Bought out by hotel chain, turned into a hotel, some shit like that.
Thats a very good point Theprince about the sound on the machines.
The sound on the vf machine is faulty and at random times it will come on full blast, its very dangerous to be near the machine when its like that, because the volume is way past 100 desibles which is around the same sound level as having your ear upclose to a lawnmower or a loud drill, for anybody that doesnt know about sound.
I was in troc on friday and the machine went on full blast I was standing a good 10 feet away and I couldn`t hear the person next to me without shouting. I hate to think what it was like for people playing 3s which is right next to it : (
Very dangerous indeed and a valid point about not being able to hear 3s even when the volume on vf is set to normal.
Remember that this is new management and they came to me…so they must be serious about geting things right otherwise why bother?
Anyway good points from everybody I don`t mind if people post or email, email just saves me time checking back here all the time.
I’ve never been to the troc so I can’t really comment on it’s conditions or cabs or anything, but I supose any contribution will count.
One thing that’s vital to any business is advertisement. After searching “trocadero arcade” in google I found absolutly nothing relevant to the troc apart from this from june 2005, lol.
People can’t go if they don’t know it’s there and what machines, events, whatever is going on there. Give people a reason to go, then tell them about it.
I was also going to sugest the x free play sesions. Of course the whole point from the business point of view is making money. So figuring out how much profit you’re making will be important to this, so you’re noy going to be ripping your self off too much by giving such an opertunity.
I disagree when people say that the cleanliness of the place doesn’t matter; of course it does! No one is going to want to go to a resteraunt with greasy floors, scruffy walls and rats crawling over the place, but say “Hey, I don’t care because the food tastes good.” Health and safety issues are a big factor when concidering the popularity of a place. What would you rather? It be scruffy, or clean?
What about all nighters? I know a few PC places up here that hold all nighter events and they proved to be quite popular, they seem to make their money to. Like I said though I’ve never been, so I don’t know how many people go or anything. But it’s just a sugestion.
If you have no refreshments available, then it might be a good idea to do this. Better the money going in your pocket, instead of the shop down the streets.
And again like people have said, keep the customers happy. Fix your machines! The parts are cheap enough, and there’s plent of people you’ll be able to find that could wire them up.
Well, if I’ld been there before mabe I could offer something more to it. But to that, this is all I got.
All comments are valid and are welcome.
Good points from everybody so far I guess emails are out of the question then lol
I can say a few things, new games and new machines are going to go into troc, and the trocadero is not going to close and they are going to let us run almost any tournaments that we want. Thats what they have told me so far.
As I said in my first post I will know more in the next few days.
20 Things I don’t like about the Trocadero:
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Too cramped, all the good machines stuffed away in the worst possible place in the whole arcade with no room to breath. All you can smell is man odour as there are too many heads rammed in there next to each other.
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Only 3 good machines (A3, 3S, T5) on good set-ups.
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Cheesey Music in the background. (I don’t like hearing Kylie whilst trying to bust out a combo or difficult parry).
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Too dark, and the bright flashing lights of the games are slowly runing my eyesight becasue of the dark surroundings.
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Too hot in summer, and too cold in Winter.
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Nowhere to leave your belongings, making it easy for your things to be taken.
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Sticks / buttons always broken, or machines wont accept 50ps.
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Change machines dont work properly.
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Techinicans have crap attitude, never fix sticks, take 30 minutes just to get your 50p / 1 back for you if it gets stuck.
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Paint / funiture / carpet/ lights are crap.
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Too many pointless machines around the popular ones, e.g Air hockey, Olympics, Virtua Soccer.
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You keep getting told off for sitting on the stools of the machines that no one plays on.
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You get told of for eating of drinking, even if you brought food / drink from the Trocadero.
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Machines too close together. Yeah i know they are manafactured that way, but a little space could be made between each VS set-up. I like watching the games some time, so making more room for this would be great.
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Volume of machines is too low. I think only A3 has the right volume setting, IMO.
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Chavs / Pikeys / People up to no-good always in and around the trocadero. Doesn’t make it a nice place to be.
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I don’t like the slot machines so near to the Fighting Games, see point 16.
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You have to pay for the toilets, unless you walk 10 minutes to the tube staion. That toilet money could get me more games lol.
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Too expensive for some games. Super Tubo @ 50P a credit??!? That game is like 10 years old.
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Bad at bringing in new games. Where was / are KOF 2002/3/4, GGXX Slash, VF4 Pro Tuned, Melty Blood Act Cadenza, CFJ (yeah even if it was shit)? I bet they wont bring in the FIst of the North Star fighter either.
