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The U.S. Arcade is Dead?
Via GameSetWatch, an article by one of the editors of GamePro positing that the U.S. arcade is now a dead thing. By positing, I really mean ranting. From the article: "Americans play videogames for one reason and for one reason only, to kick ass. It doesn't matter if you're crushing skulls in the fighting arena or on the football field. Being a virtual DJ, riding a horse (not into battle), and playing other violence-free games is not enough to draw people into arcades. Gaming isn't about having family-friendly fun it's about indulging in man's carnal desires. And then Konami drove the nail through the heart of coin operated gaming... The abomination of videogaming known as DDR served as an outlet for wannabe Travoltas to flail around wildly and quickly made the house of tank simulators and street fighting a haven for lamos. "
So, umm, all arcades are havens for Horse Riding(tm) and DDR?
Someone never played Mortal Combat or any number of the racing games in most arcades. "Lame-o" games didn't kill arcades, the cost of playing at an arcade did (when you can play it at home with people around the world).
The arcade died the day powerful personal computers became affordable for the masses. Why go down to the arcade to stand in front of a machine and shovel money when you can just pass disks/carts/CDs around your friends and play all the latest games?
The trend continued and now "LANNING" is the new norm. Why go out when the Interdoodle has all the game servers you could ever need and your connection is plenty fast enough to use them?
I drink to make other people interesting!
It was the massive inflation in arcade game prices that is at the cause of the problem. Nobody's going to play a quarter muncher when they're throwing in a loonie every 4 minutes.
This guy probably only hates DDR because he's no good at it.
That being said, the arcade is dead because nobody wants to spend a dollar for one fight against their friends in a game they already have at home.
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It's interesting that he should pick DDR as signaling the death of arcades, when, in fact, DDR was the beginning of a (albeit temporary) revival of arcades. The death of arcades started many years before DDR's release in the States, beginning with the rise of home gaming.
Specifically, the main draw of arcades for most goers wasn't the "competition" factor. It was that the technology available in arcade games was leagues above what was available at home. Anyone else remember the Genesis and SNES ports of Mortal Kombat 2? People were willing to pay for play at arcades because the games there were simply BETTER than what was available at home.
As commodity computing became a reality, and the technology required to run arcade-quality games became widespread, the draw of going to an arcade to play dampened significantly. It got to a point (around '99 or '00, plus or minus a bit depending on locale) where arcade machines were no longer able to outperform home computers and consoles. As a result, people were no longer willing to drop $50 a month at an arcade because they can spend that same $50 at home and get a BETTER gaming experience.
The reason why DDR did so well in the arcades was because of the speciality of the controllers. The game itself was well-designed, has an easy learning curve, and is attractive to players of both genders. This, coupled with the fact that good dance pads simply weren't feasible to purchse for one's home, meant that a central location (read: an arcade) was an ideal arrangement.
This, too, however, has been superceded by the level of tech available for home use. Now that reasonable dance pads are available for purchase affordably, the interest in DDR at the arcades has waned. So much so that Konami is no longer producing new machines, and has turned their focus primarily (and in the US, exclusively) to home releases.
If another thing comes along that substantially improves the gaming experience in a way that simply isn't economical to do in one's home, then the arcade will make a resurgence. No amount of "competitive" gaming draw will cause the same effect. (As an example, I'll point to the rise and fall of LAN-gaming shops.)
That green slime had it coming.
When I read that article, I was sort of expecting it to continue past the complaining about DDR, you know, and provide a little depth or backup. You know, explain why he hates DDR so much. Why would you consider DDR to be the death of arcades rather than its financial savior? How could you hate it when it keeps the money coming for venues that will also house Your Favorite Hardcore Fighting Game Doubleplus XP20? And why, you arrogant bastard, do you seem to have the impression that you and you alone can determine what people's tastes should be in electronic amusement machines?
