

[TheLoneDanger]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Initial D. It combines a number of things to be successful.

1) It is a driving game and thus has the steering wheel, seat, pedals and gear shift. You can have these at home, but it's expensive and doesn't feel as right.
2) It lets you save on thin magnetic cards that you can keep in your wallet. I've got about 10 of them with different cars.
3)Appeals to the ego. If you spend more money, you can upgrade the car on your card and raise your racing and battle level, which is based on how well you do against actual opponents. Get a high battle level and your car gets a glowing "aura" before battles.

Essentially, a certain level of customization and the sense that you "own" the card means that you carry around a constant reminder of the game. Plus, it doesn't hurt that there is a good learning curve in Inital D that allows people to think they'll be as good as the very best players (who are themselves always finding ways to improve their best times).

Re:Ironic that games no longer exemplify ease-of-u

[Anonymous Coward]

well up to a point that was true.. but a lot of work is dont on PC games to make them scale from a geforce 2 up to the latest card - that = more sales

Arcade Game Restoration

[n9fzx]

This is a rapidly growing hobby. Arcade games of the 70s and 80s were designed to be fixed, and there's nothing like the kick of turning a piece of coldware into a living, breathing machine. For folks in the SF Bay Area, there's an annual show in San Jose, California Extreme, where you can find machines for sale, parts, manuals, and tons of classic games and pinballs set up for free play.

I have a restored Asteroids Deluxe machine, bought it for a song, reworked the power supplies, and bango, instant early 80s nostalgia trip. Asteroids wasn't my game back then, but the Deluxe version is much more refined -- cooler graphics, better sound, fluorescent backdrop lit by a blacklight, and "killer satellites" that are a real pain.

Why not just play the MAME version? Well, it's not bad, and a gamepad helps, but... there's something about the sound of a quarter dropping through the chute, clinking into the coinbox, the corresponding click of the mechanical coin counter, that just says "okay, this is for real!"...

Re:Arcade Game Restoration

[DragonMagic]

MAME is great for people who have computers and don't mind bending the laws regarding the ROMs for MAME. I have an Aero Fighters, Ms. Pac Man, Street Fighter III, Mr. Do, etc., so I play the ROMs of those games when I'm bored.

However, the common person, who may have a computer, may not know about MAME, or really know how to get those ROMs even so. Arcade games are still nostalgic, and probably a fun way to share what he or she grew up with, with the kids.

People who read /. don't need arcade machines, really. Joe Smith and his family may have a few quarters at the ice cream parlor and the kids are just begging to play a video game while they're out. That's where you earn your money from routing arcade machines, people like that.

Soul Calibur 2

[Tyler Durden]

I've never had the chance to play against other people on Soul Calibur, but playing against the computer is embarassingly easy. I used to play the guy with the num-chucks from the first version, and I could get pretty far right from the start. All you have to do is know how to block.

On a whim, after not having played Soul Calibur for years, I wondered into an arcade and saw the sequel. So, what the hell, I pop in some coins, find the guy wielding the num-chucks and go to work. Even with some of the special moves changed, I was able to get to the last guy. Never beat him, but didn't fair too poorly against him either. Played the game again from the beginning 3 more times with the same result. *yawn*

Re:Soul Calibur 2

[rufo]

The default difficulty level in Soul Calibur is embarrassingly easy. Go into the options and crank it up.

If you thought the game was easy, you'll probably have a bit of a surprise. :)

But seriously, get some friends - Soul Calibur against another person is where it's at.

Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe

[AllanGoff]

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far. The hand-eye coordination of video games was a novelty at first, but games of strategy still test the intellect in ways that modern video games do not. There is a place for strategy games where thinking is more important than reacting. The old strategy games required a board, pieces, or pencil and paper. With the computer, new types of strategy games are possible, ones that require a dynamic media versus a static media. You might want to check out Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe at www.ParadigmPuzzles.com for an example of a strategy game that is enabled by a computerized board, but is not traditional video game.

Here is what arcade companies should do

[master_p]

I used to hang out at arcades for mainly 2 reasons:

1) it was a playland that I, as an adolecent, could relate to. It was cheerful and colorful, yet adult enough.

2) I couldn't play the same games at home. The arcades were ahead of home systems in terms of graphics, sound and controls.

I guess these reasons are valid for lots of others, too. So, here is what can revive arcades:

a) make arcade places where 10 to 15 year old boys can hang out. This means no drugs, no drinks, no pimps, no bullying, etc...i.e. supervised places. In Japan, the arcade is a place for all the family.

b) Bring back cool technology. Make 3d versions of old games. When I say 3d, I don't mean polygon-based, but real 3d games!!! Once upon a time, the arcades were the forefront of gaming graphics and sound. I would give my left arm for a 3d MsPacman, where I can look at the ghosts from all sides!!! the technology already exists...

Re:The ability to play at home changes everything.

[zollman]

Why? The same reason why, after a long day's work, I go to the pub and drink $2 pints there, rather than drink the beer I have at home for less. What's the replay value of beer anyway?

You seem awfully quick to dismiss the social aspect.

Re: Too Expensive!

[shambalagoon]

Bottom line: arcade games are too expensive. Like you, I'd happily spend $20 playing 25 cents per game on some of the old greats like Gauntlet, Golden Axe, Black Sword, Altered Beast, and the like. But $1 a game is too much, especially when they last such a short time. I see these empty arcades and wonder what the owners are thinking. Pack em in at lower rates and build a following!

I can buy a game like Ratchet and Clank for $50 and get 80 hours of game play that builds on itself. In an arcade, that $50 will get me an 1.5 hours of play where I have to start over at the same place again and again. How in the world do arcades hope to succeed with these numbers?

Plus I dont like racing, shooting, and fighting games. That seems to be all there is these days.

Here's what to do: drop the price to 25 cents per play and allow people to save their progress on little all-purpose memory cards (boom- a new market for trading saved games). OR offer all the games you can play for a set fee (maybe $10 dollars) for an hour. Use memory cards here, too.

BOOM. The return of arcades.

Hey..I Rese(nt)ble that remark

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Many a lunch hour was spent in the college campus arcader. I remember not playing video games for years. That was until I walked into this arcade and saw a game on a huge projection screen.

