Fall of the Arcade

[pronounconnoun]

Is anyone else worried about the disappearance of the arcades? I want to play SFIV, but I would love to play it in the arcade.

I haven't found any threads about this, so:

Between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, the arcades that I used to go to are almost all gone. Only a handful remain. I am very bothered by this. The industry seems to be doing alright in Japan. How is it in your area?

[evilgoodwin]

There's only one here that I know of that isn't a Dave and Busters. SFIV is pretty cool, but it costs a dollar per play.

[Purple Santa]

Arcades have been dying. I would say it's all but extinct. It might of lasted more so on the west coast than on the east coast. But i've read enough gaming articles over the last ten years lamenting the "loss" of arcades. There was a small revival of arcade playing with Dave and Busters type of arcades meet bars. I'm actually surprised, a mall nearby actually still has an arcade. The only other places I see arcade machines are on piers/boardwalks along the beaches for the amusement areas.

[Superman's Dead]

A few of the casinos in Vegas still have arcades, with the MGM and Luxor being the most memorable. And Gameworks is still open downtown, and still the best way to experience an arcade in my opinion. Some of the locals casinos have arcades that are pretty nice attached to their movie theaters, that's a fun way to spend a few bucks.

Of course, outside of Vegas the only arcades I've really seen have been in student unions at schools...

[inmostlight]

I haven't seen a non-Dave & Buster's or Gameworks arcade since probably 1997.

[Gorvi]

I thought arcades were completely dead aside from the D&B and GameWorks type places. I mean the real arcades. I really miss those, putting my quarter up to get the chance to have my ass kicked by the 20 something unemployed guy that spent all day there. Ahh, memories.

I need a Hydro Thunder two seater machine and a Galaga cocktail table machine now.

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by Gorvi

I thought arcades were completely dead aside from the D&B and GameWorks type places. I mean the real arcades. I really miss those, putting my quarter up to get the chance to have my ass kicked by the 20 something unemployed guy that spent all day there. Ahh, memories.

I need a Hydro Thunder two seater machine and a Galaga cocktail table machine now.

They still exist in very tiny increments. Like I mentioned, there is an "old" arcade in a mall near me. And the piers/boardwalks are very much like the old arcades. Although I don't know if they use quarters anymore or you have to buy tokens. But I am with you Gorvi...I remember those arcade memories. There was a huge arcade in Times Square back in the '90s that did quite well before Times Square became Disneyfied. You want to talk about an interesting place to watch people and the interactions of "gamers" of all walks of life

[nnanji]

1984 called, they want their meme back.

[Superman's Dead]

Originally Posted by nnanji

1984 called, they want their meme back.

"Big Brother Is Watching"?

[biosc1]

We still have a few decent size ones around these parts.

For me, when it started getting to a $1 per play, I started shying away from them. A quarter per play was great...50 cents per play, then I became more picky...at a $1 a play, I'm not good enough to get value out of that

[pronounconnoun]

The only time I've been to a Gameworks was when I went to Seattle. And I wasn't very impressed.

[ClannerDelta]

Originally Posted by Superman's Dead

"Big Brother Is Watching"?

Ah, the giggles.

I have no arcade memories.

Our Cinema has some games but they aren't particularly good and they no longer have Hydro Thunder. The only one I bothered with.

[Widgetcraft]

There was an arcade at my old university around 2004, to 2005, but it closed down. It was one of only two stand-alone arcades I've seen in my life, and the other was in China Town in NYC. That place was fuckwin... I felt like I had stepped into the 80's.

[LongStepMantis]

The only two arcades around this area closed down years ago. One of them was nice, but for some reason there were always fights and gang-related shit going on there. I think that was a big part of why it closed. The last time I was there there two guys were arguing about 10 feet from me, and one of them had a cane with a fucking mace on the top of the crook end. I just wanted to play House of the Dead, not actually get shot.

Arcades are great, and I will be sad to see them go...but people would rather play games at home now, or have handhelds. Arcade machines are past their lifetimes. Sad, but true.

[Superman's Dead]

The Gameworks near me had this huge THING you could step into that watched your body movements...and you WERE your Tekken character. I remember playing that and beating like three comers at the age of 12 before succumbing to being so thirsty I was starting to get dizzy

The downside of spending all of your money on videogames.

I understand how it may be dying everywhere else, but I'm serious when I saw the local-friendly casinos that people take their families to have flourishing arcades. I'm sure if the depression hits those particular casinos, though, they'll cease to get all the newest games. So far so good.

[Mike Kelehan]

See, I want arcades to make a comeback so I can play more unique music games. I'm the guy who was playing Guitar Freaks and Drummania long before your Guitar Hero. I'm the one who has the pink ParaParaParadise controller in his basement. And I've love to be able to go down to my local game center and play some uBeat.




Yes, that game is coming to America. No, it's not coming anywhere near you.

[Shrinn]

@Ubeat: Holy shit, do want.

Every time I went to the mall I'd make it a point to at least play one game in the arcade. The downside was that only the DDR machine was really fun since no one would play Soul Calibur with me. Stupid clunky light gun shooters. It closed down though...

[mister slim]

Here in Portland we have Ground Kontrol, which is fucking awesome. They have a bar plus a ton of old and new pinball and arcade games. There's also some consoles running around. They also do Rock Band nights and stuff like that, plus they frequently have live music and djs.

[MachEnergy]

When I went back home for the holidays, a friend and I hit up Rocky's Replay. It was great. I blew $40 in no time, though. Beer + chilli-dogs + videogames is awesome. When I used to smoke, that place was the SHIT cuz they had ashtrays bolted onto every cabinet. I was most sad about the amount of money I spent after realizing that the only game we beat was Time Crisis 4. Freaking EVERY game costs $1 unless it's 10 years old or more. We even played Virtua Tennis 3....5 times. That could have paid for half of the game if I found a used XBOX copy.

I still love playing Beach Head. Rocky's has both the sit-down version with the seat that moves around, as well as the head mounted 360 swivel version. Guilty pleasures abound!

[Deadend]

Arcades are dead in the US because of money mainly.

Making an a modern game is expensive, as is the hardware. Hell, just go read an article about what is left of Pinball, as it's the same thing for Arcades.

Arcade Games also have be be unique enough to be worth playing, yet easy to understand to get someone to play twice or more times. So they have to be short and simple on one level. It's a hard kind of game to create. Then you have only potential sales of maybe 2,000 units across the US at absolute most, your prices tend to be high as you are selling hardware AND software. If you charge $5000 for a unit of the game, assume $800 on hardware. Which does not leave a very large budget for a game.

Arcades also have the trouble in the US of being arcades, travelling to and spending several hours in a place based around shortform gameplay is not appealing to most. But arcade machines work great when they are just off in a bar or another place a person would be and have free time inside of.

It's sad to see them go, but the direction the game industry went in was not conductive to arcade style games. I do see a potential return to arcade style thanks to the Wii showing that simple, short games can still sell.

But fuck if I know how to save arcades, part of me does not want to, I have been to 2 Gameworks, the Auburn Hills, MI one and the Seattle one, and both are horrible disappointments, their games are in poor condition, they lack new games, again.. games in poor condition, no one wants to play Gauntlet with a broken up arrow, or a light gun game where the gun needs calibration, or street fighter 2 when Fierce Punch does not work.