I didn’t put it there because it’s not about fighting games. Just about arcades in general. It just so happens that fighters are being mildly talked about in here by title and not strategy or anything like that.
ONEZ
basically everytime a game comes out for arcade it get sent to home consoles so instead of wasteing coins you can just go home and play it and with such things as xbox live arcade could be offically considered dead
Somebody post Duck’s little essay and be done with it. That shit needs to be stickied somewhere.
Really another thread about arcades “dying”? They’ve been dead a looong time in middle America. You should just accept the warm embrace of your home consoles.
Hmmm I thought it was because arcades in america were poorly run? All the good arcades that seem to interact with players, keep things fixed, have good pricing, and keep things clean seem to stay around and still survive.
IMO it’s really cause arcades are never started by anyone with simple business sense or management sesne. Arcades never advertise, never offer anything special for their customers, half the time in the US they are poorly maintained, and are rediculessly outdated as far as game selections.
I mean the whole arcades are dead thing is really going over board when you have places like Dave & Busters, Gameworks, Chuck E Cheese, etc which basically run off the SAME IDEA just with food and no fighting games (if they did have fighting games I bet a bunch of you wouldn’t be complaining right now). The idea of arcades and places to gathering up for electronic intertainment is far from dead, just everyone here seems to assume arcade here in US equals dark, danky, shady, broken machines, old shit, and bad management.
1234
Drive in movie theaters used to be a hot spot too. Oh well, times change.
Fubar’s assessment of the Japan scene is well done and a good read, but I think it misses a few things about the American side.
It seems when most people go to Japan they tend to say that because Americans aren’t “like” Japan in culture and in travel, that we can’t play. This is only true if your going to just rip out the japanese scene and market it in america. Japan’s scene is not the only way to play games, it’s just the way the japan scene happened to evolve to meet the needs of it’s customer.
Every company adjusts it’s gameplan when crossing cultures, McDonalds changes the menu a little bit, Wal-Mart changes the items a little bit, so why should arcades be any different?
I don’t see a lack of people wanting to play games in public, check out a LAN Cafe, Dave and Busters. No lack of people wanting to travel and get into a competitive gaming community, watch espn2 at any random time. The shortage, as post #45 says, is in people that want to research and reshape this industry, and with the ability to market and back new ideas that are actually based on research and planning instead of smokescreens and buzzwords like most of the tech industry.
While it’s true that the drive in movie theaters have been replaced, there are no shortage of places to watch movies, no loss in the movie industry, and no loss of actual movies. The industry evolved, and notice the evolution wasn’t “well i guess we’ll just stop and let everyone watch DVDs at home, I guess it’s impossible to get people to watch movies in the theater”
Instant winner, no purchase necessary.
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I actually have one of those near where I live. A great place, so many awesome memories… They even play those old cartoon concession ads during the intermission.
Dang, I need to go there again sometime.
Heh… arcades may be thriving in Japan now, but just wait until internet connections become fast enough. Sega will put VF6 online and then arcades WILL DIE! Trust me!
I think that there’s a bigger problem in America where arcades just became lame to the general public. Arcades turned into hangouts for children to build up tickets and trade them in for cheesy prizes. After working in the arcade industry, I know that a majority of income came from the redemption ticket games, not the fighters, music games, etc. Second to that were light gun games, funny enough.
I think a secondary problem is coinage. Simply put, there are no $1 dollar coins in wide circulation and bill validators, quite frankly, blow. Japanese do have smaller denomination yen coins, but the 100 yen coin is more ubiquitous than the $1 coin is. Japanese arcade gamers tend to spend 4x the cash for the same games and that meant arcades in Japan made 4x the cash for the same volume of coins in a coin box. This means that American arcade operators didn’t go with adult themed arcades, it went with kiddy themed arcades where there was a higher volume of coin. I believe that 50 yen games are prevelant too, but this is mostly speculation.
Also, I’m not sure if anyone would’ve been hip to paying $1 for a game of Third Strike, even at release, which probably spurred the pricing situation. For some reason this means that most arcades can give the middle finger to players in terms of machine maintenance, etc. How many arcades have you seen where the monitor’s bowed in, has funny colors, broken sticks/buttons(easily fixable problems, no less), no sound, etc? Which adds to the problem where the few who do still think that arcade gaming is fun get discouraged. I got tired when a local arcade(mmm. Mary K’s) couldn’t even maintain a goddamn Marvel vs Capcom 2 machine, or even install an 8 way stick into a KOF machine(that one pissed me off KOF + stick in 4 way mode = :annoy: ).
Simply put, unless you’re willing to put up with paying $1/.50 for a game of third strike or cap vs snk2, you’re killing the arcade industry.
I also think that cab design also did it in. But that’s just because I’m biased towards Japanese cabs and associate US cabs with crappy chuck-e-cheese type locations.
