Rebirth of the U.S. Arcade? 134
Gamasutra has an article up looking at Sega's plan to reinvigorate the arcade market through its recently purchased GameWorks chain. From the article: "I think what GameWorks has done has recognized where our opportunities are, and through our relationship with Sega — hopefully we're starting to see innovations back on the arcade side that bring a new and different environment and experience that people can't get at home. If you're familiar with House of the Dead 4 and the graphics that are a part of that, it's now starting to be back to having an appeal, starting to see some of that impact back on the arcade-side where you can't play in front of a 52-inch screen and have all of the very vibrant color and animation that's part of it — you can't just do that at home."
Arcades did not evolve properly! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I grew up in arcades when I was a wee tot, so I know my way around them pretty well. I went from Space Invaders, to Pac Man, to Pengo, to Dragon's Lair, to Karate Champ, to Street Fighter craze, to Killer Instinct, to
Video games were designed to play against other people. Even in the early days. Don't believe me? Think about it. Even though in those very early games you didn't specifically play against other people, you actually were indirectly. We were all playing to get the Hi-Scores. You were playing against the person who got the previous Hi-score, right? Remember how badass it was to get the top Hi-Score? That meant that your initials (and score) displayed top center all the time!
Video Game designed evolved to match players against other players more efficiently. They got pretty good at it too. Street Fighter II was not the most popular game because of it's single-player mode, afterall. Every modern arcade had a vs. mode, or at the very least a co-op mode.
So, what's my point?
People think that modern graphics advanced to the point that going to the arcade was essentially wasting money. A modern PC/console had better graphics (not to mention higher ress) than the crap at the arcade, so what was the point of leaving your house? But that's really not the entire story. People neglect to mention that multiplayer games had made major strides in PC gaming. Games like Quake brought multi-player to a whole new level. MMOGs like Ultima/Everquest made games like Cadash [klov.com] seem dated and boring.
There was one thing that was missing though, and this was in multi-player fighting games. PCs, or even consoles, could never _quite_ do it properly. Also, nothing beats the arcade controls/buttons when it comes to multi-player fighting games. I'm sorry, but I just never quite got the hang of fighting games using a console controller, nevermind a bloody keyboard/flight stick.
Now, here is what I think arcades should have done to get the one-up on PCs/Consoles. Since graphics will be at least par across both PCs/consoles/arcades, then they should take the multiplayer aspect to the next level.
Think about all the acades, like Tilt for instance (which is an arcade I see everywhere in Texas) all linked up via a nice WAN/LAN. If you walk in, and see an empty Soul Edge machine, you can jack in the queue, and play some other bloke standing at a Soul Edge machine at another location! All players, across all locations are now linked together.
Now, think about a giant electronic board that shows all the Hi-Scores across the _entire_ chain of Tilt stores (it could even be available to look at via the www while sitting at home). You can see who has the most wins in a row in Street Fighter 4. The fastest lap in . The highest score in Michael Jackson's Moonwalker [sydlexia.com]... err... you get the idea.
I mean, Doesn't Golden Tee do something like this?
Anyway, I could go on and on. Arcades rooms really should start linking up their stores, and the arcade machines themselves, and drop all Hi-Scores across the organization into one DB accessable via a badass screen.
Arcades should go back to their roots. Then I would love to go back to the arcades and do a little Hi-Score Hunting!
++Om
Sega buys GameWorks? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, if they do 'rebirth' the arcade market in the US, I hope to hell that they bring it to the East Coast, as I've only ever seen GameWorks on the West Coast....
Poor maintenence killed the arcade (Score:5, Interesting)
What I think really killed the arcade industry was operators that had Mr Crabs or Scrooge Mc Duck as operators.
I can't remember how many times I went into an arcade, plopped a token/quarter in the slot only to find that a button was broken, or a joystick and or steering wheel was loose. When i'd go to the operator asking for a refund, it was always met with some fat guy smelling like he hadn't showered in a week pointing at a sign that said, "Play at your own risk, no refunds!"