Slashdot Games has run some great articles, and some unfathomably weak articles. This article, due to its unexplained ranting, general lack of facts, and unfathomable sparseness of content for its three-paragraph length, is the weakest article I've ever seen on Slashdot Games. That's not the writer's fault, though, it was just an off-the-cuff entry for his blog. It's Slashdot Games that ought to be ashamed for wasting our time by running an enraged fluff piece as a legitimate piece of gaming commentary.
Here in Canada, we had an arcade called Playdium.. it was a pretty cool place and lots of fun.. however after going there a couple of times, you come to realize it is a lot cheaper to play games at home... on your console and not be bugged by those stupid continue messages. Another issue was that they didn't change their games that often.. a lot of those games were ancient... and in the end.. the whole experience became boring... I stopped going there.. and I think a lot of other ppl stopped goign there for the same reason.. in the end .. the place closed down...
"Lame-o" games didn't kill arcades, the cost of playing at an arcade did (when you can play it at home with people around the world).
Aside from the fact that arcade game variety had dwindled, it was the fact that it had begun to cost a dollar a game or more that really put me off arcades. I used to spend a lot of time and money in them too. But the fact was that we could play more interesting games as much as we wanted at home for less money overall. So really, consoles and the Internet killed the arcade.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Arcades are expensive. And I can't remember the last time I saw a game at an arcade I had to play. Maybe the Star Wars arcade game. That was pretty fun. But still, one game. Big deal. I get better gaming experiences hanging out with friends at someone's home playing HALO or Smash Bros. or something like that. Or I'll go online and do that. Arcades were great back in the day but they're being replaced. It happens.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
The term arcade was abused by the time machines entered the fray.
That said, why pay money to play a game that's nowhere near as fun as a lan party or coffeehouse?
Like many thing, you spend money, you want to *own* something. Not rent it, not borrow it. Having stuff is perhaps another argument, but paying a few quarters to wiggle a joystick is a death long overdue.
DDR is fun though in my book. The songs, eh.
I think arcades can be saved once they realize that they need to have content that can't be reproduced at home. Why would I want to spend money at the arcade to play Teken or Mortal Kombat when it's available on my home console. The advantage arcades used to have was they could offer games that needed more powerful hardware than what was available on computer or on home consoles. I remember having Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II for Nintendo, but I would still play TMNT at the arcade because the quality was so much better. Now with MAME, we see that PCs have more than enough processing and graphics capability to play arcade games. Couple that with unlimited quarters on the emulator and the draw for traditional arcade games goes way down. Arcades can still draw people though. These days, when I go to an arcade, it isn't to play regular games. I play skiball, because I don't have a skiball machine at home. I play pinball because I don't have a pinnball machine at home. I play gun games like Police 911 because that game uses hardware that I wouldn't have at home. That's where an arcade's strength lies, offering access to hardware and games that aren't practical for people to personally own. Just because the era of the arcade's dominance in computing ability is over, doesn't mean it doesn't have other elements to it.
Most of the gaming is pure Narcissism.
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When VR equipment is at a stage where it is too expensive for the average person to have at home, but is cutting edge enough for arcades to buy it and "rent" it by the hour or so, then we will see arcades make a comeback.
Just about everyone here in the U.S. has access to a PC. You can play games that are somewhat compatable with the arcade games of the 80's for free on Yahoo Games and similar sites.
Even plucking some game from the 9.99 bargain rack at BestBuy will get you a game that is better done than pretty much any arcade game worth anything. And that 9.99 will get you a lot farther in that game than it will in an arcade.
It's a simple Cost vs Reward scenario. High cost, low satisfaction reward.
The only money I would spend in an arcade is on an old fashion pinball game. Those can still be a lot of fun, when the mood strikes me.
Even American kinds aren't so dumb as to not figure this out.
I havent seen a true "arcade" since the late 90s. I used to love them as a child of the late 70s and 80s. Spent many hours, and many more quarters there! Fun times. But now, the reasons are clear, most PCs equipped with a halfway decent graphics card, or the consoles have better graphics, and longer game/replay value. Just at the local theater alone, all the games are fighting games, or driving and that's fine... yet at $1 or more a pop to play 30 seconds isnt worth the effort. I dont see these games even being played 9 times out of ten.