10 Things I would improve:
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Have two 3S machines and 2 T5 machines. Hell I might even say make 3 3S machines. I don’t like having to wait 20 minutes every Friday Night after every game I lose. If you are new like me and need to learn, it really does nto help.
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Move Super Turbo up to the VS set-up. One of the greatest games of all time on that awful set-up. Come on show some respect.
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Have lockers to put your stuff in. People often go shopping London, or come straight from work complete with suitcase. It woudl be cool to stash your stuff away safely and get on with playing.
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Move the fighting games machines to the ground floor, with LOTS of space, air-con and paint the place brighter colours. Put a load of stools or cahirs or lounges around for people who are waiting or watching to sit down.
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Projector Screen for some games. This is a bit of an ask, but it would be cool.
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More VS city machines. Sell some of the crap machines, there are far too many DDR’s for example and bring some more in.
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Listen to the players, and don’t complain when someoen asks you to get their coin back. No matter how new a machine is, coin-related problems will always occur.
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Let people eat and drink, as long as they are not playing at the same time. They employ cleaners, so I dont get what the big deal is.
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Maintain the machines, e.g fix them when broken.
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DONT play music in the background where the fighting games are.
**
How to get people back to the Arcade**
www.rankingbattles.co.uk at Trocadero. Enough said.
I disagree when people say that the cleanliness of the place doesn’t matter; of course it does! […] What would you rather? It be scruffy, or clean?
It be clean, obviously. However, I’d imagine that there’ll only be a finite amount of cash to spend on improving things and I’d much prefer that they spend it on the games rather than the surroundings. People don’t stay away because it’s not a palace; they stay away because the games they want to play are either not there or not working. IMHO, of course.
Another thing, like somebody said earlier, Air hockey needs to go. It takes up too much space.
Cleaning carpets can’t cost that much. Anyways, that’s just your opinion. You have to think of other customers too.
How big is the troc anyways?
am not from there or will ever set foot on that place as i live in another continent but, reading all these post many people have mentioned useless machines so sell them already i mean come on who would go to the arcades to have an intense match of air hockey :rolleyes: (i know someone might but still)
Here in mexico arcades are everywhere but the reason for that is cause from what i witnessed so far is that most people here cant afford game consoles, that i think is the main reason arcades are still alive here and competition is plentifull. So i think Consoles killed arcades everywhere else, and this we cant help of course.
But i see people going to Arcades cause of the popular games.
So i recommend if you dont have already these games:
KOF 2002
KOF 98
Neogeo Battle Coliseum
Samurai Spirits 5 Special
Samurai Spirits tenka
KOF neowave
Virtua FIghter 4 final tuned
GGXX Slash
Melty Blood Act Candenza
Capcom vs snk 2
Marvel vs Capcom 2
Fist of the North Star fighting game
Rumble Fish 2
i think most of those are new and popular
In at least a couple of places I’ve seen, the non-fighting games made more money (music games, pool, etc) counting on the type of people the arcade’s trying to get. But of course, those arcades are more of a hanging out place for people.
If you’re trying to help them make money, then that’d be the way to go.
If you’re trying to get the fighting game crowd back in there, pretty much everyone else has made really good points on what you could do to improve conditions.
They are all 2D fighters apart from VF
Not everyone likes just 2D fighters and especially SNK/Playmore games (no offence to them cuz there games rock) its just a blatant fact that the majority of people prefer a blast on Capcom 2d fighters rather than the slightly more advanced and slower SNK/Playmore game. You have to think popularity wise.
I wouldnt say get more different games, i would agree with Gunman and say get more of the same machines. If you did a vote on what people play its obvious its gonna be
- 3S
- VF
- GGXX
- A3
- T5 ect
Hardly any UK players play Marvel 2. So its just best to get about 3 3S cabs rather than have 1 3S cab, 1 KOF 98 cab and 1 NGBC cab ect.
In terms of organising tourneys the guys at Troc should get together with NeoEmpire and Rankingbattles.co.uk.
Getting NEW games will pump the money in though surely? ie fotns, ngbc xxs.
I’ve allready mailed chunkis about this - I really hope he makes it work, and if I can give any advice on technical aspects of the various cabinets and systems he knows how to contact me
I dont live in London so I dont feel that I have the right to give too much input as I dont know the economics of the area or the habits of the players, all I do know is that as an arcade cabinet collector I have scrapped parts from MY personal machines that were in far far better condition than the ones at Troc, fuck I have a box full of “spares” that are in better condition than some of the parts (be it sticks/buttons monitors speakers etc) machines in Troc and Casino
I remember Dynamic League and from my last visit to goodge st & troc, how bad the machines were and it was a turn off, but I also remember the players/attendees were some real stars !