Next thing I know, I see a guy pull his mask off and spit fire on his opponent, burning his flesh off. I said to myself 'I must learn this game or die trying'.

At first, I was almost scared away by (and hated) the Masters of Mortal Kombat, but I kept plugging away, hundreds (thousands?) of quarters later I became one of the Masters.

Felt good to be able to walk into an arcade and have everybody call you by your favorite characters name, to be able to crush the newbies with only a couple of combos, the feeling of joy when the screen went dark and the announcer proclaimed FINISH HIM!

Hell, the only reason I am into computers today was because in the early nineties I asked a guy how the hell they learned all of the MK moves, he said "the Internet" - the rest is history.

and as Far as the internet Goes, started with Mosaic and Netscape 1.0, come full circle and back with Mozilla. Dayum!

Re:Hey..I Rese(nt)ble that remark

[Ugot2BkidNme]

You know I used to play all the fighting games constantly it cost me a huge amoutn of money and a whole lot of class cutting to get good but I did get really good. in fact I used to rule the local comic book store where everyone played. I was so proud of myself. but then I got bored with it. until the day I played the North American Street Fighter Champion and he rocked me out of $20 dollars in game sI beat him one round. Humbling experience butmade me realize no matter how good you are there is always someone better.

So fast forward a few year I am playing a fighting game at a pizza parlor with my wife I don't remember the game But I do know the three basic control types so I figure out the controls pretty quick along with the special moves. Then comes this little wanabe gangsta kid puts his quarter down and my fiance lets me win and lets the kid play me.
So here I am playign this kid who could have been 13 or 14 years old and he had his group of friends with him. so he takes me down first round with some super combo I had never seen before. teh next round I killed him by pure couter attackign then I did it again round after round. I kept on that spot makign the kid plop quarters in and listening to him talk smack teh whole time. it was a rather bad experience but when he finally beat me. he sat there thinkign he was king crap. what he didn't seem to realize though in almost 40 minutes of playign I didn't spend a dime said not one word but congratulations. yet i was forced to suffer from this smelly little teenager insulting me and his friends breathing down my neck. Yet the kid still thinks he won and it had nothing to do with the fact that my pizza was getting cold.

Anyways I have rambled long enough I ahve to Say Arcades have been filled with drug dealers wanabe thugs and stinky geeks for far too long playign at home is much more fun. and best be the King of your friends then suffer the insults of some little punk or stinky prpubecent geek.

Aladdins Castle!!!!!!Mod parent UP

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

I wish I could give you another point for reminding me of Aladdins Castle! I would spend an entire saturday in front of Discs of Tron, Crazy Climber, Star Castle, etc.

Arcades charging too much

[dukerobinson]

Do you think the fact that arcades are often less than profitable has anything to do with the fact that to play a game you often have to pay a dollar for a very few minutes of game-time? I have been to many arcades and often I see machines sitting unused for large amounts of time. Wouldn't it be more proffitable to charge a quarter a game? I bet people would be much more inclined at that point to pump in the quarters. It is just hard to convince oneself that they are going to be getting their moneys worth when a game costs a dollar to play.

No mention of lan parties...

[muzzynat]

First off the article did an amazing job of pointing out the situation of the arcades right now. But one thing that I personally feel affects the US arcade situation is lan parties and/or the reason American gamers enjoy them so much. The lan parties occur in largely suburban/small city/ college campus locations, where people in the US tend to live. Lan parties allow users to us exactly the same hardware/software/ect that they practice on, something I know many gamers enjoy, however this requires you to haul your gear blocks, or miles. additionally lan parties consist of mostly friends and friends of friends, making the odds of hard feelings over a loss alot lower. Arcades on the other hand offer a large number of multiplayer games in a small space, something of value in japan, they work well in a more urban environment, and they offer a chance to compete against strangers, and build rivalries. And then dont require you to move your own gear, something thats pretty hard to do via train/foot. Does this mean I think that arcades are doomed? Hell no. But I do believe there is partial overlap in there potential participants. I love arcades, I love lan parties, but I do think that the arcade is much more at home in Japan than the US, and vice versa with lan parties.

Times change and so do the money milking methods..

[t_allardyce]

Gamers these days want a comfy chair and allot of hours infront of the game, more hours than your store is open. Build a MMORPG, set a monthly subscription and see it make lots and lots of profit. (If you want abit more on the side you can create some special objects or characters and sell them on eBay, it only takes afew lines of code)

Re:I remember... (the trance!)

[Junks Jerzey]

The first wave of games was the most interesting to me. Vector games, like Rip-Off, Crystal Castles, Asteroids, Tail Gunner, Armor Attack, and later Tempest!, all provided sharp clear visuals.

Of course those games were far from being the "first wave." You're essentially talking about games from 1979 to 1982 (i.e. the classic era). There were hundreds of games released prior to 1979. Lots of people remember Breakout, Night Driver, Fire Truck, and so on, but there were many many more.

Dragon's Lair!

[fallen1]

Oh yeah, and I remember that big moment when Dirk the Daring and Princess Daphne hit the scene (in her extremely skimpy outfit no less ;-). Dragon's Lair was the shit! I loved playing Tron, Dig Dug, Robotron 2084 (two stable joysticks dammit!), and many others like Satan's Hollow, Gyrus, and Time Pilot. And, yes, the old arcade games would go over today for both price and simplicity to learn. Hmmm, I think I still remember all the patterns for Dragon's Lair :)

The Dancing Master

[ctrl-alt-elite]

That factor has sort of evolved over the years and is now the Dancing Game Master. Dancing games are pretty much the new fighting games nowadays, and so who rules the arcade? The lone master of DDR who seems to have an overabundance of quarters and other tokens to put on the machine and reserve his spot in the game, as well as an overabundance of females to cheer him on.

And he's even worse than the Fighting Game Master in the sense that he usually has the physique to back up his game (as dancing games generally require a decent amount of physical shape to play), so there goes any idea of taking the fighting to the real world. No, with the Dancing Master you're stuck in his long and beefy shadow, and there's no hope of overcoming his might and the posse that he has formed out of those who he has beaten...

