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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."
Can I smoke some weed there like I do at home before playing? =)
The arcade games at the local movie theater is at least ten years old. Would be nice to have some new arcade games or even (gasp!) pinball machines. I just wish the damn five-years-old stop beating at every game I try.
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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Ok, I grew up in arcades when I was a wee tot, so I know my way around them pretty well. I went from Space Invaders, to Pac Man, to Pengo, to Dragon's Lair, to Karate Champ, to Street Fighter craze, to Killer Instinct, to
Video games were designed to play against other people. Even in the early days. Don't believe me? Think about it. Even though in those very early games you didn't specifically play against other people, you actually were indirectly. We were all playing to get the Hi-Scores. You were playing against the person who got the previous Hi-score, right? Remember how badass it was to get the top Hi-Score? That meant that your initials (and score) displayed top center all the time!
Video Game designed evolved to match players against other players more efficiently. They got pretty good at it too. Street Fighter II was not the most popular game because of it's single-player mode, afterall. Every modern arcade had a vs. mode, or at the very least a co-op mode.
So, what's my point?
People think that modern graphics advanced to the point that going to the arcade was essentially wasting money. A modern PC/console had better graphics (not to mention higher ress) than the crap at the arcade, so what was the point of leaving your house? But that's really not the entire story. People neglect to mention that multiplayer games had made major strides in PC gaming. Games like Quake brought multi-player to a whole new level. MMOGs like Ultima/Everquest made games like Cadash seem dated and boring.
There was one thing that was missing though, and this was in multi-player fighting games. PCs, or even consoles, could never _quite_ do it properly. Also, nothing beats the arcade controls/buttons when it comes to multi-player fighting games. I'm sorry, but I just never quite got the hang of fighting games using a console controller, nevermind a bloody keyboard/flight stick.
Now, here is what I think arcades should have done to get the one-up on PCs/Consoles. Since graphics will be at least par across both PCs/consoles/arcades, then they should take the multiplayer aspect to the next level.
Think about all the acades, like Tilt for instance (which is an arcade I see everywhere in Texas) all linked up via a nice WAN/LAN. If you walk in, and see an empty Soul Edge machine, you can jack in the queue, and play some other bloke standing at a Soul Edge machine at another location! All players, across all locations are now linked together.
Now, think about a giant electronic board that shows all the Hi-Scores across the _entire_ chain of Tilt stores (it could even be available to look at via the www while sitting at home). You can see who has the most wins in a row in Street Fighter 4. The fastest lap in . The highest score in Michael Jackson's Moonwalker... err... you get the idea.
I mean, Doesn't Golden Tee do something like this?
Anyway, I could go on and on. Arcades rooms really should start linking up their stores, and the arcade machines themselves, and drop all Hi-Scores across the organization into one DB accessable via a badass screen.
Arcades should go back to their roots. Then I would love to go back to the arcades and do a little Hi-Score Hunting!
++Om
Here's a nomination for a penny game:
Professor Pac-Man
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However, if they do 'rebirth' the arcade market in the US, I hope to hell that they bring it to the East Coast, as I've only ever seen GameWorks on the West Coast....
Well this can't possibly fail ...
Sure lots of folks like to say that consoles killed the arcade, but I just don't believe it. Arcades have always offered "You can't get this experience at home."
What I think really killed the arcade industry was operators that had Mr Crabs or Scrooge Mc Duck as operators.
I can't remember how many times I went into an arcade, plopped a token/quarter in the slot only to find that a button was broken, or a joystick and or steering wheel was loose. When i'd go to the operator asking for a refund, it was always met with some fat guy smelling like he hadn't showered in a week pointing at a sign that said, "Play at your own risk, no refunds!"
$0.25 is all it would have taken to keep me happy and coming back to my local arcade. Instead of cultivating customers for the long term though, most arcade operators just don't care. Attendance started dropping off, and as a result people started turning to PC's and console systems for their fix.
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.
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The day I can play a game for 25 cents. Seriously - I'd end up spending a dollar anyway - it's absurd that companies expect you to shell out $1.00 for 2 minutes of gameplay.
Nowadays, mostly every computer and videogame on the market can have a game at the an arcade level. Flashy graphics, cool sound, cockpits and other stuff don't cut it anymore, all consoles from the last 3~4 years have that (except for the cockpits, but that's already dull anyway). They have to innovate on the Interface. I say, let go of the joysticks, buttons, wheels, etc. They need to make the player immerse more on the action using interfaces similar to Nintendo's Wii controler, but more refined for the especific game. Actually, I think a big killer and the next big thing for Arcades would be VR games. I understand the technology isn't quite there yet, but then again, the industry had plenty of time to mature the technology, by means of investments - the Arcardes market was really sleeping at the wheel. I actually saw a VR game years ago, but it didn't took off. The glasses weighted a bit too much, and the interface felt awkward mostly because of that, it didn't feel natural.
In summary, what the Arcade market needs to delivery is something that people can't get on their living room.
Surprisingly, the profitability problem with arcades isn't the games. It's the food service. See this consultant's report: "Food Service and Location-Based Leisure Projects". "The only location-based entertainment (LBE) venues that will be profitable in the future are those that draw guests because of, not in spite of, the chow." Consider Chuck E Cheese, Nolan Bushnell's original pizza/arcade operation from 1977, which has 500 locations. They've stayed in business through three decades and all the generations of consoles. And they're profitable.
As the consultants put it, A well-designed and managed food & beverage operation can generate a 40+% profit after deducting cost-of-goods-sold and labor. Ban the words "snack bar" and "concession" from your vocabulary. Think café and restaurant instead.
They're probably right. That's something an arcade can deliver that you can't get at home.