Troc is not alone tho in trying to revive the arcade scene, theres an arcade op in Leeds who has just re-furbed his place and was s’posed to be starting tournaments up and another arcade dealer who deals with Sega-Sammy and other companys trying to get interest in tournaments and whatnot so it shows there must be something in the air so to speak
as for the “Technicians” 
and I use that term loosely, *bigheaded mode on 
if they offer me a decent wage I’ll move to London - they should put me in charge of em, I’ll show them how to fix the cabinets 
Shit technicians is my #1 hate about Troc. That asian technician needs the sack. I reported to him about a fault in the A3 machine, and said he’d come in 5 minutes to look at it. 7-10 minutes later, I caught up chatting to a girl near the slots, and he gave me proper attitude. He went to the nearest coin pusher machine, opened it, gave me 50p refund and walked off in a huff without even attempting to fix it.
The guy who ran dynamic leacue is an idiot. Imagine going to your arcade and not being let in because some homeless prick decides to hold some tournament you knew nothig about. I once saw him turn away 30 people including myself because we hadnt paid beforehand, WTF. He doesnt even own the arcade.
LOL
i think 2 3s cabinets is more than enough, i love 3s but 3 is too much
im glad they are updating it, what troc can do since (sega world is gone) is hold a weekly tournament and a monthly tournament, weekly because ALOT of people go down west end and monthly because i aint going EVERY week lol jokin nah the reason is because kids or begginers can go to the weekly one to get into it more and the monthly one can be for the really good players
the weekly lot can attend to watch which would be good for them and itll get the monthly lot to get into wanting to show their stuff more since they will hav people looking upto them
to separate the two tornaments you get them to sign up and they get a card with their name on it, once theyve manage to get in the top 10/7 in the monthly tournament theyll get accepted into the senior devision, but if you start losing or not attending youll go back to the junior devision, i dont think they should do it in a point system because people wont want to go there everyday u know what i mean? with this system it would always be something people will talk about
you can either get a standard card that they make or you can make your own on computer and theyll stamp it (if youv got into the top 3) and put a plastic covering over it
they can call the whole system the Warriors Colloseum, something cool and catchy if not that
Warriors Colloseum (JD): junior devision [standard is a blue card]
Warriors Colloseum(SD): senior devision [standard is a red card]
if this actually works the way i can imagine it to work then this will produce a chain possibly all over the world lol
This is actually a pretty neat idea. Only thing is that some people would want an incentive to enter, but also probably don’t want to pay a fee to go to a tournament pot. If the weeklies have a cost to enter, it wouldn’t work out too well and people would stop going to the weekly tourneys.
What would probably work a bit better is to have bi-weekly tournaments. Or maybe run a few games during one week, and the other few the next week, so that players of certain games don’t get burned out.
The whole thing is, too many tournaments at one time are overkill unless the player base is extremely dedicated.
the point is is that its accessible to come and go when you please, doa philosophy (since casual gamers love it), this is good because the amount of people who go there and who will go there the tournament will be toooooo big tooooo many people will be involved, they will only pay for their first card (5 pounds) and the rest will be going there like they normally do but with the possiblity of winning something
there could be seperate prizes for playing alot or/and winning alot
making it something you have to be dedicated to will lose customers, thats why iv broke it down into 2 devisions,basically casual tag or hardcore tag
i think if its neccessary for them to pay to enter the tournament it should only be like 2 pounds or something then maybe when uv reached hardcore you dont pay (dynamic league did something like that) but this time everyone will know about it and it will be easy to get involved with since its a weekly and monthly thing
this is a pretty good system, if they use it they better thank my ass for it LOL
[edit- about the diffrent games per week tournament you said, if they do that it would work well if they took ur email and phone number details so they can update you on the winners and inform you what games theyll be playing in which week and prizes etc, they could also monthly give the junior devision players tips. if all thats possible then they should have something very nice on there hands even without the phone/email contacting]
i dont rekon people would be bothered to do all that. i’m the sort of fringe player that could be enticed to go to the arcade but currently am not. i can’t hardly be bothered to read your post let alone do all that in real life. cards , registering etc is great for people who are already motivated to go but it all sounds a bit long to me.