And that isn't limited to early owners. I bought a Radeon 9700 2 days ago, and ran into a problem installing the driver, where ATI's recommended solution was to reinstall windows. I didn't spend a lot of time on trying to get around it, I just re-installed windows, as it was a new system, but my experience with their software reliability so far has been very poor.
That's just poor game design. All the arcade games since way back have been designed with the philosophy of "Paying customer every 2 minutes". The idea is to make it not feel like you're pumping quarters into it. The really early games (PacMan, Defender, etc.), no one thought people were going to get as good at them as they did, so you had people playing Defender and Pac-Man all day long on a single quarter. That's part of the appeal of competitive games (fighting games, sports games, racing games), is one person always has to lose, and put more money in.
I work in the video game industry, and used to work on arcade machines, so I can tell you that the decline in arcades and arcade machines is not a St. Louis area problem, but a nationwide problem. One of the big reasons for the decline in arcade machines is that the home consoles now roughly equal the power of the arcade machines, and throwing more polygons at the problem really isn't going to cause a huge increase in visual quality. This means that the arcade machines have to offer things that are not available at home, hence the reason for too many driving games, shooting games, and dancing games. These games are tend to stand out because of the interface to the machine, and it is something that is just not easily available at home. This has the side effect of increasing the price of the machines significantly. Older arcade games, or at least your standard full-size arcade machine, will run in price from 2000-5000 dollars, depending on the game (mind you, there are exceptions to the rule, but this is about standard, and the price of the machines hasn't changed much since they first appeared). A full size driving game or dancing game will run in the 10,000+ dollar range, and on top of that, with something like a driving game, you really need to have multiple machines networked together to give people the experience they are looking for. The extra mechanical components also result in an increase in the cost of maintenance on the machine. This means the operator needs to increase the cost per game of the machine to make money, which results in lower sales, etc. This is the reason for the decline of the arcade market. Interestingly enough, when doing field tests of games, we tended to make more money when the machine was set to $0.25 or $0.50 price range, rather than the $1.00 to $1.50 price range, as people tended to keep dropping money into the machine, so our usage was much closer to 100% at the cheaper price range, compared to less than 50% at the 1 dollar and up price point. But good luck convincing the operators of this, etc. Anyway, just thought I'd give some inside insight as to why there is a decline in the arcade market.
Slashdot Mirror
And that isn't limited to early owners. I bought a Radeon 9700 2 days ago, and ran into a problem installing the driver, where ATI's recommended solution was to reinstall windows. I didn't spend a lot of time on trying to get around it, I just re-installed windows, as it was a new system, but my experience with their software reliability so far has been very poor.
That's just poor game design. All the arcade games since way back have been designed with the philosophy of "Paying customer every 2 minutes". The idea is to make it not feel like you're pumping quarters into it. The really early games (PacMan, Defender, etc.), no one thought people were going to get as good at them as they did, so you had people playing Defender and Pac-Man all day long on a single quarter. That's part of the appeal of competitive games (fighting games, sports games, racing games), is one person always has to lose, and put more money in.
I work in the video game industry, and used to work on arcade machines, so I can tell you that the decline in arcades and arcade machines is not a St. Louis area problem, but a nationwide problem. One of the big reasons for the decline in arcade machines is that the home consoles now roughly equal the power of the arcade machines, and throwing more polygons at the problem really isn't going to cause a huge increase in visual quality. This means that the arcade machines have to offer things that are not available at home, hence the reason for too many driving games, shooting games, and dancing games. These games are tend to stand out because of the interface to the machine, and it is something that is just not easily available at home. This has the side effect of increasing the price of the machines significantly. Older arcade games, or at least your standard full-size arcade machine, will run in price from 2000-5000 dollars, depending on the game (mind you, there are exceptions to the rule, but this is about standard, and the price of the machines hasn't changed much since they first appeared). A full size driving game or dancing game will run in the 10,000+ dollar range, and on top of that, with something like a driving game, you really need to have multiple machines networked together to give people the experience they are looking for. The extra mechanical components also result in an increase in the cost of maintenance on the machine. This means the operator needs to increase the cost per game of the machine to make money, which results in lower sales, etc. This is the reason for the decline of the arcade market. Interestingly enough, when doing field tests of games, we tended to make more money when the machine was set to $0.25 or $0.50 price range, rather than the $1.00 to $1.50 price range, as people tended to keep dropping money into the machine, so our usage was much closer to 100% at the cheaper price range, compared to less than 50% at the 1 dollar and up price point. But good luck convincing the operators of this, etc. Anyway, just thought I'd give some inside insight as to why there is a decline in the arcade market.