Do what you have to do to take care of your family.
Yo yo yo! If you cats are ever in Vancouver Canada, check out movieland arcade!
" In Downtown Vancouver,
On Granville Street, sandwiched between the cities most glamorous night clubs,
Is a rundown arcade which smells distinctly of piss and sweat.
Here is where video warriors and drug addicts alike gather to participate in a ritual long forgotten;
an electro-battle of dexterity and wit, one quarter at a time.
A thing by Zachary D. KerrHolden"
I can’t believe the original 90’s arcade experience is still happening so near me!
add a donations option.
the fgc is an incredibly small group and very scattered across the US. for alot of people, evo and other majors are the only time they get express their full nerdom with fighting games. places like super arcade are important in that they give players a place to commune outside of bigger tournaments. you’re doing some great work over there, watson. i can’t visit super arcade but would gladly contribute if there was a paypal donation button somewhere.
Arcade UFO makes a lot of money off rhythm games, Ive seen dancing games at Super Arcade from the stream, dont know if they have Beat Mania or other kind of stuff.
I dont know about the geography of SoCal, but maybe Super Arcade just isnt in the right location. Thats the number 1 thru 3 rule of businesses. UFO is in a very nice spot, it right north of UT campus, next to a neighborhood corner store and theres a lot of bus routes in nice walking distance. The neighborhood is also really nice to walk through, so travel isnt unpleasant to get there. Maybe he should think of moving the arcade to a new and better location.
I bet Watson has talked to other arcade owners, but maybe he should reach out to other arcade owners and barrow ideas? I bet Fubarduck would talk to him and they could air grievances and trade stories about being current owners, if they arent already friends.
Hmm, I wonder why a lot of arcade machines never doubled as ticket redemption games. Wouldn’t that be (or wouldn’t that have been) good for business? I can think of several ways you can win at least some amount of tickets from just playing regardless of skill level and regardless of how many players are playing. That would be an extra incentive for people to pay and play the game (also the incentive to play better). People play those stupid rigged games all the time in hopes of winning the big prize/payout (and usually only get the smaller prizes), so I don’t see why something typically more entertaining can’t draw that crowd in as well. Just adjust your prize costs or ticket distribution so that someone can’t clean you out by mastering a game and it should be more profitable.
That’s one thing video games rarely do despite it being feasible to set up that way: give you the chance to actually earn a tangible prize just by playing. ‘Not talking about the tournaments we set up… where usually only the best 3 players actually get anything. I mean something where even little Johnny can enjoy the experience of the game and even if he gets bodied by the 2nd stage/Opponent and decides not to continue, he’ll still get some tickets back and can exchange them for… I dunno… a fuckin’ pack of pokemon cards or a keychain or some other dumb shit. Something that can drive him (and a lot of other people) to come back and pay into it again. It just seems like wasted opportunity in hindsight.
Changing games to dispense tickets when you can’t get guys through the door in the first place won’t make a difference
I remember in London 1996 we had Sega world where for £15 you can play all day for free
they did that for 4 weeks and THEN stopped it and Sega world went bust after that, had they kept it like that it would have been alright and just up the price with the times
I think in today’s world, the only way you’re going to make money with an arcade is if the arcade is just a small part of a game oriented cafe or some such. The days when the FGC in my city doesn’t organize a meet up in the local arcade, its either empty or got a few of the DDR players lounging around because they’re tired after playing twice. The big chain arcade here survives partially off those camera games where you get silly effects all over your pictures and off mums organizing parties, unaware that the kids could simply play the good games from it at home. I understand every city has a different gaming climate, so my experiences are only really relevant to me, but unless Nesica ends up going outside Japan, I can’t see this getting any better for pure arcades. If anything, it’ll get worse, as less and less games will be playable outside Nesica.
Pretty much every arcade is doomed the only way the fgc is going to survive without arcades is having a “party” every week at a place like a bowling alley, bar, restaurant, or everyone meets up at someone’s house like Bum, fgtv, or Freedemonia.
lazy? brokeass? cheap? REALLY?
Most of the FGC that started on those good ol days have already become parents, have a job, go to school full time and pretty much have to set priorities first. Back when i use to be in elementary/high school i would hit up the arcade at least 3 times a week. Now im 21, going to college, have a part time job fixing cars and partially own an arcade here only open 2 days a week AND i barely have any time to visit any other arcade.