It was a fun part of my childhood, but if I had access to all these fantastic toys we have now back then, I wouldnt be in the arcade then either.
There is a great arcade in Portland, OR called "Ground Zero." Its an arcade made up of entirely classics. Pong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc. All the great old arcade games in near mint condition. They also have pinball machines (I think).
Arcades aren't dead, just in a recession which the game industry has know many.
Arcades initially were for people who wanted to play video games but couldn't afford to buy an arcade machine. They still went strong, although slightly weaker, when home game consoles started to hit it big. Now game consoles are everywhere so arcades are in a decline. Once VR starts to become realistic (cost wise), the first people who are going to afford it are arcades. They'll get people interested and will serve people well until VR becomes cheaper.
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ORLY?
Oh what's wrong, somebody bitching because they couldn't AAA Sakura on Heavy reversed with stelth mod at 8x original speed?
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Here in San Diego we have this great arcade called Nickel City. It's owned by Capcom, thus all the games are great, older Capcom games. And instead of paying a dollar to play a game, it costs you a few nickels. We also have a Tilt in one of our malls, which is cool. The only game I play there is Guilty Gear XX, even though I own it. What really draws me to arcades is the chance to own some 25 year old guy who thinks he can play GGXX better than a 19 year old girl. I always get the last laugh...
To alcohol and cigarettes and Mary-Jane to keep me insane doing someone else's cocaine
When I was a kid, back around the days of Pac Man (like '82), there still existed the singluar arcade - aimed at kids/teens. It was a place that I wasn't allowed and always reaked of weak 70's weed. Adults didn't play games then, cause they didn't grow up playing games.
Kids today don't need that. It's cheaper to own a XBOX or PS2 and it takes alot less effort than actually commuting to wherever.
Gaming at home is better for adults too - we all have computers much more powerful than TI-994a's at home, at work and built into our cell phones (we have cell phones). We have entertainment centers more impressive than those old theaters too, and that's why the kids are the only ones that go to theaters now - to get away from us.
The only really viable market is for the family or for games that just cannot be repeated at home. The arcade is in the Dave & Buster era. Shallow, materialistic, lots of machine guns and gaudy plastic appendages....it's the material excess that comes from reaching maturity, making money, and going corporate. That's where arcade gaming is.
Eventually gaming will reach the zen state, and the level of Shuffleboarding. I can see it now. I'll be retired, on a park bench in Florida, pwning some 80 yr old noob over a global-supe-dupe-fi connection in Doom XI (sponsored by Efferdent Denture Cream).
Umm, carnal desires are more sexual than physically violent. Unless you're explicitly referring to all the T&A in videogames or how violently you spank the monkey, animal or basic or just plain violent desires might be a better choice.
One of the actually good things they have at Chuck E Cheese is this bubble thing that moves around. They have some Microsoft games on it, Mech Warrior and Crimson Skies. Those games are actually fun. And they'd be even more fun if there was more than one machine linked together.
To be fair, people rent films. Many people rent games! Arcades died because of a: cost, and b: not being any better gaming-wise than staying at home*. It's that simple.
*Hell, right now, I'd say that portables are pretty close to the arcade. WiLAN MK:DS is bloody good.
The abomination of videogaming known as DDR served as an outlet for wannabe Travoltas to flail around wildly and quickly made the house of tank simulators and street fighting a haven for lamos.
On the weekends, do the people at GamePro pretend that they work for a good magazine, like Edge?
Hmm... non-violent fun... like Mario Kart DS? Animal Crossing? Guitar Hero, Katamari Damacy, SSX, Amplitude, Marble Madness, Puzzle Pirates, Devil Dice, Super Puzzle Fighter, The Sims, Uplink... Yup. No fun games out there that don't involve 'shootin and boobies.
BTW, I don't care if they do look like Danny Bonaduce, don't make fun of the expert DDR players. Trust me on this: they can kick your ass several dozen times per second. They may look like someone from Riverdance while doing it, but you will just have gotten your ass kicked by someone from Riverdance, which is even worse.
