Interesting article on the state of arcades

[ubersaurus]

http://www.1up.com/article2/0,4364,1526151,00.asp

In general, the article states that for a modern arcade to survvie, it needs to cultivate a social player base, and try expanding to take in other forms of entertainment. I've been saying that for years now ;)

[SoulBlazer]

Well, it's a very good article, and I agree with what they said the bad and good points of arcades are.

I don't even have any true 'arcades' left around me. There was one in my local mall, and when I went there to go shopping I'd check it out. But they did'nt have the best games, and it closed several months ago.

I think it's true that arcades as we know them are gone, and will envolve into places like Dave and Busters. Which, I must add, is a great concept. It's a fun place with good food and they keep the current and popular games there. I can play games there that never came out for the home, like Star Wars Triliogy by Sega.

Since I moved to RI a couple years ago, I've been up to the Providence Place mall in Providence (where the D&B is) many times, usually with friends. It's a fun way to spend a day. I go into the mall to do shopping, see a Imax film or a regular movie, and go to D&B to get food and play games. If you have another reason for people to go to a 'arcade' so to say, the places should continue to do well. The number of times I've gone to a place like D&B as opposed to the stand alone arcade when it existed just proves that.

One of my favorite gaming memories is when I visted a friend in San Fran several years ago, we went to Fisherman's Warf and one of the places we stopped at was a arcade. I can't recall the game's name, but it was a shooter from Namco that had room for EIGHT PEOPLE. You all sat down and controled a firing cursor on the HUGE screen in front of you (all color coded) and worked together to fly through various stages (it was first person prespective). Expensive to play, but it lasted about 20 minutes and was a blast. More games like that would really help. ;)

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I'm betting that Namco game was either Galaxian3 or Attack Of The Zolgear. The PS1 version of the former rocks. :D

[agent57]

In general, the article states that for a modern arcade to survvie, it needs to cultivate a social player base, and try expanding to take in other forms of entertainment. I've been saying that for years now ;)

What they need is to go back in time about 15 years :o The golden era of arcades is long since past, and it's not coming back.

Agreed! I honestly feel that if someone started making reproductions of classic arcade machines, arcades would come back in a big way. Why do I think this? Take my trip to Wildwood, NJ last summer...they have about 15 arcades on the boardwalk there and every one of them was full of newer games, most of which are total crap. Almost every arcade was entirely empty, I'm talking like 3 or 4 people playing games in a room with 40+ machines - what a waste of space and electricity!

However...some of the arcades had a few Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man machines (both the old machines and the more recent Namco re-release) and in EVERY arcade which had these machines, people were literally standing 3 and 4 deep to play them! I thought this was hilarious...people were even putting quarters on the machine to reserve their place in line, something which I haven't seen in YEARS. There was a Defender machine in one of the arcades also, and there was never less than a half-hour wait to play it during the entire week I was at the shore, even at 2am in the freakin' morning! Of course, I owned the high score board the whole week! ;-)

I approached one of the arcade owners there who I've known for years and suggested that since people still want to play those old games, why not get more of them in your arcade? He looked at me like I was an idiot. :roll:

I really feel that people miss the classic arcade games in a big way and would definitely pay to play them if they were still available!