The problem is the new generation dont know what an arcade is, rather play at home, or not get up and visit an arcade. Its just times have changed for fighting games.
Im a tech at an arcade my friend runs and i help him saturday and sunday trying to make the arcade survive.
We use to have every fighting game back in the day, all sf, kof and vs series…it would make money, alot of it but now i see kids not even bothering playing them, we started to loose money and had to take another direction if we wanted the arcade to survive.
An arcade to survive needs plenty of kid games, shooting, racing, puzzle, multiplayer is BIG…
ALSO a flat rate wont solve anything, here a local arcade would have a thursday a flat rate…i would be with friends and they want to come and just watch but they couldn’t because they had to play the flat rate and they wouldn’t play…
I’ve never been to Super Arcade so excuse me if I’m speaking half-handedly here. To my general understanding, you aren’t going to make bank on anything that only costs quarters per play in the year 2014. I don’t know the full gamut of machines that populate Super Arcade but if there’s anything there that costs less than $1 per play, that’s bullshit right there. If this is not the case then my point is automatically invalidated and I accept that.
However if a play costs less than $1 and there’s nothing else (booze, and no option to sell booze) or something else to draw people’s money then jack the damn price up already and y’all need to stop being cheap and don’t even think about complaining about paying $1 per play. It’s fucking inflation, deal with it. When I was in Japan playing at Taito Station and Club Sega I swear I never paid less than 100円 for anything. FGC is full of people who have either grown up and got their shit together and unfortunately don’t have enough free time to play enough at an arcade machine in relation to the amount of time dedicated to earning income versus young broke ass motherfuckers who as a base cannot possibly support a business simply because they are young broke ass motherfuckers with way too much time and not enough income.
Raise prices to accommodate inflation and partner up with someone else to provide merchandise/services/amusement not readily available in that particular area. You gotta diversify the clientele to profit, not just survive.
I’ll go…
Alright cool, ill see you in the next ST tournament…We will even unbanned Akuma for you!
Fun Spot up North East that caters to the Donkey Kong/Galaga/Pac Man type of arcade crowd does well cause they have a restaurant attached. Theres a similar type of arcade in Austin called Pinballz, So the family event/birthday type of arcade can make it if it has good enough food and stuff. A fighting game arcade should probably serve coffee or alcohol and nice snack appetizer foods.
Watson alread mentioned in an earlier post he was wrong in focusing SuperArcade to be a fgc centric arcade. Anyway he has already given more than he could for the FGC and he isn’t seeing the return from the public. He should rebrand, sell or focus on a completely different market. He should look out for himself now because ruining your own life by going even further into debt is not worth it.
Arcades are done, nobody cares about them anymore, FG players just need a place to set down their consoles to play FG’s, it doesn’t have to be an arcade.
- i know all these posts can look like “we know better than watson how to run an arcade!”, but he should really just get out and look after himself, honestly it’s not worth the hassle of trying to keep an arcade open unless there is a very very drastic overhaul(dropping the arcade portion).
There should just be a huge ass monitor showing streams, stream archives, fgc shows or something. Get together for casuals and watch majors on the other side of the country, stuff like that perhaps. Dunno, just throwing ideas out there lol
We’ve been doing this in Calgary for years. The bars love you as long as you’re buying even just an item or two. Just ask about a slow night (Sunday or Wednesday) to see if they’re willing to accommodate you.
http://www.acgamesonline.com/world/
It seems really hard for a pure arcade to survive, In my area we have A&C world in Toronto its a console arcade you pay $5 get your hand stamped and play games till close. The thing is A&C world opened up 2 1/2 years ago when the store front next to A&C games closed down they bought it out. So its a console arcade right next to a video game store… so the console arcade is basically a secondary income for the video game store not to mention they also hold card game tournaments at the place. Non tourney Sundays are their slowest days so every big major (NEC, CEO, EVO ect) they have viewing parties on finals days does super arcade do this?
There is also Funzos in Montreal, Canada but its a console arcade in a cafe/bar they sell sandwiches, coffee, cake and alcohol. Montreal is full of drunken degens and its easy to get a liquor license in that city so they have an advantaged that is hard to copy.
Just a heads up. I updated my blog this morning for those of you who want to read about my plans and what not. Posting from my phone so I don’t have the link atm. Sorry and happy new years to all of you.
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