Arcades were nice before because they had graphics a console would never be able to reach. After the Nintendo 64/PlayStation era, they became pretty much irrelevant for most of the people.
I am not sure. Probably 4-way. It was the old type American joystick you see in most arcades. While it felt more stable than the Japanese, it lacked sensitivity. I had to repeat a df fireball or hcb-f move twice or more for it to work. So df,df moves were difficult.
I remember too, Third Strike and other games were very good. Problem was, that specific cab used the worst sort of filtering, plus screen was dark. it was very tiresome.
but I liked the collection. It had a lot of Neo Geo, CPS, 3D games (platformers, shmups, fighters and puzzles). Even Killer Instinct. At least 2 GB of high quality games.
If it had a better joystick and 6 buttons layout, I’d have remained there longer.
It was made by a company called Webgame, Gameweb or something.
But fighters are an endangered species.
though it is arbitrary, based on the players preferences, I’d say when it comes to choice in arcades:
racers ->guitar hero, dance dance etc ->light gun shooters ->sports ->Tekken ->shmups ->platformers ->old schoold 2D fighters
main reason? you lose too quickly and it is not 3D but blocky 2D!
Just to clarify, every stick used in any fighting game, be it American or Japanese is 8 way.
You cannot use 4 way sticks with a fighter since those aren’t physically designed to allow of diagonal inputs.
What I believe you are referring to as “4 way” and “8 way” are square and octagonal gates, both of which are 8 way gates (true 4 way gates are cross shaped).
8-way then. but it felt very heavy overall for a fighter.
Spring stiffness has nothing to do with the gate or directionality. American sticks in general tend to have stiffer springs than JP sticks.
I think your view of arcades is unrealistic.
I live in HK, where there are TONS of arcades. I’ve got a nice one with good comp literally next door to my apartment building. Arcades here in HK exist for almost the OPPOSITE reasons you think.
- 1 game of SF4 is about 25 cents (USD). 1 game of AE is about 40 cents. King of Fighters (any version) and Gundam vs Gundam are also about 25 cents. Competitive fighting games like these are the CHEAPEST games in the arcade. They make the arcade the LEAST money.
Moneymakers? Wangan Midnight, Initial D, and almost ALL of the high quality music games (Vocaloid, Jubeats, Taiko, MaiMai etc.) These are games that charge about 1USD per play, and have people playing ALL the time. When the SF4 and KOF cabs sit empty during non-peak hours, the music games are always going strong.
Music games are the BIG moneymakers, and they draw in huge amounts of people, INCLUDING tons of girls, who never seem to play ANY other type of game. Fighting games? Not doing shit to bring in income really.
Non-music games that make money? Besides racers, there’s Border Break, which is Gundam mixed with COD. And that game runs on TIME. You pay for time.
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Arcade goers don’t always CARE what version of the game is out or whether it changes or not. People in 2013 still dump money into vanilla SF4 ALL THE TIME. They don’t care.
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There are still plenty of people in HK who don’t have a PS3 because they don’t want it to take up space in their home. For a surprising amount of people, arcades are the only place to play non-handheld/phone games. The US? Pffft. Everyone is glued to their couch.
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Arcades make their money off the large amount of scrubs. Scrubs quit when you beat them 10x times. They aren’t interested in overcoming a challenge or beating a strong guy. The majority sit down for 2 games, lose to someone way better than them, then go back to playing Jubeat or Border Break.
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Honestly fighting games are a niche. I’ve got tons of friends here in HK who play games ALL THE DAMN TIME but they don’t even touch fighting games. They’re not even interested.
Arcades would be good for fighting games, if people were to use them. Everywhere I’ve lived, even before online gaming was the norm, had a dead arcade scene. Basically, if you were anything but a teenager with no access to a vehicle, you weren’t going to be seen at an arcade in the evening. In all the years I visited my local arcade and in Fresno, CA, I can’t recall one time I went into the arcade and found someone playing MvC2. The game worked, the sticks and buttons were fine, and it was only 50 cents, but no one went there to play it.