Re: wacky Mech game

[fallen1]

That wacky mech game was based entirely on Battletech and, when initially developed and implemented, was completely driven by Amiga 500 computers. They used a network with other PCs to track score if I remember correctly but ALL the in-game graphics (explosions, hits, kills, motion, etc) was rendered by the Amiga 500 boards in the pod. It was 4-vs-4 play and you could hack the other team's comm-channel. How cool is that ;-)

Wish we had more games with this style of play at the arcades.

Alive in the Net Cafe

[Deliveranc3]

The old atmosphere lives on to a small degree in Internet Cafes. Tonnes of guys playing, it's a little bit more communal than arcades seem but all the other elements are there, if they put out some multiuser games for pc those would increase the similarity. Hotseat worms is today's arcade.

As far as actual arcade content goes games need to move from the pc to the arcade, it's just that simple. Putting together a microatx pc that is powerful enough to run emulators or 2D games and giving people choices, if they have to resort to open source games to beat out restrictive liscensing agreements it's not the end of the world.

What about Mame

[superpulpsicle]

I wanted so bad to get an arcade box of Mortal Kombat in my house.

Ever since I downloaded Mame and blasted "Fatality" off my subwoofer, it's been completely meaningless to want to invest in an arcades.

old arcades

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh the good old arcade days. Get out of school, go to the mall by my house, and hang out the rest of the afternoon in the arcade with a buck or two on me. We got really good at the old late 70s/early 80s arcade games. Times were different then too, you did not have to worry as a parent about your kid getting beaten up, robbed, offered drugs, etc. With the current quality of consoles and computer games there just isn't much to draw anyone to an arcade anymore. Playing Defender on your 2600 was just not the same as playing it in the arcade. Now the console games usually look a lot better than the current arcade games. We have 2 or 3 arcades left and I think they are all GameWorks type places. There's quite a few "PC" arcades where you pay an hourly fee to play network UT, CS, etc.

First wave..

[PotatoHead]

Agreed. I was pretty young when Breakout, Night Driver, and Fire Truck hit the scene.

Probably should have said "the first wave I identify with, or some such."

Fire Truck does stick out though. I played the back wheel a few times with an older relative. I did wonder at the time, why they looked the way they did. The visuals did not impress as the classics did. Could have been age too. I did enjoy being able to play with someone though.

Later, in high school, I got hold of an old 4 player pong table. Should have kept it, but didn't. Anyway, it was the type of game that used a creative mix of logic chips to make the game go. Folded inside was a schematic that detailed all of the gates and triggers. Hand drawn no less. The only board inside had perhaps 200 16 pin DIP chips inside, connected to the control knobs and coin slot. It did have a wierd bus connector on one end, I assume it was to accept different game logic boards.

The best part was the 'monitor'. It was an old B & W tv, with the back cut off. (literally, it looked like somebody took a saw to it) No tuner, game signal went right into the IF port on the main electronics part of the TV! I suppose this kept both the cost and the noise down. That was the only time I ever saw a TV being used in that way. At the time, it struck be as being a cheap hack.

Too bad the signal was so poor. (A scope revealed fairly normal SYNC with black and white clamped to the extremes of the NTSC standard.) Using the IF directly would have likely been able to render some nice images, for the time.

All the other products I saw then either RM modulated through the tuner, or used a more expensive design that could accept composite input.

The TV actually had good resolution, once I attached a tuner. My first, and only cabinet mod to date involved putting a 2600 inside, and wiring the paddles to play Warlords. The cabinet did not have any buttons, just the paddles, so we used handheld switches for the button function needed for the Warlords game.

Re:I remember... (the trance!)

[prockcore]

Old arcades. Musty places, the smell of electronics mixed with the high hum of monitors all sprinkled with the 60Hz buzz from the neons lighting the place.

Don't forget the kids who knew all this secret bullshit information that they would share with you. Like "if you unplug the game and plug it back in, it will give you 99 free games" or "there's a switch on the bottom of the pinball machine that will turn off the tilt"

It's the graphics dummy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no, I'm not really calling anyone a dummy here but here are my reasons why the "old school", classic arcade was so popular.

1) Graphics: As dated as Galaga, Donkey Kong, or Zaxxon may look today they were cutting edge then. Really! You literally *could not* get that kind of graphic (or sound) experience in the home. You had to go to the arcade.

2) Novelty: Computers were still new and playing arcade games was a novel experience. Furthermore, there was a rebellious edge to it...it was something your parents had never likely experienced--and certainly were not good at (at least not mine).

3) Simplicity: Video games of the earlier era were very simple to learn but difficult to master.

The woes of today's arcades are therefore (1) It's hard to provide an experience in the arcade that exceeds what one can get at home with 6.1 surround and a HD television, (2) computers are now entrenched, and will never likely regain novelty they once had, and (3) complexity and online community seem to be the only "new" items to try to make-up for losses in the first two areas, but complexity and community will never equal the might of simple, selfish pleasure.

Along these lines

[Iowaguy]

No one has yet to mention that as games shifted from the "old school" to the modern fight/race paradigm, the arcades became less popular. These games appeal greatly to a few, but not to most.

It is not just from consoles either, since the atari and nintendo was there in the zenith. I think it is the fact that games have become more about graphics (flash) than playability.

Re:Along these lines

[ocie]

My theory is that as CPUs became faster, more realistic games became possible. You might think this would lead to more diversity in gameplay, but the opposite has happened. Making games more like reality has narrowed the games into maybe half a dozen well devined generas (Fighting games, shooting games, driving games, scrolling shooters). There's my rant.

OK, time for a quick nostalgia trip. My friend and I were at a supermarket and they had bubble bobble. I asked if he wanted to play, but he said "that game is lame/retarded/gay". He had never actually played it, so I offered to pay for his first game. Well, 2 hours and 5$ later he didn't think it was so lame. Man I miss that game.

Re:Along these lines

[ocie]

The new zealand story is great. I also like liquid kids, but I have only been able to play them in AHME (emulation). Another game similar to bubble bobble, but with updated graphics is a game called "head panic". You play a boy o girl character and head-butt our opponents into submission. They turn into balls which you can use to eliminate other enemies. This game also has bosses at the end of every 4 rounds and pinup girls after you beat each boss :). I've only seen it in one arcade though in Pasadena, CA.

