Arcades becoming a Memory?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/explore/chi-arcades-end-0605jun05,0,3830088.story

In reading the above article, connected to the link, It got me to thinking,
It seems that arcades are fading from the culture of the US. In the past, the arcade has had a heavy impact on the home console gaming world. I would have to say that was very true during the 8 and 16 bit period. Its influence begin to wane shortly after people began to move away from those consoles and into the PS1 dominance of the world of gaming. I am thinking that during the PS2, XBOX, NGC, and now into the “PS3 and 360 age” the influences are coming more from the world of PC gaming. At least that is what I am seeing. Yes, you can still see some of the NES influence, but I think that the home gaming beast has grown legs and taken on a life of its own. I see the Wii as maybe a return to an arcade style of gaming for the home.

Arcades, when I was growing up were one of the hangouts for youth. It was a place for gaming together and meeting new opponents, or friends. There were no tickets for prizes at that point in time. It was just pure high scores and competition. It took the developing of skills to keep the excitement going.

Do many of you still see arcades in your area or are they gone?

Locally, in my town of over 36,000 people, arcades are a thing of the past. I know the local youth might not even relate to what an arcade was all about. There is one arcade that I know of in a town about 40 miles away. It has a hard time staying open and changes names often. And they no longer have those tokens with pacman on them anymore. They are back to using real quarters.

The questions that come to mind is,

Has the culture among our youth changed so much that arcades no longer attract? Or is it the game companies that are no longer interested in the arcade industry to invest their money and be the innovative gaming producers that they were in the past?

The arcade machines use to be the ones that pushed the technology and innovations for gaming. I think with systems like the PS3, Wii, and 360, that has all changed, and it is now the home consoles that are pushing the technological break throughs in gaming.

What path will develop in the gaming industry with the arcade no longer there? Are we seeing that gravitation in the gaming world in the present generation of systems?

I like the arcade style of gaming, that is maybe the reason I am so into the retro gaming scene. So It saddens me a bit to see the arcades fading into the sunset of a “yesterday period of gaming.”

Sorry for the long post.

I would have to say that with the amount of people that have consoles that may be the main reason why we are seeing less and less arcades around, with more people having consoles manufacturers of both console and arcade games have seem to lean towards the immense amount of gamers at home. As you have said the Arcade used to be a place of gathering and in my response to that is that with the inclusion of online gaming the arcade has become obsolete compared to the online capabilities of PC's, 360's, PS3's, and Wii's. Personally, I feel the console gaming scene is taking the route of the PC gaming scene. It kinda saddens me that Arcades are kinda becoming obsolete more and more as the days go by since I used to go to the local arcade spot every friday after school with as much as I could scrounge around from the week before and stay there for hours on end. And I'm quite upset that there still isn't an American Arcade Distributor for SF4 so far.

There are still some arcades around within driving distance from where I live, but way fewer then before. Arcades just feel awesome to me.....even just to stand in one. lol. I guess it is mostly past memories that make em feel that way.

Overeall, it is more comfortable and cheaper to game at home, but going to an arcade every so often brings back really good old feelings in me, so I hope they don't ever go entirely extinct.

I think the arcade model as a business (quarters = playtime) is the only thing that's really obsolete. It doesn't make sense to go somewhere and pay $20 or $30 for an hour of videogames when buying a console and a couple games will possibly entertain someone for several days or months. I don't think the arcade scene "as we know it" will ever make a resurgence, and I think that's due to the economy of it.

However, I do think there is a growing desire (or need) for gamers to get together in a public setting to play games and interact with other gamers. And to some extent the groundwork for places like these are already taking shape. Karaoke machines used to dominate the wednesday/thursday night bar scene, but they have been ousted by games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and even Wii Sports. Playing games is a much more socially acceptable and common thing to do these days, and and I think local "hang out" spots will start to reflect that. It is completel within the realm of sanity to envision an arcade that, instead of making money by having people pump quarters into a machine, will charge the user a per hour fee (maybe $10) to play PS3, 360, and Wii games. There is value in this in the sense that you could play under more ideal conditions (if you don't own an HDTV, have surround sound, etc.) as well as share the experience of playing videogames in a public setting. There are many places that have done this with PC's, setting up gigantic LAN's and whatnot, and I really think its just a matter of time before consoles can be played in this manner as well.

I don't think the arcade scene will ever look the same as it once did, which may be cause for some lament. But I do feel that the future holds much in store for gamers who want to go somewhere to hang out, play games, and meet other gamers.

True Stealth but, like the arcade scene as it once was and how it is now, the LAN scene is seeing the same thing. LAN events on a big and small scale are far too scarce anymore. I remember a couple years ago there used to be a LAN event every week. I guess you could go to some of the major LAN events like QuakeCon but that is once a year and the distance is too great for most people.

Um...

Arcades have been dead for years.

Hinesmdc said:

Um...