I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but I’ve lived in a number of cities across the US, and not once have I stepped into an arcade and seen a group of people around a fighting game. There was often an abundance of kids trying to win tickets, or people playing DDR, but no love for fighters.
So I don’t agree with the OP. The best thing for fighters isn’t going to be arcades, it’s going to be the opposite. We need better networking and better lobbies to keep the online scene hot. And we need better payment plans or cheaper price tags, because casuals don’t want to spend $40-$60 on a fighter. That price might be fair when you consider the amount of work that went into it, but it’s not realistic when you consider how limited the offline experience is, and how punishing the online is.
the crisis struck in the late 90s.
At that time I remember not all arcades were large venues. In every neighborhood there were usually 2 or more smaller malls that had 5-6 arcade cabs at least. Some had a few larger malls as well. No need to take the bus most of the times, they were few minutes away on foot. But at least one of those cabs was a 2D fighting game or beat-em-up. It could be either Capcom, SNK, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Primal Rage or any other mediocre SF fighter clone you had never heard off (eg Best of the Best…). But at least a 2D fighter was there.
Of course it also had to do with the fact that SNK and CPS1 games were easy to crack and bootleg. So they came cheaper for smaller malls. Hence why I didnt see at that time any Street Fighter Alpha or III cab, except in large mals. you had to rent the original, which was more expensive.
yes, I agree overall. Arcades face other more serious difficulties in order to care for fighters. they have to provide an experience the player can not be able to do at home. Fighters, being one of the oldest arcade genres, cant offer any new experience that the players dont already feel l at home, playing on consoles or computers comfortably.
they could gather revenue from tournaments etc, but that does not detract from the main issue of arcades facing a crisis.
This reminds me of why arcades died faster in the West compared to Asia. Over here, the norm is people using alot of public transport and tending to hang out outside of homes (i.e. in the mall). So this is how arcades survived. They were always either in the malls or at the stops for the train, bus, etc. It became easy and natural to simply spend some time at the arcade during your everyday commute after school/work or hang out there during the weekends.
For sure. A lot of people who come to arcades here are kids who have nowhere to go after school. I’ve seen groups of kids come after school and gather around the Initial D/Jubeat machines.
Very little fighter love though – they know that sitting down at SF4 likely means a beatdown is coming, and they’re not willing to waste their money.
It’s hard to get people with little experience on fighters to actually sit down on an FG cab. Here, the arcades with heavy traffic on the FG cabs are those who’ve been around longer and the folks playing the games are either veterans or new folks who the vets brought in.
On a related note, I have only ever seen an empty Marvel 2 cab twice in my life. You cannot fail with MvC2 in this country. I know an arcade owner who recently invested in a Naomi board just to put up MvC2 beside his SSFIV cabs.
Here in Japan arcades are still alive, but only at the top end. Smaller venues are closing down. At the larger venues there are very few new/young players. I think that even in glorious Nippon this may be the last generation of arcade-goers. The future of fighting games is online. It’s sad, but at this point the only thing arcades can do to help the FGC is die.
That and the real money makers at Japanese Arcades aren’t Fighting Games.
Arcades should adopt a gym membership style model. Play arcade games, console games when you want to, online access. Rent consoles and games. Fighting games belong in arcades.
The thing is, everything you could get from the arcade experience has been replicated by online/the Internet. And you don’t even have to leave your house. Want to play randoms outside your group of friends? Play Endless. Want to make friends with similar interests? Visit SRK.
Arcades were awesome. I loved going every Saturday after my piano lesson. They were the best you had at the time. But now that that time has passed and better things have cropped up, their only function is for nostalgia purposes. Fighting games may have started out in the arcades but they’ve moved online and to me it makes more sense for devs to create games with that in mind.
Because online sucks