Re: wacky Mech game

[JSkills]

Sounds like a cool game you're talking about, but the game I played was more of a every-battlemech-for-himself kind of thing. There wasn't a comm channel to talk to anyone either. Basically you could walk/run in any direction, fire laser cannons, and missiles. You could see your various shielding being compromised as you took on damage until you eventually blew up in a cloud of smoke. Then you would respawn.

Your game sounded a little better ...

greed, stupidity and sloth

[frovingslosh]

I've enjoyed arcades since penny arcades where some items were rally only a penny and pinballs were still a nickel. I played almost all of the pre-pacman games including putting a fortune into pong and computer space and numerous others, Here's my take on what's happened: 1) Greed. On the part of almost everyone involved. 50 cents to play an old pacman is an obvious example. You can write all the crap about floor space costing more that you want, but the truth is that these machines sit idle more now because the price is higher. The price has gone over the peak of the price curve, and the industry is hurting itself in trying to justify this greed on a game that is many times over paid for. The greed doesn't stop at the operators, however. The manufacturers certainly have hurt themselves. These things are electronics, damnit! Look at the thousands of bucks you had to pay for a 286 or 386 computer, barely supported with a tiny mono monitor and mono graphics card, minimal memory and an tiny hard drive. Now look at what you can get in the hundreds of dollars price range. While video games are not as mass produced as home PCs, they can take advantage of much of the same technology and reduction in prices. There is simply no justification other than greed that a game console should have go up so much in price when all of the electronics in it has improved so much and come down in price. And many of the game makers have paid the price, they got some fast money, then went out of business as they priced themselves out of business. One more factor that should also be mentioned is the heart of greed itself, government. Rather than let game operators make an income and pay income taxes on it, many states came out with excessive annual licenses for each and every machine. At $75 to $100 or more for machine, it's hard for an operator to justify putting an older machine on location and take a chance that his share of the take will not even pay the license and other fixed costs. Games that could be put on location instead end up in a warehouse somewhere, and the government makes no license fee and no income tax on them. This is the logical end result of taxing a game operator more than other businesses.

Stupidity certainly takes it's toll. The games I see letely tend to be in locations that almost assure that they will no be played. Almost every WalMart around here, for example, has several games in an area between the entrance and exit doors. I have never ever seen anyone playing any of these games, and I never even go look at what is there. Yet they will still be in these awful locations next time I'm in the store. I'm not going to try to make a case that WalMart should have video games in it, but if they are going to bother at all then they should be put in a location where they would get some play, not in an area that gaurantees they will not. And plenty of other playable games get similar bad locations that make them sit idle. The fact that these games are idle so much does not justify a higher price for those who would play them.

Downright lazyness on the part of the operators is certainly another issue. While this is worse on pinball, where even if you can find a pinball game you usually can't find a fully functional one, it is often a problem with bad buttons, controls, and monitors on a video game too. People have gotten turned off from the whole experience and customers have been lost, likely permanently.

Re:greed, stupidity and sloth

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that the video game manufacturers began to get greedy with the design.

I started to get really turned off when the video games began to need quarter after quarter after quarter within minutes.

One of the things I liked about video games in the old days was that, while you could spend a buncha money at the start of a game, you could get good and play it for a long time. It was fun being able to clear "heavy barrel" or "robocop" in just one quarter.

You can't do that anymore. And then they raise the price to 50 cents or even a dollar for only a few minutes.... screw that.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that.

[PotatoHead]

Or, goofy things like: "If you drive the tank far enough (in Battlezone), you can reach the volcano."

Dorks.

Re:Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that.

[Thud457]

Hey yeah, I remember that, it was awsome!!!! I, well, really it was a friend, I watched him, drove up the side of the volcano and there was a city inside! And then you go into the city run over the people. Yeah, that was great! Ok, it wasn't my friend, but he told me his cousin's friend got 30,000,000,000,000,000 points and maximum karma at that, and a dragon swooped down and carried him off to Vallhalla. And there were naked elf chicks.

Re:Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that.

[Didion Sprague]

I remember we had a mini-arcade in the Sears in our mall. It was a dark room off in the back of the store -- near the catalog desk and the bathrooms. I remember shoving copper slugs up the coin return slots in order to get free credits -- it was tricky because you had to sorta squat and turn your back to the machine to get the leverage necessary to flip the copper slugs up the slots with your index finger.

You could never do the copper-slug trick in Aladdins Castle because the dude with the little red vest was like a viper: if he spotted you doing anything untoward, he'd banish you forever from the arcade. Or call the cops. I remember our dudes in the red vest being *incredibly* big-brotherish.

If you got banished from Aladdins Castle, the only place to go was Radio Shack, where you could go in the back and fiddle with the Model I's and II's -- and later the Color Computers and the Model III's and IV's. I remember there was a kid named Eberle was *always* in the Radio Shack. He'd sit there in the little glass-walled computer showroom in the office chair and have every single piece of software and would do neat stuff with the 300 baud acoustically coupled modems.

And I remember the clerks there at the Radio Shack who didn't have a clue and were too afraid of Eberle (he had frizzed out black hair and was sorta the prototypical computer geek -- yucky blue jeans with grass stains on the knees, black t-shirts with a lot of crumbs, and a wallet that he kept chained to his belt.)

Eberle always had money, too. He'd send us out to the Orange Julius to get those yummy hotdogs and a large Orange Julius for him. Sometimes he'd let us use a couple bucks to buy an Orange Julius for ourselves.

But not only was he the resident expert in Radio Shack, he was always the one loaded down with quarters and tokens at video game places. He'd stack about fifteen tokens across the front of Donkey Kong and stake out the machine for the rest of the afternoon. He was friends with everyone, including the dudes in the red vests. Sometimes the dudes with the red vests would take Eberle to the backroom of Aladdin's Castle. I never knew what they did back there -- count money, fix coin machines, etc. But Eberle seemed to have a neverending supply of tokens than he *never* lent to anyone.

Eberle was connected. I liked that. I was 12 at the time. My youth was spent in Radio Shack and Aladdin's Castle.

Re:I remember... (the trance!)

