Do you like ARCADES?

[FPLOON]

I [fucking] love Arcades!!!! The only problem: The original one that was close to me closed down before I stated middle school and now, the closest is a few hours away from me...

The Dave & Busters, Boomers, and even the Chuck E. Cheese's that are the closet to me (with only one those within a good walking distance) that have certain arcade games that I enjoy playing...

*sighs* I wish there was an arcade within walking distance... *yawns* "That would be so cool..." *falls asleep in a dream-like state*

 

[Nazulu]

I love arcades, but the places I used to go to don't have anything I'm interested anymore, those games have become blander as well with so many army and horror FPS's. Really, just like the games industry. Sheesh.

I love shoot 'em ups, games that are controlled with a big joy stick to steer some aircraft, the games with massive guns to take out robots or aliens or whatever, basic beat 'em ups for four people, and some others.

 

[TrevHead]

I used to like ARCADES when I was kid, but as I got older, ARCADES didn't really get any better in the UK. ARCADES in the UK have the same games they had in them from ARCADES that were around 15 years ago.

ARCADES just aren't what ARCADES used to be.

Imo that's one of the main reasons they died in the west, as apart from competition from homes, new arcade cabs are / were very expensive to buy especially if it's shipped from Japan. IIRC what was the death nail for many of the local arcades in the UK was when all these big bespoke lightgun & racer cabs became popular and the cost per credit rose from 20p to 50p & £1 per credit, way too much for kids pocket money rather as a place to visit at a resort on holiday and a place to get skint quick.

@OP I haven't visited an arcade since the SF2 era even though I do like my single player arc games like shmups on the 360.

If you want to place as an old style arcade hall rather than a mix of bar / kiddie etc then keeping the costs low is the way to go, I remember reading an article about a new venue in the London suburbs (edit called Heart of Gaming) that charges £10 for the whole day, apparently it got all the FTG players who specialised on one or two FTGs to try out all the other different games, helping to create a better scene at the venue.

If I was the OP I'd contact local players find out what games they play and try to build off that. I'd guess that FTG players aren't that bothered about credits, but other players might be, I personally like to play based around the one credit clear so just having the cabs turned onto freeplay might detract from that. Imo coin tokens would be better for those machines even if I had an unlimited supply or had to fish them out from the cab itself.

 

[Gitty101]

I used to like Arcades quite a lot, but now it seems (at least in my local area) that they've phased out all the really good games in favor of scam machines. No more House of the Dead or Time Crisis, just those annoying cranes and coin machines. Oh and racing games.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I cant imagine how much money i wasted on arcades as a kid but they were a huge part of my childhood. I remember when I was 10 they had the fair in Barking Park and i found £20 on the floor. I used the whole of that on arcades. lol. There was also one i used to visit in Romford, every Sunday you could pay £5 and have free play of all the machines all day. Granted alot of them were old machines, but still it was fun. Even the arcade in Trocadero, London is gone now - it used to be Sega World.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I spent a lot of time in Wunderlands as a kid. There were two, one where everything is a nickel to play. The other had a cover charge and then almost every game was free to play. The ones that gave tickets weren't obviously.

I liked playing D&D, X-Men, and the Simpsons brawlers. And they got Doom 64 too, but the stick wouldn't move far enough to actually allow you to run/jump over narrow gaps so you literally couldn't get past like level 2 or 3. That was about it. It was basically were my step brother and I got dumped when it was too late to be dumped at the wave pool for a few hours.

This was in the 80s b4 DDR, not that I like DDR. About the most high tech thing they ever had was Dragon's Lair in hologram form.

I've been to other arcades in malls etc. but they pretty much suck if you aren't into racing, light gun, or DDR games. Which pretty much sums up why anyone would go to an arcade these days.

I never went to one with F-Zero Arcade, which I would have loved to play.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I sorta bypassed arcades but I did like to watch people play and I suppose its how I started playing Street Fighter 2 and in turn other fighters.