Yeah people need to not forget a few more things (in terms of just fighters, im not gonna go into other parts of Japanese arcades):
There’s far more “older” people playing these games here than there are in America. These are the people who have a job where they work all day until late and one of the few places open is the arcade. Theyre making a lot of money that they really cant spend, and as opposed to Americans where they just come right away or go to a bar, they can go to an arcade here before they head home for the night. Its amazing how many players are at the arcade that are over the “age group” that you would expect to see at an arcade, which i think is like, 16-22 or something along those lines.
In addition, Japanese people in general are just more willing to pay more money to entertain themselves. If i was in the states and i saw Tekken for 1 dollar a game, i would laugh right in the face of that arcade and say something like “over my dead body. I’ll just play MvC2 4 times instead.” Here, there’s been times when ive thrown 100 yen in machines for games. A lot of the “bigger” arcades are the ones charging 100 yen for each play for some games. And while i tend to not be nearly as crazy as some japanese people are with spending a lot, i still spend a decent amount, and the fact that i DONT spend a huge load and i still think i spend a lot says something about everyone else.
I saw 2 people playing CvS2 at the arcade today, a game thats been out on DC, PS2, XB, GC, whatever system from ages ago, and it was 100 yen PER PLAY. These two guys were going against eachother for a few matches. Each match loss meant the loser had to put in 100 more yen to play. In the states, that machine would NEVER see any play, but here, well, it definitely saw play. And then its also crazy when i see 2 Hyper Street Fighter cabinets with 3/5 rounds for 100 yen, and i see people like, always playing on one of the machines. People are paying 100 yen to play the HSF. Its seriously mind-boggling. What gets me the most is how there are arcades that have tekken for either 50 yen or 2 plays for 100 yen, and then i go to another arcade maybe 5 minutes walking (yes, there are arcades 5 minutes away by walking in certain areas, there are even some that the equivalent of being across the way in a shopping mall) and that arcade has Tekken for 100 yen for 1 play, and i see people playing there. I wonder why they’re playing at THAT arcade when theres other arcades that are cheaper for the same game, same round count, etc.
And the scary part is, when everything is 100 yen a game, 50 yen a game seems CHEAP, so its almost like you feel like “wow, im ONLY paying 50 yen to play this!” I dunno, spending money at an arcade in Japan doesnt seem nearly as hard to do as in America. Heck, in America, i would go to the local one, maybe 10 min driving, but in the same mall i worked at on lunch breaks and spend maybe 25 cents for one game of marvel if nobody was playing or if i got a winstreak. At most a dollar if i lost. I would do that maybe a couple times a week. Then other times when people wanted to meet up to play maybe once every 3 weeks or so for tekken, i MIGHT throw a 5 in the machine and then kinda regret throwing so much in. My mindset was always "well, afterwards, im not gonna really get anything for this, because after im done, i spent money but didnt gain any “goods”. Here, that doesnt even occur to me. Its more like “omg i can play a game and enjoy the time i had playing it and thats good enough for me” And especially with games like Arcana Heart being ONLY at the arcade, it justifies me going all the time and popping money in the machine.
And the coin thing does make a difference. Im used to 25 cents being the biggest coin, here, 500 yen is the biggest. Im not used to a 5 dollar bill being in one coin. It still doesnt quite compute. And 100 yen coins are almost LIKE quarters sometimes. And arcades are NEVER token based. There’s sometimes medals, but never do you have to buy tokens and use tokens in the machine. Because of that, throwing 1000 yen in the changer doesnt make you feel bad cause you havent spent anything yet techincally. But if you were to think about doing that in the states, its like “well, maybe ill just be done for the day” And then one by one, you throw those 100 yen things into the 50 yen changer, and if youre just in the spirit of the moment or however you want to put it, before you know it, half that 1000 yen can be gone, but you never really realized it cause it was only 100 yen at a time.
Yeah i could write a lot more cause theres almost an infinite amount of things i could write about but i think i’ll leave it for now…maybe tomorrow ill post more on crazyness of Japan.
Oh yeah one more thing: Arcades here dont have the same stigma as they do in America. If you often go to an arcade in the states, you’re a nerd, a loser, a geek, whatever. Here, nobody cares and nobody will call you a nerd, loser, geek. Its almost like its alright to be obsessed with stuff here. Then again, thats difference in culture. The same way that you can go buy doujinshi hentai at an anime store that sells that and the cashiers wont look at you funny or think of you as a pervert, and neither will anyone else in the store there cause its so normal that they dont think anything of it. When i bought my PS2 here, around that time, i found out that my PSP that i also bought here can only play Japanese movies. Being a little irked at that, i decided to buy a cheap Japanese movie, of course, in the GAME STORE that i bought my PS2 at, there was a small section of porn PSP movies, so i bought one along with it that was really cheap, like, 7 dollars cheap new. The cashier didnt even care, bat an eye, check for id, make a fuss or anything. It was almost like i was EXPECTING a slight reaction for her to see that along with the PS2 and 4 games and stuff, but nothing. And i dont think anyone else in the store gave a second glance to the fact that i was well…looking through the psp porn movie section, hahaha.
I think people get too caught up in wanting the arcades they remember back. LAN centers, especially ones with console areas, are what I believe the general evolution of the arcade is here. So analogous to the drive-in movie theaters, versus the new theaters, I think we already have that in LAN Centers versus old arcades. Arcades are drive in movie theaters. They’re outdated, and the public just isn’t there for them anymore.
