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Rebirth of the U.S. Arcade?
Gamasutra has an article up looking at Sega's plan to reinvigorate the arcade market through its recently purchased GameWorks chain. From the article: "I think what GameWorks has done has recognized where our opportunities are, and through our relationship with Sega — hopefully we're starting to see innovations back on the arcade side that bring a new and different environment and experience that people can't get at home. If you're familiar with House of the Dead 4 and the graphics that are a part of that, it's now starting to be back to having an appeal, starting to see some of that impact back on the arcade-side where you can't play in front of a 52-inch screen and have all of the very vibrant color and animation that's part of it — you can't just do that at home."
Hardware is the key. I honestly do not believe that an arcade is going to come up with software that is going to take all of my quarters away from my new Apple prodcut piggy bank. Arcades need to concentrate on games that simply aren't nearly as fun or can't be played on a mouse, keyboard, or regular controller. They also need to cost quarters to play, not dollars *O.o.
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The problem I see with these is that they're too darned expensive to play anymore. It's not uncommon for me to see games with a play cost a $1 per play or occasionally even higher. Half of these same games can be purchased and played infinitely for less than $20 now. $0.25 per play was expensive way back "in the day", but at that time home consoles hadn't caught on quite as much as they have now. Drop the price per play down to $0.25 again, or even $0.10, and I'd probaby blow a lot of spare change in the things just waiting on a movie to start, or just killing some time on an afternoon (well, I don't live close enough to a city to really spend it at an arcade, but maybe if I was already at the mall or something).
As it is for $1 per play I just leave them sitting there, and from the looks of it so do most other people.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The only plan to revitalize the arcade would be to reduce what it costs to play a game. The only way to do that is to make arcade games substantially more durable, because they are expensive to maintain. It would also help to make them cheaper. Unfortunately, making them more reliable would make them more expensive. So, obviously I don't have THE ANSWER(tm).
Regardless, it costs maybe $200 to get a decent used console with a couple peripherals, and $20 per used game, so let's say $300 to play give games as much as you want. Since new release games cost one dollar and up per play that's maybe 300 games, which will take between 30 seconds and what, five minutes? Ten if you're a super-pimp? By the time you've learned the combos on a new fighting game, you could have bought the last version and taken it home.
Speaking for myself, it would require that all games were fifty cents or less per play before I would go back to spending a lot of time in arcades.
There are a handful of arcades that run on nickels, if it's normally a dollar game it's a twenty cent game. They tend to have prize systems and snack bars, though, as well as other merchandise. They also tend to be COMPLETELY PACKED.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not to mention that prices for games have skyrocketed!
Olden days: $0.25=1 game
Now: up to $2.00 for ONE FREAKING GAME, depending on how huge or "immersive" the game case is.
Until they (the retailers, not the game companies, because the arcades themselves set the price), realize that I'll gladly pay over $2 in a game that I could play for even $0.50 a pop, than one that I would not play more than once at $2, or not at all, then they won't get customers. People don't have that kind of disposable income, at least not the kids that they want/need to revitalize the arcade.
Best of luck, because it's an awesome ideal. I loved the arcade. But I think people are greedy in terms of not fixing coin slots, but moreso in the pricing scheme of the games. Who wouldn't play the next rocking racing game for $.25 a pop, multiple times over and over... I would. More than you'd get out of me, by playing for $.75 or $1 at a time, that's for sure.
Some sort of Smash Brothers for arcade would be great.. why only 2 people? Let's make it 4! or more! all connected! or 8 for car racing. That would be fun. I'd go with all my friends to the arcade games if there were more games like that