Trouble is arcades near me are almost non existant and those that are about are dominated by gambling machines. I did find a Super Street Fighter 2 cabinet once and only one of the buttons was broke so thats probably the best I have managed in the last few years.

There is an arcade in London I want to visit called the Heart of Gaming. They charge on the door and then the games are free so I want to check that out but its quite a trek for me to get there. Apparently one is opening up much closer to me next year probably within 30 miles so I will be visiting that.

The arcades I visited in Japan were amazing though. I have never seen anything like it I absolutely loved playing there and getting thrashed even my friend who dosent play game much enjoyed the scene, its just got such an awesome atmosphere in most places.

 

[Eve Charm]

Eh no they are just huge disappointments really. I walk in " oh they got time crisis or silent scope. " machine takes my money " oh the guns are calibrated all to crap and their are guys I can't kill.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I like the idea of unique gaming experiences that they can offer, but at this point in my life the likelihood that I'll invest time to find one again is very low.

 

[loc978]

Damn, I came in here hoping to learn a new acronym... but that was just capitalization for... emphasis? Or something?

OT: I liked arcades when I was a kid, in the 8 and 16-bit eras when a wireframe 3D tank shooter was crazy new tech, and the idea of sitting in an arcade cabinet with independent tread controls was really novel. Nowadays they don't have anything I can't do better at home with friends... especially lightgun games which need calibration. The Wii does those better than the arcades ever did.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I don't. They rarely have any games I'd enjoy, and when they do, I usually suck at them on account of not playing them before and end up getting a game over in minutes, and I'm not interested in wasting five dollars worth of quarters to keep playing. Unfortunately, I only ever enter them when I'm with a group, and they always stay for a long time, leaving me bored.

 

[Racecarlock]

I do like arcades. They remind me how fun and engaging games can be. How bright and colorful and creative they can be. How not-including-two-minute-homework-scenes they can be. How not making me clean toilets in prison they can be.

It seems forced mundane tasks are becoming more and more a part of modern gaming. It's fine if they're optional. I understand if someone wants to just be a blacksmith. But when I am directly forced to clean toilets, set tables, shave, and make cheeseburgers at mcdonalds, screw them.

Whenever I end up forced to do one of these chores, I end up thinking about all the cool things I could be doing. Gaming has saiyans, superheros, the hulk, spaceships, lots of fast cars, tanks, tron worlds, and so much more. Yet here I am, stuck doing this mundane task because the game wants movie oscar awards or something.

And then people wonder why I avoid those games.

I like arcades, though, because they do have a lot of fun and engaging games. You'd never see pacman make you clean toilets.

 

[TrevHead]

I like arcades, though, because they do have a lot of fun and engaging games. You'd never see pacman make you clean toilets.

Yeah the fact most ppl only last minutes with a credit with the ending credits rolling within 30-45mins means that they have to pack in as much fun as possible with no filler and unlike many other games fun was the main commodity that arcade devs had to make money since unlike EA and co they couldn't throw money at marketing to sell their games. Like how roller coaster design has improved over the years only the most fun games were successful.

Sure the games were hard, unfairly in some cases to make money it's imo a damn sight better than how the business end is dragging down game design nowadays. Infact I'd say for skilled players an arcade game is one of the purest ways to play, no Skinner boxes, DLC or F2P monetisation or MMO hybrid BS to put up with.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I think standalone arcades would work better with a different revenue model. Perhaps £5 for entry, for an hour, allowing you to play any game as much as you want.

Prizes are good. Make every machine print out some tickets or add points to your card.

Or do you think that arcades are terminally dead, and forever niche?

If there were a way to have your game info on a card (high scores, amount of time put onto a single game, etc) that can then be translated over into a point/ticket system which can in turn be translated into a prize system, that would be amazing and awesome. Another great incentive (where a prize system is concerned) would be a tier and, King of the Hill system where if you frequent the place and maintain a high score for X days, weeks, months it can add a multiplier to the amount of tickets one can earn while gaming. This begs the question: what kind of prizes would be given out?