My point is that you’re asking for drive in movie theaters, when you’re going to have to except that’s a niche, and will have to settle for current movie theaters.
The notion of the arcade may need to evolve from cabinets, to just being a place from which you can develop a social framework around games that people play.
A thing I think hurts this evolution is how at least in the fighting game community, players cling to the arcade version of a videogame, and generally hate non-perfect ports of the game. While I certainly understand the sentiment, it may only prove to be counterproductive if Arcades as we knew them are evolving into something else.
I think it has less to do with the players and more to do with the management- guys who care less about the actual games than the coins that stack up in them.
It doesn’t help that the training given to techs isn’t up to snuff. At one of the arcades in my area, it took the manager and his lead tech half an hour to figure out how to change the printer paper in their ATM machine. Tell them you need a button replaced? You’ll have to wait a week for a new one, and that’s if they’re convinced that their half-ass test mode research shows a problem. They can afford Time Crisis 4, but they can’t afford to have a backstock of regular buttons? Fuck that.
In my area a new mall was bulit after there old one that had an arcade was torn down with the specific plan to not have an arcade as to not attract certain kinds of people. South Square(close to the city) SouthPoint(moved to the suburs outside the city)
I think console gaming is definitely increasing in popularity but I wouldn’t say playing arcade perfect versions of the game keeps people from playing. There’s really only a small handful of players now that are so adamant about playing the arcade version of the game that they won’t play console tourneys. Even Pyrolee…who originally would have nothing to do with console gaming decided to make the switch with thousands of dollars on the line at Evo.
Same thing with the Japanese where they have many 3S machines readily available to play just by walking down the block. The last thing they would want to do is get adjusted to a clearly “different” version of 3S but with more money on the line than what they receive at their biggest event…the incentive is there. Especially with their already dominant skills in the game it couldn’t be too much of a hassle if it meant them ending up with 1,000 dollars or more (in the Japanese’s case, taking all the money in the top 5 spots equaling about 10,000 dollars or more altogether).
I think what needs to be done is more of what’s already being done. We need to advertise and get the voice out there that we take fighting games seriously and that fighting games are a big deal competitively. With Toyota giving sponsorships last year for Evo (Capcom even pitching in a bit) and MLG, JC Media and other gaming leagues/organizations putting in sponsorships and support for the fighting game scene…it will bring more incentive for people to drive out to tourneys and make them more competitive as a whole.
Well arcades in the US were never near on par with the ones in Japan, at least from personal experience and video/photos of arcades in Japan. Most arcades I went to were dingy, broken down, pieces of garbage, where you had to keep one eye on the game and the other on the guy behind you making sure he wasn’t trying to shank you. And if you think I’m lying I’m not, try play Xmen vs. SF in an arcade with a loud mouth friend who happens to pick a fight with a gang of 50 mexicans, not good times. Of course people in the US would rather play at home with people they get along with, then commute 20 miles for a shitty experience. I really can’t stand trash talking either its just fucking annoying, I mean its a game people trash talking over a video game just makes you look really pathetic and sad. Which is one reason why I never play with my friend anymore cause he can’t shut the hell up. Americans are too egotistical and impolite to belong in the arcade; I think playing at home is safer for all of us and would lead to less court disputes and misdemeanors.
Japanese arcades are cleanier, in working order, and the people there seem to have a better decor about them. I also like the fact that your opponent isn’t right next to you; you have your own cabinet and he’s probably on the other side. Kind of feels more relaxed and an eased atmosphere. Sure its more expensive but you are paying for quality. I’d much rather pay $1 per game for an arcade that is clean, working, offers a better experience, then 25 cents for a piece of shit 3S that doesn’t have a working stick, assholes eyeballing me, and having to get tetnis shots afterwards from even walking into the place.
The only arcade that I went to in the US that I was impressed with was Gameworks in Las Vegas; it had an adult atmosphere and more mature setting. Yeah it was expensive but worth it.
Wow@ all these people trying to explain the death of arcades.
Its simple…
Arcades unlike console videogames have not grown in maturity like there audence. When you mention arcade to anyone there thinking “like chucky cheese?”, not a more adult atmosphere.
In japan arcades are like clubs, infact the two are pretty much mixed. So even if your a “nerd” you can still go to the same place that the “cool” kids are going.
Money is not a problem, if games costed 50 a pop, and bigger games cost 1.00$ a pop people would play as long as it seemed like 1) Everyone else was doing it 2) it’s a cool thing to do. Arcades have been marketed all wrong in the US.
I mean think about it, If your arcade served liquor, food, and played the latest music and random chicks showed up, why would you not go there? Thats something you can’t expernice at the house online…
Anyway It all boils down to arcade’s in Japan in cool/trendy. In the US its kiddy/untrendy and when things are like that, that means you have to depend on certain tpyes of customers to keep you in buisness…
Kicking ass in Japanese arcade means Japanese girlies will have sex with you.