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Arcade games dead?
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It's interesting to see that arcades are still flourishing with titles being made each year, at least in Asia. Just a thought, is it possible to make arcades here in the US and make them work on similar systems? |
not sure if I'd call that "flourishing" but they are still here and there. Though I miss the days of massive 30+ machine arcades
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Arcade seems pretty big in Asia, what with Lord of Vermillion, for example.
Here...Um...Yeah, they're still around, but they're not very common. Last year I was on a trip with my aunt and cousin and we went in a shopping center in this one town for lunch...And they had an arcade place consisting of PS3s with games like Soul Calibur and Fifa soccer. |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_7g...layer_embedded Japan, you so crazy... SWB |
I'd say that whereas the physical arcade has dwindled, we have people forking over the cash to play their arcade online via downloads on Wii, Xbox, and PS3, as most downloadable games are in fact, 'arcade', having no real end, and scoreboards. An arcade being, where people get together, a 'public' whatever. Shopping Arcade is a term for a Mall, before malls became the predominant word.
So we have our arcade online, where gamers come together to get the highest score. Even the method of showing off to other gamers is done by youtube or some game's bragging video recordings. From a monetary standpoint, $1-5 for being able to play the game forever compared to $1:00 for every time a player plays (or continues playing) the old way of arcades was in theory more profitable, but now the act of playing isn't guaranteed, not everyone will play arcade games. So these downloaded arcade games mean the makers get less money per player, but have a higher guarantee of people playing, making it a safer bet for the monies. I suppose we could in the future have a set up where a player plays modern and next-gen dedicated arcade games online with a "press 4 to add another $1 credit" system, but that wouldn't work with consoles. I do see arcades continuing outside of downloads as special experience games, like the Metal Gear Solid arcade and newer editions of Time Crisis, as they provide a tactile experience that would cost too much to have installed at home. |
I miss playing the Simpsons, Avengers and Predator side-scrolling arcade games at my local pizza joint.
They were so much fun. |
The only arcade games that sell anymore are vintage/classic ones like Wigmund mentioned. Like I'd probably pay a few dollars to play Golden Axe on a machine again instead of some lame Genesis ROM or whatever.
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Last arcade game I played was Time Crisis 4, and it was why I never bother anymore. Whats the point of a light-gun game when you have infinite ammo and a machine gun. I'm a great shot and am beat out by a 10 year old just spraying bullets
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A local tavern recently got a machine for Area 51. I need to go and play that... the place is about 5 minutes away from where I live, too.
Other than that I haven't really been to an arcade in ages. Wish I could though, it was always so hard to choose what to play. |
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Also I wasn't really hesitant to play arcade games... I was just never good at sticking to one before moving on to the next. |
As long as there are still people obsessed with ski-ball, the arcade will exist. at least on the boardwalks.
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Aren't Chuck E. Cheese's basically arcades? Do kids still go to Chuck E. Cheese's?
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I'm thinking games for an older audience. Seriously you don't go to Chuck E Cheese's for the arcade on a daily basis.
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Well, there are Dave & Busterseses, which is like Chuck E Cheese's but with beer and shrimp. But screw that.
We have games in the lobby of my theater. Namely, an Area 51 + Maximum Force cabinet, Ranger Mission (another light gun game), some crappy trackball bowling game that people constantly act surprised when one quarter isn't enough to play, two Cruisin' USA cabinets that de-synched last spring ("Let's race each other! Hey, how come we're not racing each other?"), Tekken 3, Mars Matrix (no one plays this and it's the best game we have), and a Blitz 2000 + NBA Showtime cabinet. The Blitz machine broke last month, leaving my boss and assistant managers with nothing to waste their money on between shows. Honestly, between the three of them, they've easily put $1000 in that machine. I guess what I'm saying is that I wish I had more productive co-workers so that I could be lazier and play Mars Matrix. I haven't been able to play since September. That sucks. |
Why would anyone want to go then?!
You can't play Madden or Halo in the arcade.
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Here's the thing I didn't like about arcades, at least the ones I have been to: And that is that it was basically everything terrible that happens when you are at the Carnival. Spend $20 painstakingly honing your skills on impossible games? Get a thimble-sized teddy bear or a plastic army man in return. Want to eat popcorn? Get, like, mouth syphilis.
Plus there's never a Pac-Man machine around when you want one. |
I got spoiled... I was playing Drummania and Initial D at a young age.
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People don't put money in Pac-Man! Everyone's always like, "Gee, wish there was a Pac-Man." We had a Pac-Man. One quarter over six months! You don't get Pac-Man; go slam the seats back and forth on Cruisin' some more. I don't even hear it anymore.
