What killed the arcade?

[gbpxl]

I was too young to really experience the heyday of arcades but I remember we had one at the mall up til maybe like 1995 or 1996. Meaning an actual arcade with stuff like Mortal Kombat II, Street Fighter, The Simpsons, Contra, and pinball machines, not crane games and the like.

I know that consumer trends shifted to home console entertainment in the 90's but was this a result of consumers driving the trend or manufacturers investing all their R&D into the home console side, or a combination of both?

[Pr3tty F1y]

To me, there were two major factors:


Cultural shift (regarding consumerism/entertainment)
Home technology catching up


Malls were new, novel, awesome and everywhere in the gold era of the 80's. That's when arcades thrived. Malls were the place to be and video games you got to play in the arcades were light years ahead of what you could get at home. However, with the decline of malls as the one stop shop in the early to mid-90s and the rise of big box electronics stores (e.g., Best Buy, the now defunct Circuit City) and superstores like Walmart and Target, malls lost their appeal. At the same time, home technology was getting ever closer to replicating the arcade experience and maybe better.

By the time the Dreamcast came out, arcades were done. The Dreamcast was arcade games at home, verbatim. The playstation era was the transition period where you started seeing arcade games based on home console hardware, but they were beefed up in specs compared to home consoles. But the Dreamcast signaled parity.

I think there also was an undercurrent of games maturing as well. From simpler games based on reflexes or memorization in the early era of gaming to more of a cinematic story telling that we see now. The latter does not lend itself well to a quick, challenging arcade experience.

[megasdkirby]

I remember loving arcades. Playing them in the middle 80s onwards were awesome. I remember playing Shinobi, Karnov, Double Dragon, and simply be in awe at how they played and looked. As though it was an entirely new world in those games. This continued until the early 2000's. Then my perspective changed.

The love simply wasn't there anymore. I would tire and get bored of the game easily. My patience lacked. I lost "my mojo". I loved games, but more relaxing ones, like RPGs. Games that didn't require lightning quick reflexes. Arcades were a distant memory.

Just recently, I prepped a Pi 3 and got an image online full of arcade games. It felt great playing them but at the same time, it felt...redundant. The same feeling crept up and now, if I lose quickly, I abandon the game. This is happening even for the classics.

Sadly, I have now turned to games like those at D&B, the redemption ones. And even then.

Depression might be a huge factor.

[Edmond Dantes]

Me.

I killed the arcades.

In the ballroom.

With the shillelagh.