ANYWAY!

I just moved away from an area where I had a Dave and Busters within about 10 minutes of me but I never really went there. The selection of arcade games was lacking and I just generally didn't have the spare cash. They had a decent selection overall and split arcade games with ticket/prize games.

I would love to be in an area with a good arcade though but my definition of a good arcade would differ from other peoples. For one thing, I would rather an arcade omit prize and ticket games so as to conserve space for better things like Pinball machines. As for arcade cabinets, Guitar Hero Arcade just isn't worth it...not when that same amount of space can be used for After Burner or Space Harrier or even Outrun. Another staple of any good Arcade: Konami beat-em-ups. The D&B I moved away from had no Konami beat-em-ups.

 

[KaZuYa]

Arcades are utterly dead, the thing is there is no money whatsoever in it, The only way to make money is to have a huge turnover in customers which you won't get because people don't go to an arcade in any numbers like they did in 80/90's due to home and mobile gaming, it was a social place to go as kids. Also since the 2005 Gaming Act in the UK arcades can no longer split themselves into Arcade Games/Fruit Machines and allow under 18's to enter even if the over 18's area is monitored and separated with barriers. The only Arcades you will ever see now are now attached to cinemas or bowling alleys because they can leech custom for that business and gain passing trade.

Arcades or their like are still absolutely massive in Japan simply because it's still a huge social thing to do and they have utter embraced a type of gaming and trading which totally incorporates mobile/home and arcade gaming as one entity.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

the only arcade around where I live is a "Cluggy's Family Fun Center", and a "Family Fun Zone" in this dinky little mall. It used to be an Aladdin's Castle when I was a kid playing in it all the time, but it got bought out and replaced. Not that it mattered, they just used the exact same game cabinets anyway and then added a few new ones. It's such a shame they're dying out...sure, we got home consoles now, and even mobile consoles, but there's NOTHING like playing a game in an arcade. No amount of home light guns, motion sensors, or racing wheel can fully emulate the feeling of playing a game, having other people watch you, or sitting in those cockpit seats. If it's a decent arcade, I almost always go in for a bit, regardless of where I am. Vacation? Arcade. Shopping mall? Arcade. It's become rare for me, so I try every chance I get. Old games, classic games, new games, they're all usually a hell of a lot of fun.

What's even more sad, is none of my gaming friends share my passion for arcades. I always imagine us going to one, and having a blast, but anytime I bring it up everyone is just "Eh *shrugs*" or says "If you want to go, go ahead. I might just sit." I usually have to force my friend to play a coop game with me, at which point pretty much all fun is sucked out when you know they aren't trying. The only person that enjoys it as much as I do is my younger brother and my father. (My mom too to an extent. Usually things like Skeeball or simple gambling games)

Captcha: Live long + prosper. Let's hope so.

 

[Aramis Night]

I use to spend a lot of time in arcades myself throughout the 80's and 90's. After that they all went to hell. Too much emphasis on gun and dance games. I was all about games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, Samurai Showdown, The Simpson's, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's, Knight's of the Round, The Avengers, X-Men, Gauntlet. I loved fighting and multiplayer co-op. Now its actually hard to find a working version of any of these types of games in any arcade.

 

[JagermanXcell]

Arcades are great, unfortunately I live around only 2 arcades that require me to drive 10min to get to them, they usually have less then 25 people in them (I predict one will be shut down by the end of the year), who are usually only there to play 2 rounds of something then leave, and hardly stick around for a chat.

They're great, probably fantastic if you can share the fun with friends, but the magic they used to have died a long time ago.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I wish I could go back in time to when Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike actually had an arcade scene in the US so I could take advantage of it. Now I basically have to go to Japan.