Edit: Oh, and people who play for prizes and not to play games disgust me almost as much as people who don't know how to shoot off-screen to reload. Almost. |
Shoot off screen? What is this oddity?
(covered the pointer with his finger) |
It's like a really expensive bowl of plastic fruit.
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But it's still just comforting to have it there. |
Phil_, sometimes a grown man wants a toy space-ranger gun or a giant inflatable bat, and that is this hypothetical man's private buisness. Is that so wrong?
Also seriously I would blow tons of money to play Astroids, Burger-Time, Pac-Man and the Ms variant, or any of the tons of old awesome games that really worked best in the arcade machine format. |
Arcade cabinets are the only thing that triggers my aggressive, play-to-win, if-you're-not-playing-to-win-you-suck video game instincts. Usually, I'm very relaxed towards games. I still haven't gotten past Rathalos and Lagiacrus in Monster Hunter Tri and I'm still in two-star online, but I'm cool with that. I play games to relax and fart around. But, when I'm standing in front of a joystick and big, candy buttons, something in me snaps and I have to become really good. I have to have the high score. I have to have all the high scores. I have to be able to rock through the game without taking a hit and make it look easy. That same thing triggers when I see other adults in the same position. There are more buttons than the grenade button. Quit pumping the accelerator; those flames don't make you go faster. Quit holding down the fire button; you have to tap it for rapid fire; holding it is how you bomb. You only need one joystick; grabbing both makes you look stupid. SHOOT OFF SCREEN TO RELOAD; IT'S RIGHT THERE IN BIG LETTERS FLASHING IN FRONT OF YOU! I'm not sure why I feel that way, but I do.
Now, I can watch kids do all these things and I'm fine. Little kid wants to run over all the signs in a Lamborghini, more power to him. But adults should know better. Adults should know that, once you drop those quarters, it's time to buckle down and win. I hope this has been enlightening. |
Maybe people like you are why there aren't arcades!
^ lol
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I couldn't. I could easily get through to the third boss without getting hit, but from there it was kinda hit-or-miss. And then the guy who owns our machines took it out and I couldn't play anymore.
I had all the high scores, though. I miss that game ;_;. I just don't think it would be the same playing it on a console, or I'd have Metal Slug Collection. Oh, and I guess I should mention that I've never hit the heights that I aim for. It's just that I only aim so high when it's an arcade cabinet. I mean, I wrote down my high score in Mars Matrix because the machine was set up to go back to defaults when it was powered off. Another edit (that last paragraph was an edit): Oh, oh, I've come up with a good response for synk! I didn't ask to be this way, it's just the way I was born. Can't you accept me for who I am, arcade-based flaws and all? |
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Otherwise, I spent all of my money on DDR and a few shooting games. |
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If I ever get the money, I fully intend to build my own personal arcade, by obtaining cheap PC's capable of emulation, constructing fascimile arcade cabinets, and going to town.
Including a Stepmania machine. |
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once saw old pong arcade machine for sale on ebay for 40 bucks, though shipping was 50 putting it out of my price range at the time
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Only $40? That ...seems really low for an arcade machine. Are you sure?
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Why would it be more, collector value aside?
It's Pong.
It's a large, heavy device with relatively ancient display technology only capable of making two rectangles and a square move around. |
Man, back when I worked to an honest to god arcade a few years ago, things were awesome. We had Initial D, which got all kinds of love, DDR, which was our supreme attraction, a decent mix of silly ticket games and light guns and racing and fighting games. (I wasn't a fan of Tekken 5 arcade machine but everyone else in the bloody world played that thing).
Then the stupid company said we weren't making enough money and didn't renew the lease, so it went and closed up. It was probably because the company stopped moving machines around for us so we didn't get a new machine for 6 months. Gotta keep things changing sadly enough, even old machines that just haven't been there in a while. |
The derth of Pac-Man is some of the arcade owners own fault, I was in one one time that was charging a buck a game to play Pac-Man. Nobody's gonna pay that when they got like, Carn-Evil for 25 cents or whatever.
Anyway, this one antique's depot I went to a lot about ten years ago had an Asteroids machine for sale, but I couldn't afford the 400 bucks they wanted. I was there again recently, they finally sold the thing. So somebody somewhere is playing some Asteroids. I can't believe they had pong for 40 bucks, it was probably a typo or something. That or they just really had to move it out of their house or something. |
The lack of Silent Scope in this thread is disappointing. Every arcade should have a Silent Scope machine.
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BUT IT'S A MURDER SIMULATOR
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I love the big Virtual On machines, myself. Way better than playing the game on a home system.
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