[guacamolefoo]

The ones I remember the most are:

Star Trek (Sega), Qix, Tron, Tempest, and (later) Rampage and Gauntlet.

I remember playing the original Pac Man, Space Invaders, asteroids, defender, phoenix, galaga, etc.

I think that my personal favorites were probably Omega Race, Tron, and Star Trek.

There was one game that I recall vaguely (can't remember a name though) that was kind of an arcade version of a fantasy text adventure gaem -- you had to find stuff, get past a cloud giant, and some other things. Five bucks to the first person who can come up with what it was. I'm thinking it would have been on the scene around 83-86, maybe.

GF

Are the arcade machines obsolete, or the arcade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assert it's the arcade machines that are obsolete.

I've read alot of talk about how the arcades in the olden day were fun, because of the socialization involved. There was competition. You met people. You talked. You also wasted a ton of money ;)

I agree with this. I _liked_ playing street fighter in the arcade, because you had more people to play with. When street fighter II came out for the snes/genesis consoles, I still would rather play in the arcade - because of the people. Unfortuantly, it was _far_ cheaper to play street fighter II on the consoles. The arcade machine was obsolete so not as many people were in the arcade to play it.

Arcade machines of the day are obsolete. They're expensive to play. The games, really, suck.

I'd like to see an arcade filled with consoles. Big TV's. A flat-rate. An operator could make a large chunk of money by serving food/drinks. Hold weekly tournaments, and offer prizes for the winners.

I'd _love_ to play soul caliber II, sports games, need for speed underground, or similar games, in a more social environment. As it is now, I can't really find many people to play games with. I basically, really, only rent games at blockbuster & play them with my girlfriend. (note, I hardly ever ever buy games - and I only do if i can find them cheap (i.e. used, or on 'sale'))

The reason arcades died, is because the games sucked, and they were expensive. The consoles caught up, and surpassed, what the arcade games offered. My solution? Replace those crappy 'arcade machines' with consoles! :)

I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

I really liked Omega Race!

[PotatoHead]

Now, I am going to have to breakout MAME a little bit this evening.

The very rapid thrust, long drift and knob for direcion made that a fun game.

Real aggressive play balance too. First few screens (waves) were just fine for most people, then mayhem!

depends on the arcade settings...

[Cryptnotic]

The arcade operator can set the difficulty level based on the level of people who play the game. It was probably set to easy. But even if it's set to difficult, playing against the computer is no challenge compared to playing against a moderately skilled human.

Re:It's really a case of an industry not adapting.

[nelsonal]

Knowing my addiction, I would likely dump a serious amount of cash into a Gran Turisom arcade game that was a car simulation. Complete with bounces, engine roar, several screens (front, side, and rear windows), and was multiplayer. If it can somehow simulate accelleration and deceleration, I'd be in heaven. Oh and it needs a memory card interface, so I can save my game (or better yet bring cars from a home game).

Re:The ability to play at home changes everything.

[Fjord]

I've never seen this social aspect you talk about. The arcades I've been to are a few people being quiet playing video games alone or with their group of friends. At least at the pub, if you sit at the bar you usually talk to people you don't know (if you're outgoing).

Of course, if you sit at a table, you aren't likely to meet anyone new unless another friend is there and introduces you.

Modernize the Business Model

[skoaldipper]

I think what the coin-op industry needs is a newer, modern business model. For example, how do you think Cinemark, UA Cinema, and the likes survive in the movie service industry? $5 bags of 25 cent popcorn and $3 boxes of 50 cent candy. Similarly, but not so applicable in this scenario, auto dealerships make a tidy sum through contract arrangements with Financing Companies.

With that said, I have a fond relation to this industry, and owe my livelihood to it. Born in '69, I remember pumping in quarter after quarter into the Pacman, Donkey Kong, Kangaroo slots at the 7-11's, Pizza Huts, and Grocery Stores as a kid. I won an Atari ST game/PC console back in '80, by winning a Pacman contest at a department store. That was the start of my software engineering degree, grad school, and later, my career. I remember me and my brother typing in Game source from an Atari ST gaming magazine. We spent hours typing, another painful 20 minutes or so listening to the screech of the tape drive, and another 30 minutes cussing when the game wouldn't run...only to find out in the next issue that there had been a typo in the source (from the previous issue).

Anyway, a few years later, I was a Manager of a Video Arcade at the local Shopping Mall. I have such fond memories of those days. I remember the occassions when kids would approach me and timidly question, "Sir, I think the machine is broken. I put a quarter in and I didn't get a credit." Ah! The good 'ole days. I could fix any pinball or stand-up with my meter, soldering iron, and sweat. I remember when kids would huddle around eachother, in awe of that one "pinball wizard" who was tearing up the high score on Asteroids. I remember the jovial, competitive spirit of two kids dukeing it out head-to-head on a stand-up. The entire machine seemed swallowed up by the huddled masses of bystanders and gawkers that surrounded the two. And, I remember fondly, as I walked out the building after closing, looking back through the windows, seeing the warm glow of neon lights pasted across the room, a surreal blue and red glow from the game screens, and if I listened carefully, a quiet reassuring hum from the electricity they consumed.

I think the nostalgia a lot of us enjoy from these days is not lost, nor has that time gone for future generations of children. Foremost, remove the barrier (or stigma) of walking into an arcade and having to throw down a dollar or two for a 2 minute session on a game. Price them at a quarter a play (like the good 'ole days). So, how do you make up the cost of the newer arcade machines? First, put in a snack bar, and don't allow food or drink to be taken into the building. Every game junky works up an appetite. Second, create an atmosphere local to the community. Sponsor tournaments at your establishment, giving out prizes. Have a billboard in your arcade which shows High Scores for individuals or teams (or clans). Third (but probably first), know your market. Set up shop next to a high school. Hell, I used to bicycle 15 miles (sometimes dangerously along the shoulder of the highway) just to play the newest game at the time (Tron).

I think the home game console lacks one important ingredient, and always will. Community. Sure, you can battle it with others online. But, there is no substitute for matching wits in person, and establishing new relationships that extend past the arcade. Ask anybody in high school that ever played sports, whether at a track meet or on the football field.

