AHC/WI: The Video Arcade remains popular.

[juanml82]

What genres do you think would work best for arcade, both real and potential?

Racing and flight simulator games. Those are the games where the additional hardware an arcade can provide can make a difference with playing at home, while also allowing multiplayer. You can buy a wheel, or a flight stick to play at home, but if you begin to add rocking chairs, a pod like the one above and the like, your cost is going to increase.

I think they should also follow the demographic change and sort of become more like a pub: you go with friends to play pool, table tennis, darts and, yes, Daytona USA 2015.

But I still think it's a hard thing to do. I don't think MMOs and FPS translate well into the arcade experience (when compared with playing at home) and those are likely to dominate gaming anyway. There is still an attractive in playing right next to your friends instead of speaking over the Internet, but once your target already has the same games in his home and a reliable Internet connection, I don't think the arcades can compete. They have to offer something to complement online gaming: a different experience, first and foremost.

 

[Sevarics]

Here in Dallas we have a place called Barcadia that combines a bar and an arcade... so you get drunken arcade antics with friends...

Maybe you get arcade culture to become bar/arcade culture?

 

[Mumph]

In Chicago there's a place called the Ignite Gaming Lounge. They charge a few dollars an hour and have most console and PC games. It's actually really popular among high schoolers.

 

[Garbageman]

I'm fondly recalling Aladdin's Castle, my town's old video arcade, as the destination of choice for our elementary school birthday parties back in the early '90s. Kids would swarm the X-Men game in the hopes of getting first dibs on Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus. The last kid to get there invariably got Jubilee

Are you talking about the one with six players? Cause Jubilee wasn't in that one.

 

[Drunkrobot]

Racing and flight simulator games. Those are the games where the additional hardware an arcade can provide can make a difference with playing at home, while also allowing multiplayer. You can buy a wheel, or a flight stick to play at home, but if you begin to add rocking chairs, a pod like the one above and the like, your cost is going to increase.

I think they should also follow the demographic change and sort of become more like a pub: you go with friends to play pool, table tennis, darts and, yes, Daytona USA 2015.

But I still think it's a hard thing to do. I don't think MMOs and FPS translate well into the arcade experience (when compared with playing at home) and those are likely to dominate gaming anyway. There is still an attractive in playing right next to your friends instead of speaking over the Internet, but once your target already has the same games in his home and a reliable Internet connection, I don't think the arcades can compete. They have to offer something to complement online gaming: a different experience, first and foremost.

Maybe it could try to go into the competitive scene? Connecting the machines to the Internet seems simple enough, layering the local acrade multiplayer with the worldwide online multiplayer somehow (maybe a load of skilled players at a racing game could be part of an arcades 'team', and win some sort of prize if they reach a certain level?) might have the potential to take the best of both worlds.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

Are you talking about the one with six players? Cause Jubilee wasn't in that one.

Crap, right you are! I meant to say Dazzler

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

We just opened a Dave and Buster's here. There are lots of games at a local fun park- though they also have laser tag, miniature golf and other stuff. There's still Chuck E. Cheese's here too- originally a Showbiz Pizza.

Didn't know Sukhumi was so rich in Americana

 

[Alstein]

What genres do you think would work best for arcade, both real and potential?

In Japan right now it's the redemption games that are carrying the arcades- much like the US was in the dying days of their arcades.

I do think the loss of arcades- and the competitive culture of arcades , is a sad thing. I say this despite being swung at a couple of times over Samurai Shodown.

That said, if you want to get into competitive gaming- there are so many other , cheaper options than an arcade- such as PSN/XBL, Hearthstone (or better card games), and Steam. (Currently playing a lot of oldschool King of Fighters on Steam)

When I discovered online gaming over the internet, my interest in arcadegoing dropped- why would I want to face inferior competition in games I hate? I'd rather deal with a bit of lag. While that wasn't the case when I was stationed near a major arcade- and I did go to arcades then, you can't survive on just the largest cities.