$0.25 is all it would have taken to keep me happy and coming back to my local arcade. Instead of cultivating customers for the long term though, most arcade operators just don't care. Attendance started dropping off, and as a result people started turning to PC's and console systems for their fix.
The Arcades Market aren't being properly explored. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nowadays, mostly every computer and videogame on the market can have a game at the an arcade level. Flashy graphics, cool sound, cockpits and other stuff don't cut it anymore, all consoles from the last 3~4 years have that (except for the cockpits, but that's already dull anyway). They have to innovate on the Interface. I say, let go of the joysticks, buttons, wheels, etc. They need to make the player immerse more on the action using interfaces similar to Nintendo's Wii controler, but more refined for the especific game. Actually, I think a big killer and the next big thing for Arcades would be VR games. I understand the technology isn't quite there yet, but then again, the industry had plenty of time to mature the technology, by means of investments - the Arcardes market was really sleeping at the wheel. I actually saw a VR game years ago, but it didn't took off. The glasses weighted a bit too much, and the interface felt awkward mostly because of that, it didn't feel natural.
In summary, what the Arcade market needs to delivery is something that people can't get on their living room.
The problem with arcades: bad food service (Score:5, Interesting)
Surprisingly, the profitability problem with arcades isn't the games. It's the food service. See this consultant's report: "Food Service and Location-Based Leisure Projects" [whitehutchinson.com]. "The only location-based entertainment (LBE) venues that will be profitable in the future are those that draw guests because of, not in spite of, the chow." Consider Chuck E Cheese [chuckecheese.com], Nolan Bushnell's original pizza/arcade operation from 1977, which has 500 locations. They've stayed in business through three decades and all the generations of consoles. And they're profitable.
As the consultants put it, A well-designed and managed food & beverage operation can generate a 40+% profit after deducting cost-of-goods-sold and labor. Ban the words "snack bar" and "concession" from your vocabulary. Think café and restaurant instead.
They're probably right. That's something an arcade can deliver that you can't get at home.
Game Works (Score:2, Interesting)
As someone who builds arcade machines... (Score:1, Interesting)
People like me, who build arcade machines (though I own a MAME-based machine, most of the machines I build use a game I've written called Jewel Crash which is very similar to Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo), can't set the prices. That's left up to the people who end up operating the machines. I work at an arcade where most of the video games are $0.50 and the ticket games are $0.25; there's a ton of pass-through, but it's also located at a resort so there's a lot of built-in clientele among the kids.
The machines aren't new. The most played game is Area 51, with Skee-Ball being a close second. But they get a metric fuckton of use. Part of it's the cheap play; part of it's just that the games are addictive.
Someone up above suggested having varying price structures ($0.25 on a Tuesday morning and $2.00 on a Friday afternoon). This is a great idea. I've been tried to work on the same thing on a newer-type cabinet--I have the advantage of being the one who wrote the game, so I can build the machine and edit the code as well. The problem is that it vastly increases the price of building the cabinet. It also means that every old-style game is suddenly incompatible with new machines.
The standard coin doors that you see in arcades can't support that. Coin mechanisms are based on an electronic switch. When you drop in a coin that validates (there's a different mech for quarters, brass tokens, nickels, or whatever), it completes a circuit. It's no different to the program running it than a button press (indeed, MAME cabinets usually have a button that simulates a coin drop). Every arcade coin mech I've ever seen operates like this and doesn't accept more than one type of coin/token.
There are mechanisms that accept multiple types of coins. They're pricey as hell and I've never seen one that interfaces with an arcade system (like the I-PAC, which most people use in combination with PC hardware to simulate behavior with MAME or PC-written "arcade" games).
Basically--the current method of arcade systems is not conducive to modern entertainment centers. And unless they can find USB-based or even serial-connecting coin devices that are as cheap as the current coin mechs--I don't see anything like this working out.