That era has not been lost. It just need to be rediscovered. And, at least in my experience, it never was about the game. It was walking a few blocks to 7-11 after school each day, checking to see if the high score still had my 3 initials, saying hello to Eric, John, and the gang in my neighbourhood, and grabbing a few pop rocks, baseball cards, and cigarette candies on my way out.

Naked vector-drawn elf chicks?

[PotatoHead]

Heh!

That sounds about right.

Golden Tee

[deuce_WI]

In todays bar arcade market, Golden Tee has got to be the number one money maker. Everywhere I go people are playing it, and I've also seen Golden Tee tournaments at many bars. I'm so addicted to it, and that mixed with alcohol can cause dollars to just keep feeding into the slot. (What ever happened to quarter operated machines anyway?) -Deuce

pinball museum

[pjp6259]

There is also one in lyons, colorado. (just north of boulder, co)

http://www.lyonspinball.com/

strange economics...

[snooo53]

I think part of this too is that due to sophisticated home consoles becoming cheaper is that there's less of an incentive to go to the arcade.

So even though 25c -> $1.00/ game might be close to inflation, the value of playing an arcade game for most people has decreased to the point where they won't spend more than 25-50c. I know I wouldn't even think of putting more than 50c into a game machine unless I knew it was going to be worth it to me.

Factor number two I think is due to Generation Xers being so used to 25c for a video game, 50c for a can of pop while growing up, that even though it's 10+ years since those prices were common, they still are wary of spending more than that. Really there's no logical reason for that phenomena I think... perhaps there's an economic term for it?

Crappy clientelle.

[nitzelflick]

I spoke with a cop a few years ago when they opened a Gamewerks in our downtown area. He gave me a perspective on why most towns fight giving up permits and allowing places such as this to open up. He told me that thugs and gangs pretty much take these places over when they are in a central metro area. He was actually paid more by Gamewerks for being an off duty, fully uniformed cop-as-security than the city paid him for being in his black and white. What this creates is overworked police staff, but the city wouldn't give them the permits to open unless they had the police uniformed and working security as protection against what has happened in other urban areas. I know Dallas and Miami had some really wicked gang problems.

LA Arcades

[SaXisT4LiF]

If you're mostly interested in the arcade games, there's still a few places to go in LA. X-Cape at UCLA stays pretty up to date with its games and has free play every saturday night. Southern Hills Golfland isn't to far of a drive and has a great selection of games and freeplay saturday afternoons.

Check out the tournament listings on Shoryuken. Odds are you'll find an arcade around you that competitive gamers will hang out at. The competitive aspect of arcades has always been the reason I was driven to them. You also have the added satifaction of being able to see the person you were playing against and you have a financial motivation to play your best (your hard earned quarter is on the line).

Re:Ironic that games no longer exemplify ease-of-u

[InferiorFloater]

You're right. I also decry the point in history when written language evolved beyond linear-B.

Awesome trip back to an 80's arcade

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy did an amazing job recreating an arcade from the early '80s. He made a three minute video that takes you back to the time of Tron, Tempest, Donkey Kong, Joust, Robotron, Zaxxon, and Congo Bongo! With a great sense of detail and music by Journey (HA!), this is an amazing trip dowm memory lane.

Arcade '84

32mb mpeg

My .02 cr...

[Firefly1]

First and foremost, I'd like to take this opportunity to list my own favorite 'blasts from the past':

• Space Gun (Taito) - Operation Wolf meets Aliens, cherried with the ability to back up (trust me, this will often save you from needless injury, but remember, you're on a clock!) and four different loads for alt-fire: HE, incendiary, cryogen, and a sort of 'energy blade'.
• Search and Rescue (SNK) - overhead shooter in the Ikari Warriors/Heavy Barrel tradition, complete with the rotating stick (old-school circle-strafing!). Added the ability to jump over holes in the floor, as well as alt-fire for the weapons.
• Steelgunner series (Namco) - anime-styled shooters with you and a partner representing the city's finest. Yes, you had powered armor; yes, you definitely needed it.
• Virtua Cop series (Sega) - simple, yet fun and challenging at the same time. Spectacular and often-useful effects were there if you knew where to shoot.

That said, I think the Neo-Geo's multi-game cabinet is one of the most underappreciated innovations in arcade design. Why, the question then arises, was this never widely adopted?
Perhaps my biggest gripe with a lot of arcades is their shoddy maintenance. Okay, buttons and sticks will occasionally suffer casualties, but for such things to languish for days and weeks is simply inexcusable.
And right behind this is the lack of gaming etiquette evidenced in some circles. Picture this: you finad an unoccupied KoF 2003 machine and proceed to play... maybe you want to play through the storyline, or work on your technique in peace... lo and behold, someone decides to jump in without being invited, or in spite of being explicitly uninvited. Whether they are better than you or not is immaterial; that they don't seem to understand or care why you find their intrusion irritating is. Note that in the likes of Virtua Cop, adding a second player spawns more enemies... that, and I find it both embarrassing and insulting when the other player neglects to check his/her targets before opening fire.

SF2 glitches

[Anonymous Coward]

(most of these only work on the old boards, they fixed them in newer roms)

Guile:

"Foot" stand: while near the opponent, hold back and hit "roundhouse" so that you do the stand-on-one-foot-upside-down-boot-to-the-head kick. As soon as your foot hits the ground, perform a sonic boom motion (back,forward+punch). If you time it right you'll stay frozen in that position until you are either hit or perform a flash kick motion (down,up+kick).

Guile "Handcuffs":
While very near opponent, perform a flash kick motion, but instead of hitting a kick button, slide you finger down over medium punch through to medium kick, so that you hit both buttons in the motion. If done correctly, guile performs the medium punch throw (grab shirt and throw), but then the opponent is frozen in a frame of animation and can't move. Guile can break the glitch by performing a sonic boom motion buy sliding the finger from fierce punch to medium punch.

Re-dizzy combos:

Almost all characters can re-dizzy the opponent by using precisely timed jab punches or light kicks. Ryu/ken use down+light kick. Guile and Zangief use standing jabs. cheap. w00t.

Instant 100 hands/100 kicks/electricity:
Characters with moves that require repeated button presses (i.e. press punch repeatedly with honda to do 100-hands move) have a glitch in the input flow: If the button registers "on" in one frame and "off" in the very next frame, the special move comes out instead.