The ______ Agenda
Funny that this story was posted today. I just got back from an extremely well put-together arcade called Nickel City. You pay $2 to get it, and every machine is nickel operated. they cost anywhere from 5-50(DDR's the only one that costs 50) cents. And there's even lots of machines that are on Free Play, including Tetris, Ninja Turtles, Frogger, (Ms.) Pac-Man, Asteroids, and a lot more. You can spend hours there by only spending $5. The one I went to is in San Jose, and the website says there's one in Illinois. www.nickelcitygames.com
Without RTFA (flame me if you will)
Welcome to five years ago!
Seriously, this has been said several times in the last few years.
Insert Sig Here
The arcade IS dead. It's sad really. You should see some of the incredibly awesome arcacde games they get in Japan. It's just not fair. But the way he puts down DDR shows just how much of a nut this guy is. DDR was the last chance to SAVE the US arcade, not the final nail in the coffin.
What I wouldn't give to bring the arcade back to life...
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US Arcades are dying because of outrages prices per session that over an hour (for a novice player) could add up easily to the cost of the game. If I'm a DDR fanatic, I can buy any edition of the game plus a third-party pad for $100 more or less, why would I endlessly shell out money for it?
And as I glance through arcades, I see... FPS, FPS, FPS, and old NLF Blitz game, rarely do I see a pinball machine, and when I do, it's either Playboy or Terminator 2, and a bunch of Chuck E. Cheese toys that do nothing but dispense tickets for worthless prizes.
If I go into an arcade and drop $1 in tokens for a racing game that I've never played, and I suck at it (either due to my own lack of skills, an alread-damaged steerng wheel, or any other reason) I will not be easily tempted to drop another $1 to come in last place in a race that lasted thirty-seconds because I didn't pass a checkpoint.
The death of the US Arcade is coming about because of overpricing and lack of originality. Some arcades combat the pricing issue by offering time cards, where you pay a flat fee for one hour of gaming. But when there's no games worth playing, no one will buy the cards either. (You had to buy a separate card at a higher cost to play DDR, by the way.)
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find their privates are on the Internet.
After reading the first intro page, I went looking for the "next page" button to get into the meat of the article...
...only to find out that the "intro" was the article in its entirety.
Seriously, why does Slashdot link to "articles" like this?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
So the writer of the article is pissed because arcades these days do not cater to his tastes. Tough! Had the writer cared about the type of games in the arcade, then he should have supported it by not buying a gaming rig and play video games on the cheap. Then the arcade would not have lost money, and not have to look elsewhere for revenue like (gasp!) casual gamers.
But of course that would be silly. The writer did what he had to do to get his gaming fix, and the arcade did what it had to do to stay alive.
Arcades are not dead. They just evolved. They still serve the purpose of amusing people, but the people they amuse and the means of doing so changed. The video games that the writer rants against are what's keeping the modern arcades afloat. Arcades cannot just cater to the typical console gamer, since those folks hardly show up. The games these days have to be fun, easy to pick up, and something that you can't experience at home.
I remember playing his paddle boat game with a friend a while back. It had a control mechanism that simulated a real paddle boat. We were going through some prehistoric river. Near the end of the game we were chased by a T-Rex so we began paddling like mad. Our arms were getting tired, but our friends who were watching urged us on and cheered when we escaped. Try simulating that at a home system.
For the record, I've owned a console since the 2600, and I suck at DDR. However, I do like going to Dave and Busters every now and then with my friends. You know why? Because I like looking at my opponents' faces when I win (or lose) and most of my friends can't even spell 'LAN Party'.
The reason I went to the arcade was to play pinball. With the death of Williams a few years ago there have been very few new pinball games I have liked from Sterns. I think the slow death of pinball had an effect on the american arcades as well. Also if anyone ever played it, Big Bang Bar is the best pinball game of all time! It never made it into production but there were about 12 prototypes made and a few of them were in Chicago area arcades a long time ago.