Re:Arcades did not evolve properly! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree that the reward of seeing your name at the top of the high score table, or in the table at all, was a huge part of the attraction of arcades. But I think your suggestion would actually sabotage that. If the high score table is nationwide (or continent-wide or worldwide), the odds of my getting a significant place in it are quite low. No reward.
Perhaps a compromise would work: show two high score tables, a networked one and a local one from the machine's own VRAM, as was done before. Being the local best is something most of us feel is within our reach.
Re:As someone who builds arcade machines... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dave and Busters (Score:5, Interesting)
This card based arcade game system blows, sure it's good for the arcade,
Believe it or not, the card system isn't just to get the $20 up front. In many municipalities (like Schuamburg, IL, which has a GW location), there are laws on the books to strongly curtail coin-operated machinery. Originally written to restrict underage access to coin-op cigarette machines, they were heavily re-inforced in the early 80's as a moral panic about video games and juvinile deliquency (first of many )-:) spread through the popular consciousness. I first heard about this because Schuamburg used to also have a card reader arcade in Woodfield as part of the defunct Mars 2112 restaurant.
America is not Japan Sega! (Score:1, Interesting)
In America the arcade requires a special trip. Whether its the mall or the local nickel arcade you have to plan a trip and take time specifically for games. Most people here just won't do it anymore due to transportation issues and the advancement of console games.
Re:Poor maintenence killed the arcade (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, our store is a multiple entertainment thing, so we have go-karts and laser-tag and golf as well as the arcade to draw people in. But the boss is always reluctant to get new games (at least when there are new games to get) and since we are tageting a younger audince the majority of our games have to be the stupid little ones where you don't realy do anything and it spits out tickets. It's rather unfortunate that that is where the majority of the coins go (usually 2/3 to 4/5 of the total weekly pull when they make up slightly more than 50% of the machines) but they have a tendency to over price (4 token, they tried to do Initial D for 6 when it came out) the new video games and complain to me when something doesn't preform well it's first few weeks, when it should have the new-factor boosting it's earnings. Then they wonder why it starts earning better when I cut the price in half (it's not listed on the spreadsheet they look at.) If I were in charge of it, I would totally reverse that and have an Introductory Time (like a month so I have a reasonable set of data to work with) where it's only 1 token per play to gauge exactly what the machine can attract and adjust the price accordingly.
Oh and as that guy-who-smells-like-he-hasn't-showered-all-week (i do shower, but that's a cool job title) I try my best to keep machines working, and we do have regulars for most of our games that know you either tell me if I'm working and if I'm not already working on something [I'm working for Scrooge and he'll understaff us for everything] I grab my tool bag and take care of it in less than 15 minutes if it's not something that requires taking the machine completely apart at peak hours, or ordering something (then i have to wait on 2nd day air and someone remembering that a box came in).
[No actual money values listed as our tokens have an average value of $.20, you get more for changing larger denominations (from
Re:Cost killed the arcade. It's dead, Jim. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, it doesn't matter how much the machine weighs when people spill their drink on/in it, or when someone thinks it's cute to just bash on the buttons or kick the coin door because you can't read the damn bright orange sticker that says 2 tokens, switch bodies wear out, joysticks lose springyness, gear shifters wear down the rubber bits that make the shift positions feel firm, Potentiometers wear down (and gods forbid that any of your games use the same type damnit), Guns don't get put back in the game's holster and machines get hit people suck. People let their 6 year olds loose in an arcade and they can do things that are physically impossible to the machines. I've had soda on the controller interface on our DDR Pads, to get to that you have to take off 2 plates. Then it's a half inch or better up from the bottom under 2 those seperate plates that both curve down at the edges (the soda would have to run up the bottom side of the bottom plate to have gotten where it was on the board) I found a whole rubber squeeky toy in our Ms. Pacman once that I still haven't figured out.