It is possible to reset the machine using Dhalsim, but I forget how.

Arcade Chains

[Brad1138]

From about 88-91 I worked for a country wide (also had a few in Australia and elsewhere) chain of arcades. It is now the last, large arcade chain in existence. A good friend of mine who was my boss back then is still with the company as a regional manager. We discuss the arcades every so often. The company at one time had over 200 locations. It has steadily been declining over the last 10 years or so. He gives it 2-4 more years.

Re:Arcade Chains

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at one of todays style Game Entertainment Venues (in Australia) (which is part of the Village Cinemas), this means Movie Goers often play games before/after seeing movies. It'd be interesting if U.S. Arcades have found similar ways to create revenue? or adopted the same ideas, such as by placing themselves in the right locations?.

Arcades here is Aus are usually located in areas where there are also various Restaurants, Bookshops, Food Courts or other recreational venues creating a potential for customers to play games when they are using their free-time relaxing or looking for entertainment.

As for the 'competition' over here, namely, Timezone, i've been curious why it seems that their business seems to be dying out, especially seeing as they are closing down many of their outlets.

PS. I don't suppose you could name which Arcade chain you are referring too? :)

Re:The ability to play at home changes everything.

[shadowbearer]

why, after a long day's work, would I then want to go somewhere else to pay money (two quarters at a time) to play video games?

Well, to meet chicks, of course.

Oh, wait, that was the 80s...my bad.

SB

Re:I remember... (the trance!)

[shadowbearer]

Ozone. That's the smell I remember associated with arcades from back in the 80s.

Tail Gunner was great. I blew fifty bucks in one week learning that game.
Is there a joystick version of that game I can play on linux? With the smoothness that the arcade had? IIRC it used vector graphics?

Gorf was damned hard, but fun.

Joust, now: once you got over the rolling-on-the-floor giggles of trouncing your opponents by whapping them on the head with your bird's ass... :) hey, I was a teenager then :) That damned pterodactyl!

SB

I cried on saturday over the closing of an arcade

[shoolz]

I went to Montreal this weekend. On saturday, I decided to visit my favorite downtown arcade. It was closed - permanently. I commented to my girlfriend about how sad it made me feel to see another piece of my youth die... how I learned so much about life in the arcade. She laughed at me. I cried... Seriously.

Even the hardest settings are too easy

[DeadScreenSky]

Namco couldn't program an effective AI if their lives depended on it.

I remember the first time I tried Tekken4. Not a fan of the series whatsoever, so no real experience. beat the whole game on my first play, mostly by doing a few of the same moves over and over. Got the best time, too.

What's especially bad about SCII is that the AI really just teaches you bad habits when playing a normal opponent...

Re:Beating the "masters"

[Wolfrider]

--Actually it's not all that surprising to me. If all they ever do is play each other, you can get to know another person's "standard, preferred" moves over time and develop blocking techniques and attack patterns to counter their style of play.

--Go up to a master swordsman/swordswoman and ask them who the most potentially dangerous opponent is. Odds are they'll say something like "someone who doesn't really know how to handle a sword" or "someone with a brand new style of attack."

--Swordfighters go thru intense training and learn how to expect and counter certain very specific moves, which (over thousands of years) have been determined to be the most common (and effective) "forms" of attack. A complete newbie doesn't know any of these "forms", and may actually get past the swordsman's guard by doing something completely random that they've never had to deal with before.

--Think of the devastating effects that American guerrilla warfare must have had on the morale of the "civilized" fighting British during the Rev. War -- it's like someone bringing a tommygun to a very stylized knife fight.

--MHO, this is also a big reason why Bruce Lee was so dangerous - he went completely beyond the traditional "form-based" style of fighting, and morphed martial arts to the Next Level.

--Anyone out there: Feel free to respond if you know more about any of this (see my sig.)

Re:I remember... (the trance!)

[DeadScreenSky]

There are certainly popular recent Japanese arcade games that can get you into that trance. Check out Dangun Feveron, DoDonPachi, Battle Garegga, or Ikaruga sometime (all emulated but the latter).

And I would argue fighting games (including stuff like Virtual On)can get you into that trance, but only when you and your opponent are very good.

In pre-9/11 America...

[Anonymous Coward]

...planes miss YOU!

Blame Game

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is the Arcade Gaming Industry blaming rampant pirating of their ROMS on the internet?
Perhaps they should. It works for some dying industries...

UK arcade scene

[rangi500]

You might think that the US arcade scene is going down hill, but it's probably still ten times better than here in the UK. I moved here from New Zealand when I was ten years old, and even then I could see that the UK take on arcades was very strange. Here in London the arcades are full of crappy novelty games, like snowboarding, horse-racing etc - there are very few games with a joystick. The games are generally 1 pound a play (> US $1.50). It seems the approach here is to offer an experience more like an amusement park ride, for more money, rather than offering low-cost video games that communities will be built around. These novelty games are aimed at the passer-by. Nobody is going to come back each week and master that rubbish horse-riding game.

A few years ago I was out in NZ and Australia and the arcades there are packed with two-player 'versus' games like the SF series, Tekken, Virtua Tennis etc, with loads of people there challenging each other. The games were like NZ 50 cents a game (about 15p UK / 25c US). It's the low-cost, high-volume approach, and seemed to be working very well for the arcade operators cos the arcades were packed.

Bubble Bobble is THE game to have

[gosand]

OK, time for a quick nostalgia trip. My friend and I were at a supermarket and they had bubble bobble. I asked if he wanted to play, but he said "that game is lame/retarded/gay". He had never actually played it, so I offered to pay for his first game. Well, 2 hours and 5$ later he didn't think it was so lame. Man I miss that game.

Bubble Bobble was the game that got me into arcade collecting. It was my holy grail. Did you know that it came out as a kit? Most of the machines you will ever see will just be conversions of other machines. I don't know if there are any "original" machines out there. I started my collecting by getting a Bad Dudes from an auction (real one, not online) for $25. Then I finally found a Bubble Bobble boardset after about 2 years of searching and waiting, and reading rec.games.video.arcade.collecting. Then I was off to solder up the harness so I could play it out of my Bad Dudes cabinet. I still remember the first time it powered up.

