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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.""
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?
Golden Tee is today's version of Pac-Man.
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.
I think you meant http://www.arcadecontrols.com, right?
Make sure to check the forums.
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.
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
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
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.
$
..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
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
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.
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.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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). .5 dollar)by 'challenging' you. ;) of Blanka, but never felt the urge to challenge me after it.
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
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'
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... ^_-
>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.
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
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
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.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
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.
... and I do my best to keep it in good working order.
:-)).
Plug: I have an Addams Family pinball machine on location at Barbella Piercing in Fountain Valley, CA
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
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.
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).
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
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
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
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.
My other first post is car post.
There is also one in lyons, colorado. (just north of boulder, co)
http://www.lyonspinball.com/
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.