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The Dave and Buster's Experience
The Game Chair has a piece looking at the lackluster experience offered by one of the few remaining American arcade chains, Dave and Buster's. From the article: "Dave & Buster's is perennially in my bad books because they don't have Dance Dance Revolution. Each time, I enter with the hope that they might have seen the error of their ways, and each time I am crushed. Honestly. What kind of arcade does not have DDR? Although Dave & Buster's merely possesses pretensions, rather than aspirations to be an arcade, the lack of dance games except for one lonely Pump it Up: Exceed 2 machine is nigh unforgivable. I know DDR isn't so popular in Japan anymore, but unless I am totally mistaken Dave & Buster's is not Japan."
Why is someone's blog entry whining about a random arcade worthy of /.?
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First place I ever played DDR was a D&B, maybe your local one doesnt have it but mine does. But then again I live in jersey where the arcade has yet to die. Infact every summer I make it a mission to go to the "Flashback" arcade, a little mini arcade inside of a huge one which is packed with 80's and 90's games.
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Odd placement on /. aside, this article is also odd because it doesn't pay any mind to the target D&B audience. This place is specifically targeted as an entertainment destination for adults--kids can't even get in without a guardian. Gambling-style games, poker tables, shuffleboard, etc. populate much of the restaurant's real estate. These are not the kinds of patrons who hop around on dance pads or whip up 40-hit combos in hardcore fighting games; they want to shoot stuff, race in cars and play games that require as little learning curve as possible.
It's called Fun and Games - in Wayne New Jersey in the WIllobrook mall. It's open 365 days a year, and has pinbal machines, DDR, multi player racing games, air hockey and practically anything else you could want. It probably has 150-200 machines. It's been there for at least 30 years.
..........FULL STOP.
I hate people like you. Waaaahhhhhhhh they don't have my game, so I'll bitch about it on my blog. Oh, I'm not a hardcore gamer, I'm not an arcade lounger, and I'm not a Dance Dance Revolutionary, but here's a helpful hint you moron, if you want your favorite game there ASK FOR IT. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so they say, and you certainly seem to be one of the new generation of squeaky, mousy losers. Quit using your mouth to whine, use it to speak like a person, and stop wasting everyone else's time talking about wasting your own time.
Submitter, maybe Chuck E. Cheese's has DDR. Go there!
How ya like dat?
Maybe the D+B arcade machine purchasers are, in fact, well aware that a DDR game would make money, but in the long run money would be lost by the type of clientele the game might attract? ie: people who spend money on the food, bar drinks, pool *simultaneously* being attractive customers versus someone who just pumps money in the DDR machine and sweats?
this is in retort to another awful article i read here not long ago about how DDR was killing arcades and everything else holy to some random 'hardcore' gamer.
the D&B here in DC has at least 2 DDR machines, one of which was taken over by this 35~ year old asian guy who was playing only to impress audiences last time I was there. he was finishing songs with his back to the screen, showing off, etc. i got a kick out of it.
and just to get my bitch in, i hate D&B here because all they have for fighting is a 35+ mame cabinet that has SF2 (not WW/CE/etc). jesus, shell out for a 3s machine to appease people. it'd probably make more money than the 3 broken pinball tables you have. (and i love pinball!)
Personally, I can't imagine trying to keep my pint from spilling while hopping and jumping.
And I wouldn't put my drink down where I couldn't see it in a D&B.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Well I don't know if anyone else has posted about this yet but, The D&B in the palisades center in Rockland NY has a dance dance revolution machine. I havn't seen anyone use the one they have but I'm usually spending my time at the bar.
http://slashdot.org/comments.
Every D&B I've been to has DDR, but very rarely is it used. Most often, D&B is used as a place for drunken ski-ball, arcade style basketball free throws and overly elaborate pachinko style gambling. Any other game is something to do while waiting for something else. Video games are now HOME entertainment.
GameWorks > D&B
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
The article's pretty content free, so lemme crosspost a comment I left on this guy's blog.
The problem with D&B is not DDR. It's the entire attitude that they will house NOTHING but 'casual games'. They're not appealing to arcade fans, they want people who come there to drink and eat, and MAYBE play some games... so, the games have to be playable with no instructions whatsoever. Anybody can drive a car or shoot a gun, so, those are the dominant forms.
Fighting games are more esoteric, since you need combinations of joystick moves and button presses to succeed; unless you read FAQs or are a fan from the console versions you won't do well in them. There is no longer a real fighting game subculture in this country, at least not one that goes to arcades.
Another category they utterly dump is classic games, things from the 80's and 90's. You'd think they'd at least throw in a Donkey Kong or such for nostalgia value, but the problem is that these games don't pay well, don't have a ton of 'continue?' style profit chances, and are costly to upkeep (unless you buy a re-released game like the Space Invaders Anniversary, or Ms.Pac-Man/Galaga combo).
The bottom line is money. They don't make enough money off anything that you can't play for 20 seconds with no prior training and then dump more credits into for another 20 seconds. It's a global problem on the arcade scene, and D&B, which is an arcade secondarily, will never be the answer.
Really, I have no idea what the reviewer was going on about for the most part. This isn't the type of arcade that used to be present in every mall in America, it's a bar that happens to have a restaurant and a whole lot of games.
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I mean where else can you drink alcohol and play arcade games.
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-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I completely agree that most D&B's suck in their game selection. I've only been to 2 or 3, but they seem to lack variety in their shop. This guy's little post neglected to mention the lack of pinball machines, Golden Tees, or depth in classic beyond one pacman/galaga combo and qix/space invaders combo that most have.
Personally I could care less about DDR, though I haven't seen a DDR machine at either of the 2 D&Bs I've been to in VA/NY. However, stranger thing I have noticed is that there are NO pinball machines there at all. Also, the only fighting games I saw were old school crap, SF2turbo and then one Tekken 4 machine which is at least several years old now. No soul cal, no MVC, no MK... I'm assuming the reason for both of these is that in both instances you can literally sit there for hours on just one token, and both are pretty constant gaming so that means you're also going to be drinking far less when playing them so neither make any money. I'd go out on a limb and say DDR is the same way. You can't drink a beer and play ddr at the same time and I see people sitting on those machines for a long ass time before they lose. It's just wasted revenue whereas instead they can put in some 1996 Nascar game that lasts 5 minutes for $2 a play almost.
They had DDR and I played it.
(Man, diagonal arrows are hard if you're used to orthogonal ones!)
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