I feel a bit ashamed over this, as the local gaming arcade (Lost Ark) is excellent, but I just have no desire to spend my money on arcades (somewhat due to work schedule)

 

[overoceans]

One thing I recall about video arcades in the 80s was the palpable aura of moral panic that surrounded them. The charges varied, but were usually connected with truancy, drug-dealing, and general delinquency. In my hometown(medium sized city but with a pretty strong hick influence) city council actually debated numerous measures to shut them down.

I think that if computer games had survived in the arcade format, you'd still have that disreputable air around the places, because certain types of people just have a knee-jerk reaction against any place hosting large congregations of young people. I'd also speculate that the negative stereotype of gamers would be less that of socially inept losers playing misogynicitc GTO-type games, and more that of real-world gangsters-in-training.

In Korea, the "PC bangs" now ban minors from playing after a certain time, and I think people worry more about the socially-stunting aspects of the subculture(ie. kids are spending hours on the games and not out making friends or getting ahead in life), rather than the idea that they're breeding grounds for mafioso.

 

[juanml82]

One thing I recall about video arcades in the 80s was the palpable aura of moral panic that surrounded them. The charges varied, but were usually connected with truancy, drug-dealing, and general delinquency. In my hometown(medium sized city but with a pretty strong hick influence) city council actually debated numerous measures to shut them down.

I think that if computer games had survived in the arcade format, you'd still have that disreputable air around the places, because certain types of people just have a knee-jerk reaction against any place hosting large congregations of young people. I'd also speculate that the negative stereotype of gamers would be less that of socially inept losers playing misogynicitc GTO-type games, and more that of real-world gangsters-in-training.

Well, the raise of MMO and FPS coincided, in Argentina, with the recovery post 2001 crisis, so for several years Internet Cafés became really popular: not only people didn't have notebooks to use on the go, they often didn't have desktop computers or (if they did) broadband Internet, and needless to say, a lot of parents couldn't afford a gaming computer for their children.
And you got those sort of reactions, except maybe regarding the alcohol thing (none expected the Internet cafes owners to risk beer getting spilled on their machines after all). So you had all kinds of "concerned" parents trying to outsource their children's education to the State, or anyone else but themselves, asking politicians to "think of the children". So there city ordinances still in place restricting the time and/or hours underage people could be at Internet Cafes and even restricting their placement, so they couldn't be within two blocks of a school (I guess Internet Cafes desacrate schools or something)

 

[Richmond_Pope]

Keep the Justice Department from crippling the American mafia might help.

I remember reading an article in the Newark Star Ledger back in the 80s that arcades were a perfect means of laundering a few hundred dollars each week, the kind of amount that a low-level mob figure might need to hide. No FBI agent was going to hang out in a mall, counting the number of kids in an arcade each day, and the paperwork involved for said criminal was almost negligible. Plus, it's the type of business that practically ran itself, leaving oodles of free time for the owner.

 

[Duke of Nova Scotia]

There was an "Internet/Gaming Cafe" in Saint John New Brunswick, it was growing in popularity in the younger generations. The reason is it closed was it served beer, and a parent went johnny-two-skidoo, and they had to have a 19yr old age restriction. Afterwards the loss its biggest base, they slipped into another story of closed shops on King St. Its successes were it had a server with a lot of popular PC games allowing you could hop into any MMO, and a lot of big screens with consoles, and a couple arcade games in the mix. Its failure was a hyper sensitive father, and a knee-jerk reaction.

If you could have a formula of said sections built around the arcade games to keep them popular, not separating them into different areas of the arcade where not as new games or systems can be ignored by customers, it gives the Arcade flexibility in one of the fastest sectors of the entertainment industry. While kids wait to their turn for the console/PC have a round or two of Street Fighter II, or Time Crisis.

 

[Drunkrobot]

Its failure was a hyper sensitive father, and a knee-jerk reaction.