I don't know how widespread these places were, but in Toronto Sega opened several huge arcade centres called "Playdium". They had all the latest arcade cabinets in their hugest and coolest forms, plus tried n' true titles and retro areas. Plus they featured batting cages, rock climbing, go karts, motion simulators, Skee-ball and other ticket games, and I don't even know what else because I could never make it all the way around those places.
For some reason most of these places flopped. I believe they had 3 locations including an all-hours store in the entertainment district downtown. Strangely, that was the location to close first. Now the only one left is the first store in Mississauga which is a good 40KM from downtown.
They sound great in theory but in the end they're annoying. You have to stand in huge lines to play anything good and there's no "code of honour" to keep people from continuing their games indefinitely. Games are all priced differently and you pay via arbitrary "credits" on paycards that invariably leave you with 4.7 unusable and non-refundable doodads. Many card sliders are broken and either prevent you from playing, steal your credits, or require multiple swipes which take longer than a continue countdown timer.
These places are great for tourists but, aside from the odd $20 allnighter, are too expensive and too much of a drive for residents to call a regular hangout.
I, for one, would much sooner play PC on my 19" monitor or PS2 on my 31" TV than get jostled around by tittering tweens 45 minutes from my house.
It seems that many of the comments about arcades have already been addressed by GameWroks. Many of you may not be farmiliar with the chain or looked at the prices and walked right back out. The GameWorks in Grapevine Mills Mall is just outside of Dallas and I have been there several times. At ten P.M. they kick out everyone under the age of 18. You pay around $20 for two hours of access to every game. They serve food and alcohol. I have a beer, a game and no screeming brats. It works. the place is packed at night. The place is a horrible rip off unless you pay for time. Paying to play individual games would burn up $20 in fifteen minutes. Also about broken machines. They have on site staff to fix the games.
was mentioned in the article, and it's 7 bloody years old. I mean, really, what's needed are cabinets with interchangable hardware so it's not so expensive to add new games. Jamma was a good idea, but as soon as 3D hit big, it was thrown by the wayside in favor of custom hardware. And Clint's assertion that people don't have 52" screens with vibrant color and animation is just silly. The last couple House of the Dead games ran on x86/Nvidia hardware, and I know plenty of people with 52" tvs. Bolting a sports bar on isn't going to help much either. OTOH, tournaments are good. Might give people a reason to go to the arcade again.
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Easy. Make the amount of coins you need for one credit different at different times during the day. So, at 10 in the morning, it might be 1 Coin = 1 Credit. At 7pm on Friday, it could be 3 Coins = 1 Credit. Sounds easy enough to me.
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As the article says, and as everyone has commented, games are expensive these days. The days when arcade cabinets were relatively inexpensive and a half a generation ahead of the home systems are long gone, so that economic model can't work. You simply cannot have an arcade on every corner and have them all stay in business.
The key factor is a large, immediately accessible population. It's why the world's megalopolises like Tokyo and Hong Kong have booming arcade businesses while the rest of the world just doesn't. Even in Japan, it's only places like Tokyo and Osaka that actually have good, successful arcades that aren't attached to a bowling alley or other big draw. I live in Sakai, which was until recently a suburb of Osaka. It has roughly the population density of Seattle, and it has about a half dozen arcades that I can think of. Most of those arcades are filled primarily with slot machines and mahjongg games, with a few music games off in the corner.
Downtown Osaka, a mere thirty minutes away by train, is a wonderland of good arcades. In the entertainment districts, there's practically one on every corner. The difference is throughput. When you can expect a million people to pass in front of a location every weekend, it makes sense to put an arcade there and stock it full of a million dollars worth of arcade equipment. You can afford to hire people to make sure they work right, and you can afford to share that business with five other arcades within a one-mile radius. If you don't have that kind of population, then you can't have an arcade in this day and age. In Seattle, I can't think of a place that's nearly that crowded on a regular basis, where teenagers are likely to hang out.
And one more thing, to everyone complaining about run-down arcades full of broken machines. It's because the money is gone. There isn't enough money to keep the games upgraded, there isn't enough money to hire a tech to fix the broken buttons, or if you want to do the tech yourself, there isn't enough money to hire a cashier to man the store while you're electrocuting yourself. In the Seattle area, there's an arcade called Illusionz, which used to be a mecha for fans of music games in the Northwest. The guy who ran it was really friendly, and kept the place sparkling clean. The machines were always kept in perfect condition, and I would take pleasure at riding a bus for an hour and a half each way to get there. But the money ran out, and last I checked, the games haven't been upgraded in years, there's tons of stuff broken, and the place looks dingy. This isn't because the owner's greedy. It's because he's broke.
That's a horrible idea. Playing an arcade game is already too expensive. Maybe if it was 10 cents on tuesday morning and 25 cents on friday afternoon. I suppose pricing based on time works for the movies. Although, I refuse to pay the full evening rate.
This card based arcade game system blows, sure it's good for the arcade,
Believe it or not, the card system isn't just to get the $20 up front. In many municipalities (like Schuamburg, IL, which has a GW location), there are laws on the books to strongly curtail coin-operated machinery. Originally written to restrict underage access to coin-op cigarette machines, they were heavily re-inforced in the early 80's as a moral panic about video games and juvinile deliquency (first of many )-:) spread through the popular consciousness. I first heard about this because Schuamburg used to also have a card reader arcade in Woodfield as part of the defunct Mars 2112 restaurant.
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I think people are misconstruing the way Gameworks works. The one i went to in ybor city, fl was basically like an arcade + bar. $20 buys you unlimited plays on all but the ticket spitting machines. Our party spent several hours there and we were all playing the whole time. Between the rounds and the games, I must've dropped like $80 there. And i had fun doing it. I just wish there were one here in the northeast.