I used to play it at the local bowling alley in high school. We had a bowling class, so they would bus us down to the alley every day for an hour. I'd get to play it every day, it was awesome. Then 10 years later, I had one of my own. A Chinese friend of mine knew all about the game, and he came over one night and we powered through all the levels - then we did it again! Did you know that when you finish all 100 levels the second time, there is a different ending?

That game is so phenominal. There are cheat codes, secret levels, bonuses, easter eggs, etc. And this was created bach in 1986.

I was also able to get boardsets for Rainbow Islands, which was harder to get than Bubble Bobble. I don't like the game as much, but I got it more as a collector. I also have a similar game called New Zealand Story. I still have those boardsets too, I am not getting rid of them.

Ultramix

[tepples]

What are the deficiencies, exactly?

Some people on the forums I read don't like the Xbox version's song list, claiming it too closely resembles that of Konamix, which they already have. And if there are adapters to let the player use a PS1 dance pad on an Xbox console, how well do they work with Ultramix in practice?

The online play, four-player mode

All home versions of DDR other than handheld versions have a two-player split screen mode ("Versus"). But does the Xbox's four-player mode allow for four players on one console, or does it require two Xbox consoles at 180 USD each plus two copies of the game at 50 USD each?

The online play additionally requires an upgrade from dial-up Internet access to cable or DSL at 240 USD/yr for each player (more if you're currently on NetZero instead of a real ISP) and an Xbox Live subscription at 50 USD/yr for each player, plus a five-figure USD setup fee for each player (that is, the cost of moving house) if you don't already live in an area with cable or DSL service. In addition, the songs you bought seem locked to one Xbox; if it breaks, you've lost all the money you've put into buying songs. (In contrast, the iTunes Music Store and Roxio Napster business models allow for authorizing additional PCs should one break.)

If those issues don't bother you, I feel like striking "(poorly)" from the grandparent comment rather than debating this issue further.

As does the superior sound quality.

Even Konamix had essentially CD quality music, and it was on PS1. Or has Konami remixed the songs in 5.1 channel? Or do you refer to quality of announcer sounds rather than the music?

I guess the big reason why I made grandparent comment is that I'm bitter that Konami isn't making DDR for the GameCube and that I can't afford the other consoles. I can't afford the other consoles because even though I have a four-year degree in computer science and have sent out resumes to local companies advertising IT positions, I haven't been hired as a programmer.

Re:Ultramix

[DeadScreenSky]

Like I said, I don't really play the game, so I can't answer all of your questions perfectly. But I can do at least a few:
Some people on the forums I read don't like the Xbox version's song list, claiming it too closely resembles that of Konamix, which they already have.
This very well could be true. The song list (minus secret and downloadable songs) is somewhere here. (Oooh, didn't realize it had a Gradius song - I may have to go play it a bit after all.) Other than the classic LupinIII remix, "Ready Steady Go" is the first DDR song I have heard that I actually already liked, so it gets bonus points for me. In general, the music just sounds better to me than the rest of the DDR games I have heard. A little bit more like real dance music, and less like the MIDI-mess that is 'eurobeat'.

And if there are adapters to let the player use a PS1 dance pad on an Xbox console, how well do they work with Ultramix in practice?
There are adaptors, but I am not sure how well they work. My brothers just use modified versions of the official Xbox pad.

All home versions of DDR other than handheld versions have a two-player split screen mode ("Versus"). But does the Xbox's four-player mode allow for four players on one console, or does it require two Xbox consoles at 180 USD each plus two copies of the game at 50 USD each?
Nope, it works all on the same console. You can also play four player via Live, of course. And you do need additional pads, of course.

The online play additionally requires an upgrade from dial-up Internet access to cable or DSL at 240 USD/yr for each player (more if you're currently on NetZero instead of a real ISP) and an Xbox Live subscription at 50 USD/yr for each player, plus a five-figure USD setup fee for each player (that is, the cost of moving house) if you don't already live in an area with cable or DSL service. In addition, the songs you bought seem locked to one Xbox; if it breaks, you've lost all the money you've put into buying songs. (In contrast, the iTunes Music Store and Roxio Napster business models allow for authorizing additional PCs should one break.)
Yeah, those are potentially problems, though I am not sure about the locked to one Xbox thing. I haven't tested it, but I am pretty sure the songs are associated with your Xbox Live user account. The Xbox Live upgrade isn't so bad though, as you can get both hardware and games (Tetris!) with your purchase. Does the PS2 version allow online play about 56k? I was pretty sure only the Xbox version has online play, in which case complaints about broadband requirements aren't really fair...you aren't going to be playing it online regardless.

Even Konamix had essentially CD quality music, and it was on PS1. Or has Konami remixed the songs in 5.1 channel? Or do you refer to quality of announcer sounds rather than the music?
I was referring more to the superior sound quality the Xbox puts out (just better components), but yes, I believe it does 5.1. I can't stand the announcer in any DDR game I have played, so no comment other than the two available seem slightly less annoying than usual. :D

I guess the big reason why I made grandparent comment is that I'm bitter that Konami isn't making DDR for the GameCube and that I can't afford the other consoles.
I emphathize. Wish the developers would at least do direct-sales of some of these game ports - I realize they wouldn't sell much retail, but I imagine 5000-10000 copies online isn't anything to sneeze at. It is pretty easy to port an Xbox game to GC, assuming it doesn't push the hardware much. At least the various systems will eventually get very very cheap.

Fighting games

[PotatoHead]

Do produce the trance and I agree about the opponent. If you are both very good, it does happen.

You know you are there when both parties, slam the 'next round' button so fast, you don't even think about the replay.

My favorite of these is Tekken 2.

One day soon, I will give the Japanese games a try, thanks for the tip.

For a quick trance, there is always Kaboom!

Ah, yes....

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there are the times when they are not at the cool game, and you decide to play it. They will then appear out of noware, say noting, plop in quarter and challenge you with out asking.

It is not fun when you don't know the game, don't want to challenge anyone, and all you wanted to do is try the game out. I had a few occasions like this such that when I had little health left, I thought "fuck this," and left.