Golden Age of Arcade Games

jayintune writes "2old2play has an article about the resurgence of arcade games in the living room. The article shows that while large companies like MS and Nintendo can make a nice dollar, small developers can now make money off of low budget arcade games with far less monetary risk. Just like fashion, what was once cool is now cool again." That, combined with the Xbox Live arcade rollouts, do seem to be bringing back the oldies but goldies.

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Even the lottery is in on it

[vasqzr]

The Michigan Lottery has a Pac-Man instant ticket, along with the regular cash prizes you can win 1 of 30 PacMan arcade games.

http://www.michigan.gov/lottery/0,1607,7-110-821-1 35347--,00.html [michigan.gov]

Re:Public Domain

[rewinn]

>All the bad stuff remains more or less buried while a veritable trove of glittering jewels of culture are dusted off and appreciated anew.

We can compare the realm of games to those of music and literature. For every Mozart there was probably a hundred hack composers; for every Shakespeare, a hundred dreadful playwrights, churning out whatever might make them a living. Art & technology has progressed far in the centuries since, but the best work survives because, for all their technological limits (...from our standpoint ...) they hit something really, really important.

I'm not going to claim that Pac-Man or Hearts are comparable to Hamlet or to Mozart's Requiem, but in their own realm they appeal to our need for play in a way that transcends technology; while their numberless contemporary competitors have all but disappeared because they just didn't quite hit it.

Re:Ahh the golden age of the arcades

[hal2814]

You must be quite the youngster yourself if you don't remember girls at the arcade. I remember back when arcades were where teenagers hung out. And I don't just mean the nerds. I mean all of them. The ones who weren't into video games could try their hand at any of the redemtion-style games available like Skee Ball, Skeet Shooting, or any number of machines that measure your strength. It was like a carnival without all the rides and that's the type of audience it attracted.