This guy's an idiot. DDR and In The Groove represent a genre that is one of the purest gaming experiences possible. There isn't any randomness at all, vital for making a game based on pure skill. You have to destroy all the arrows as they reach the zone at the top, but you more points for hitting them with accurate timing. Lots of rhythm games like Frequency (and Amplitude) are fun too, but dance games have the added challenge of making you move around and hit all the step patterns that appear on the screen. You have to learn advanced moves like crossovers and gallops and such, or you can try to freestyle a bit more on easier difficulties. It's really a very intense and fun genre.
If you're embarrased to play it, your loss. Smaller lines for me (yes, there are lines).
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
He called BMX XXX a "true mature game". I didn't know "mature" meant "pubescent".
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Don't play it.
Seriously, what's this guy's problem?
"Wannabe Travoltas?" I play DDR for two reasons: (1) it's fun, and (2) it's excersize. I actually hate real dancing.
So because I have fun doing something that this guy doesn't find fun, I'm lame?
Pinball could and will become a fad again....at least I'm praying it does. I miss Pinball soo much and it's something you can't replicate at home unless you actually buy a pinball machine. The ports to console systems rarely ever work to capture the feel of a pinball game.
Not to mention that Soul Calibur for the DC was(and dare I say 'still is') one of the most amazing looking fighters of all time! When I first loaded up my copy of SC, it hit me, the arcade was dead to me. I no longer felt the need to wait in line for the inferior arcade version. And I didn't have to play with any of those cheap-one-button-pressing-Nightmare-or-Lizardman-
players-who-always-seemed-to-win guys, well except for Philip.
I never go to arcades, but I might if I there was a fixed entrance fee, with all the games inside being free to play. Having to pay for each short game is no fun.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Greatest comment from that article-
Well, if the arcades are dying, then the editor of Gamepro would certainly be able to tell us. That magazine should know all the signs of going from relevency to being totally worthless very well.
Posted on: Jan 06 2006 - 10:11 by Zeb.
A lot of comments of VR, so I'll add mine. To me, this is one of the biggest mis-steps of the arcade industry. I remember when VR had it's first outing. It was a minumum of $5 to play, the graphics were primitive at best, at playing was charged by the minute. Yet still, it was something I could not get at home and I spent a good chunk of cash there. It's *still* something I can't get at home. However, you can't use the same arcade game for 5 years, and you can't use the same VR setup that long either. It's time to up the ante.
I've looked at the pricing on some enterprise-level VR companies. Even for extremely good setups, they are not that bad for any reasonable business to afford.
Arcade Owner:Don't buy 5 more craptastic games, buy one VR setup. Graphics power these days could make some extremely visual and exciting VR games.
Arcade Developer:Spend some time, do some research, the potential is there, huge, and untapped.
-- I have fans? Wow.
And went to an arcade on canal st.
It was filled with neogeo cabinets and other older racing games (a few of those motorcycle games where you actually get on a motorcycle)...
The place was packed. Nearly every machine was in use, and several had crowds of people around them watching.
It was a cocaphany of gaming pleasure...
Arcades are only dead when utopias like that die.
that companies are now bypassing arcades and go directly into home market.
So while Soul Calibur II was hugely popular, Soul Calibur III went directly into home release. (dont buy it,it sucks)
Here in Austin, there is this place called Dave and Busters. Their selection of games concentrate on prop games, like shooting and driving, that are fun to play in groups. The best part is you can have a beer while playing the games. The overall experience is much more fun than sitting at home in front of your TV. People seem to become more and more introverted these days.
I have to wonder whether a better pricing model might not be the one employed by Disney in Florida, where you pay a set entrance fee and then have several floors of arcade machines of all which are set to free play. I admit that I went at a quiet time of the year(shortly after Labor Day) but it seemed like a decent deal.
This isn't an article, it's some blog, similar to the readers' letters section in your newspaper and not to be taken seriously.
The guy just doesn't like the new types of games that most other people prefer and he's being a bitch about it; that's because it's his blog, the place where he can be a bitch and the rest of us can ignore him being a bitch.
I wish Slashdot would stop refering to idiots' blogs as if they were newsworthy articles by knowledgable people.
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