Arcades have been dead for years.

Click to expand...

Shhh!! I don't want to hear that! lol

There's a few arcades around here. I don't go that often, though. I wish I had more time to go.

I don't even wish to discuss it, it's pretty depressing. I honestly believe DDR killed the Arcade. After the game became massively popular, the decline of solid Arcade games, being Action/Adventure & Fighting games were dying rapidly. However, they are now antiques.

Everytime I go into an Arcade, it's always the same sad scene. 1 Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, 1 giant DDR, 2 House of the Dead machines, Tekken 5 arcade machine, 3 Grabber Machine with random stuffed animals, Time Crisis arcade machine which has normally with a broken gun always on House of the Dead, Time Crisis or any other light gun shooter, and to finish it off, that crappy basketball game and random games to get tickets to win prizes that nobody can ever afford....5000 tickets for a Teddy Bear...woot? lol

*sigh*

Regardless, home consoles and PC games killed the arcade..

I don't think DDR killed the Arcade scene. In fact I think it helped revitalize it for a bit back in the 90's. Oh if only arcades here in the states were like in Japan...

Well that's true it did for a while, yet what I mean, is DDR killed the variety factor of the Arcade, but if you think about it, Guitar Hero killed DDR...there's always a stronger force to stop another.

Actually the arcade scene is very big in Korea more so than Japan from what I have understood lately.

I just got back from that local town that used to have an arcade. It is totally closed and the area is completely cleaned out. I had my pocket full of quarters and was so looking to playing Raiden on a stand-up arcade machine. :'(

Oh well, a sign of the times.

retro junkie said:

I just got back from that local town that used to have an arcade. It is totally closed and the area is completely cleaned out. I had my pocket full of quarters and was so looking to playing Raiden on a stand-up arcade machine. :'(

Oh well, a sign of the times.

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Yea, Raiden 1 and 2 are awesome games. What sucks is that nobody has gotten them fully functional on MAME yet either.

A mall about a half hour away from he has an arcade (Cyberstation, I think it was called?). Each time I go there, there's less and less machines. I couldn't have been more depressed when I saw one major light gun shooter (either House of the Dead or one of the Time Crisis games) had been taken down, the front area that holds the gun had been put away, and the rest of the system was shut down.

MegaDrive20XX said:

I don't even wish to discuss it, it's pretty depressing. I honestly believe DDR killed the Arcade. After the game became massively popular, the decline of solid Arcade games, being Action/Adventure & Fighting games were dying rapidly. However, they are now antiques.

Everytime I go into an Arcade, it's always the same sad scene. 1 Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, 1 giant DDR, 2 House of the Dead machines, Tekken 5 arcade machine, 3 Grabber Machine with random stuffed animals, Time Crisis arcade machine which has normally with a broken gun always on House of the Dead, Time Crisis or any other light gun shooter, and to finish it off, that crappy basketball game and random games to get tickets to win prizes that nobody can ever afford....5000 tickets for a Teddy Bear...woot? lol

*sigh*

Regardless, home consoles and PC games killed the arcade..

Click to expand...

I concur.I do know what it feels like in a social light.You get to know some of the regulars that are there all the time.Before I quit drinking years ago,I always went to the local bar for alcohol yes,but also the warm reception of the other customers.It was a like a family.Even though I don't drink anymore,I still miss going there and feeling part of something,however strange or pathetic that outsiders thought it was.

As far as home systems,I couldn't agree more with Mega,especially since the arcade games started to Crowbar the players by charging like: 50 cents to start,25 cents to continue.Look at "NBA Jam",you had to pay 25 cents for each of the 4 quarters of playing time.(A full game 4 quarters of play-25 cents for each quarter)A truly desperate attempt to keep up with the home systems,they were just delaying the inevitable.R.I.P.

God bless

I am bumping this topic back into existence.

Are there any arcades out there that are thriving? What games besides DDR frequent them now?

†B†V† :hat

I would like to know too. I miss those "big sit down into things" to play something like Starblade. I purchased that game for every console that it came out for. Just wasn't the same as going into an arcade. When you first enter the arcade there is that blaring deafening sound of all those machines and then you sit down into the Starblade closed in bubble and the sounds are muffled. Then the game sounds of Starblade begins and you are immersed in another world.
I remember a skiing stand-up that was like you were on the real thing and you would tilt from side to side in front of a big screen while holding onto, "was it rails or something?" You just can't get that type of an experience from a console. The atmosphere was sort-of a carnival like feel to it. It was just great to hang out in with friends. And the competitiveness edge of going in and finding someones score and trying to beat it. Not knowing who it was. Those were the days.

Well what my local mall has labeled as an "arcade" really isn't one 6 video games a claw machine and pinball machine is hardly what I would call an arcade but I guess you have to call it something.

8 on the Break is probably one of the biggest ones on the east coast. Mostly due to the fact that it holds competitions almost weekly.