Pretty sad that this is happening, but I think Watson has to face the music. Chinatown Fair, Southtown Arcade, and now Super Arcade is next on the chopping block.
Really sad that arcades, even cornerstones of the scene, can’t stay afloat in America. Guess the people who were around in the arcade golden age (late 70s-late 90s) are now old, married, with jobs. The younger generation hasn’t grown up with arcades and doesn’t know what the big deal is. They are missing out but will never know it. Even with Japan’s far superior internet connections making for much smoother online experience, the arcade scene is where it’s at. The Japanese seem to know the incredible importance of arcades, where America has completely forgotten other than super hardcore gamers. Just fuckin’ sad.
This further encourages me to support my locals. It’s sad to hear this news, I never thought the arcade was doing this badly (granted I don’t even live in that state to follow it).
Which is why the fighting game community needs to put real pressure on developers to get netplay right. Not this “I really hope theres good netcode in x game” “I’ts playable” and the absolute worst “play offline” If any FPS even a second rate POS had fighting game quality netcode best believer there would be 1 million view rant videos press releases statements etc. People who bought KoF and Marvel should seriously file class action lawsuit for a refund the games netplay is basically defective.
More on topic though…
I feel bad for the guy and want for arcades to succeed however I feel maybe there are some things about the business model that needs to change. Hell even though moving is expensive look into that. Super Arcade is a brand and you can always do something with that. Maybe we should do a donation drive to help them get some business consultation.
A business consultant would just tell them “Close it up or rebrand it like a Dave & Busters. Pure arcades are failing left and right.”
That sounds bad, but would a business consultant be worth their weight if they took money from a guy to tell him how to make this arcade work while supporting a niche community in the process?
The old arcades were/are in a clearly different space. Chuck E Cheez in its heyday in Seattle had 20 of the hottest/newest games (Galaga, Pac Man, Dragon’s Lair, Popeye, Joust, etc) that you could not play at home. Now it’s just full of a bunch of ticket games (Deal or No Deal and Wheel of Fortune are fun, but … it’s not Classic). 2nd gen Seattle arcades (Quarters, Lanwerx, Silver Coin, Game Center, Loki’s) got the latest yearly issue of SF2, DDR, Vs, etc that you could maybe play at home a year or two later at best. Those are all shut down. Third (final) generation arcades … the community itself almost needs to be the pull, and your competition is the easy laziness of everyone who has awesome alternative entertainment available… even on their phone at this point. :bluu:
I kind of hope the arcade closes for the good of Watson’s health, it sounds like he’s given enough to the community as it is.
I don’t know why more communities don’t congregate in back rooms of bars or public spaces - in Scotland, three cities (Dundee, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh) all hold their weeklies and tournaments in pubs. This was done by searching round places and asking if any places had a room they could offer, in exchange for the players buying drinks and food. This way the organiser doesn’t have to suffer the blow of having to fork out thousands to support an unstable business model.
A consultant would do just that. they’d ask him to give him goals of what he wants to do and if he wants to stay in business there WILL be give and take and there WILL be change. Why would you keep following the same business model if it is proven to not work? This is going to have to happen whether he gets help or not. This community is so small its nonexistent basically. It can’t support businesses. It can’t support developers, arcades, sponsors, look at Madcatz they are like the biggest sponsor in the FGC and they’ve (smartly) elected to support us with a very, very small portion of their product lines. MOBA numbers are barely on the general public (notice I said gen pop not gamer) radar and they COMPLETELY shit on us. The community is great and awesome, fighting games are great and awesome but its very evident and has been for quite some time that the way we do things does not work.
Like if a dude doesn’t wanna spend 50 dollars and gas drive an hour and a half to play a 5(sf4) to 15(guilty gear) year old game against people he’s been playing with for just as long after he’s spent all day at work can you really blame him? The fire is not always gonna burn as hot. If your depending on those 10 to 15 extra people to show up your in trouble already. The playerbase needs to increase and this is the day and age where people get their feet wet online and come out after the fact.
Arcades are a business and its the responsibility of the business owners to keep the doors open not the customers. That’s what we really need to take from this.
If it wasn’t still going strong, game companies would be the first to pull out, but you still see new arcade games keep coming out every year, while they are doing you a favor with a console port after 2 years. If the crowd is still big enough to justify millions of dollars on each game’s development, I’d say the arcade scene is still as strong as the market for PC and console games in the west.
If I were to base the health of the Japanese scene on my regular viewings of Game Center CX, I’d say Japanese arcades are doing fine. But I don’t live in Japan, so I can’t say for sure.
It seems like the only way arcades can survive is if they offer more than just machines. Like what if you had an arcade cafe, for example?
But then the games are indeed coming out on console a good while later, isn’t the favouring of arcade releases a sign that game developers are having to make an effort to protect arcades?
That’s what we do for our monthlies in Lancaster & Blackpool. The only downside is that you tend to be limited to nights when the bar will be quiet, but the owners are more than happy to have a bunch of people turn up and drink in their pub all night. We’ve even been given beer vouchers for prizes (makes sure people come back or bring their non-FGC friends on another night).
The demise of arcades is sad, though - having both Morecambe and Blackpool in the vicinity, a lot of us remember when there were a ton of arcades to play in. Some are still around, but the videogames have long gone from them…
This time release thing is to maximize profits, because then you’ll also get money from the people who want to play the game here and now, but won’t keep pumping coins if they could have the game at home. Casual fans etc.
And I don’t really think they are doing this “to protect arcades”. Their products are not for the home market and can’t really compete with products for the home market. But because their crowd is overall smaller, and the projects need to be smaller, you won’t see budget being spent on fancy CGI movies etc.