I don't mean to completely derail the thread, but he kinda had a point. Heck, I've just turned 18, and I have had alcohol, but if I found out a place my 'tweenage' kid was hanging out in was serving alcohol, without being monitored by me or someone I can trust, I'd go ape. He might drink it, either getting sick or doing something stupid and dangerous, or he'd be around loads of adults that are drinking it, and they might do something to him. Those are the things you worry about as a parent. It was an overreaction, sure, but he had good reason to be angry. Maybe the place should've simply stopped selling alcohol?

 

[Duke of Nova Scotia]

I don't mean to completely derail the thread, but he kinda had a point. Heck, I've just turned 18, and I have had alcohol, but if I found out a place my 'tweenage' kid was hanging out in was serving alcohol, without being monitored by me or someone I can trust, I'd go ape. He might drink it, either getting sick or doing something stupid and dangerous, or he'd be around loads of adults that are drinking it, and they might do something to him. Those are the things you worry about as a parent. It was an overreaction, sure, but he had good reason to be angry. Maybe the place should've simply stopped selling alcohol?

To have made a scene in the Arcade is not the best communication model for resolution I've found, and gets an equally heated response in most cases. I agree they should have just dropped the beer, but they had a licence that allowed it, and saw only the fast money. To be honest the 'adults' drinking were 19-20 somethings having a beer with their friends around 10pm. Poor handling of a bad situation.

 

[Expat]

To add to a few other posters mentioning a mini recovery, I live in maybe the most hipsterish neighborhood in DC, and there are two bar/arcades within a block of each other. I know of two others that have been open downtown for several years. At least one other just opened up in the last month in a different neighborhood.

But I feel like that's a bit like the so-called "resurgence" in vinyl record sales. They look impressive if viewed from their lowest point in the early 00s, but really we're talking a drop in the bucket from their 20th century heights.

 

[joho6411]

Keep the Justice Department from crippling the American mafia might help.

I remember reading an article in the Newark Star Ledger back in the 80s that arcades were a perfect means of laundering a few hundred dollars each week, the kind of amount that a low-level mob figure might need to hide. No FBI agent was going to hang out in a mall, counting the number of kids in an arcade each day, and the paperwork involved for said criminal was almost negligible. Plus, it's the type of business that practically ran itself, leaving oodles of free time for the owner.

WOW! Thank you for making me remember this! I do remember the articles in the Star Ledger back in the 1980's about this and I also seem to remember about that same time, the video game room near where I lived back then, "Capt. Video", shortly closed down soon after that. IIRC, Capt. Video was located right next to a bar in a little shopping center there in Sayreville, NJ. You hit it on the head though, many of those game room/arcades were owned/operated by "family" types of men .

 

[Torqumada]

One thing I recall about video arcades in the 80s was the palpable aura of moral panic that surrounded them. The charges varied, but were usually connected with truancy, drug-dealing, and general delinquency. In my hometown(medium sized city but with a pretty strong hick influence) city council actually debated numerous measures to shut them down.

The little town I lived in during the early 80's had a curfew for video games. Kids couldn't play them before 3 on school days.

Torqumada

 

[jkochman]

I think if you kill the Playstation then you might have arcades do better in the US. The Playstation and subsequent PS2 and Xbox solidified consoles as the dominate form of gaming. In the mid to late 1990's PC gaming was very popular, but once PC gaming began to require expensive upgrades like video cards every few years it became less and less popular. On top of that laptops finally became useful in the late 1990's and that hurt PC gaming even more. Almost everyone can afford an Xbox, but most people can't afford a $1000+ PC gaming rig. Especially the 20 and under crowd. Kill the PSOne and consoles take longer to dominate the industry like they do now. The Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, and Nintendo Consoles didn't stand a chance to become the crazy successes that the PSOne, PS2 and Xbox did. Lack of game changing console like the PSone could make arcades viable until at least the early 2000's

 

[MarieAntoinette]

Simple. Just have gaming technology, computers, and anything we use to play games progress very, very slowly. Voila! Arcades still popular.
I do miss arcades. It seems that now the only games you can play in arcades are games you really can't play at home...such as the big Dance Dance Revolution machine, and those games where u have to roll a ball into a hole and you get tickets which can be exchanged for prizes.