Article: Why arcades are dead in NA but popular in Japan.

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Article: Why arcades are dead in NA but popular in Japan.

Saw this on Reddit. Interesting article.

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/

"The official explanation for why arcades are dead in the West is that the consoles killed them. This is what most people will tell you.
But if this is the only reason, then why are arcades in Japan still alive, and in certain genres (fighting, shooting, rhythm) even thriving and leading the way? Consoles mauled arcades in Japan too, but they didn't quite manage to kill them dead. Why is that?
Some of the more knowledgeable people will have an answer to this. Arcades are still alive in Japan, they will say, because of the way cities are laid out, with game centers to be found in every sizeable neighborhood, next to coin laundries, subway stations, etc. Students and salarymen have developed a habit of going to the arcades before and after school or work, and during breaks, and they are the ones who sustain them. In the US, in contrast, arcades are usually in malls in the middle of nowhere, forcing people to go out of their way to reach them.
Now this explanation certainly accounts for the larger part of the US, but it doesn't account for European cities, which have more in common with the tight layout of Japanese cities than with the downtown/suburbia model of many American ones.
So let me provide the last piece to this puzzle."
 
Think of Japan. Extremely expensive sq/ft region. Your entertainment is your local surroundings. This is the reason arcades still exist (at some level) in Japan. If we all lived 1 sq mile from eachother imagine arcades existing? Yes? Thats Japan's youth! In the US we are just too damn far apart for the idea to work in this day in age.
 
Do note though, Japanese arcades are on a definite long term decline too. Their current arcade density per capita is only a fraction of that the US had in 1982.

US arcades were basically already dead before mobile gaming came along, but mobile gaming has started digging the grave of the Japanese arcade.
 
Good point Srarcade. I live about 75 minutes from the nearest real arcade. There is no better feeling than to watch the best players in action and form new strategies on how to beat the game.

And how many people have said that the gauntlets, and simpsons games just don't have the same replay when set on free play in the home. It's kind of like playing a pinball machine with the glass off and simply pushing the ball where you want it to go by hand.
 
I have always been really big on turning off continue (if possible) or not using it with continue era titles. Some titles have unavoidable damage that will eventually do you in, but those that don't are eventually able to be mastered if you don't continue.

Good point Srarcade. I live about 75 minutes from the nearest real arcade. There is no better feeling than to watch the best players in action and form new strategies on how to beat the game.

And how many people have said that the gauntlets, and simpsons games just don't have the same replay when set on free play in the home. It's kind of like playing a pinball machine with the glass off and simply pushing the ball where you want it to go by hand.
 
The biggest reason arcades/game centers are still around in Japan is that having a deflated currency worked out in their favor. Games cost 100 Yen all the way back in 1978, which was about 30 cents US$. Now games still cost 100 Yen there, with 100 Yen now being worth over $1 US. So they never scared people away by raising their prices, unlike in the US.

Also, yes, they have smaller living spaces so they get their entertainment out of the home more, but I think that it has more to do with the economics I mentioned. Has less to do with culture than economics.
 
Can someone please define for me what "dead" is? I'm a bit sick of coming across this argument that no one has done their research on. This statistic from Play Meter Magazine shows thousands of locations with arcades in their venue:

http://www.playmeter.com/images/SofIpg01.gif

Aurcade which focuses just on arcade locations currently has 1264 locations. It is not a complete list seeing how Chuck E Cheese has around 550 locations alone:

http://aurcade.com/locations/

Just because it's not EXACTLY like 1982 doesn't mean that this is a dead industry. 1982 was a bubble. That burst and the market corrected itself. Yes there has been a contraction in locations and number of companies making new games but there are still many locations out there, new ones opening as well as new games coming out. One small piece of proof, I just ran an article today about Namco's Dark Escape 4D which is coming out later this year/early next. Game developers would not be spending millions of dollars on making brand new games for an industry that does not exist.

http://arcadeheroes.com/2012/08/07/first-look-namcos-dark-escape-4d-us-version/

Sorry if my tone is off but I've been running my own arcade business for 4 years. As I type this I can hear several games being played outside my office door and it's a Tuesday. So I'm tired of hearing that arcades in the West are some dead art form never to return. I'm not meaning this as a pointed personal attack against anyone, just the general idea which I strongly disagree with.
 
Yeah. I'm not buying this "dead" thing either. I'll even throw in another article regarding their comeback.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/08/the-surprising-stealth-rebirth-of-the-american-arcade/

It seems arcades with new games are dead. But retro arcades, and arcades with pinball machines are making a huge comeback. No one really wants to play new games because you have two choices nowadays - another racing game, or another shooting game. Creativity in todays arcade games is all but dead. And we'll never see arcade games like we saw in the 80's and early 90's where almost every game was an entirely different experience.
 
There are a lot of new arcades out there with new games. Dave & Busters would be at the fore-front of that - in the past couple of years they have launched with brand new games at all of their locations. They served as the launching pad for Pac-Man Battle Royale Deluxe, Infinity Blade FX and most recently they were running a promo that they were carrying 10 new games, one of which is the new Dirty Drivin.

http://arcadeheroes.com/2011/10/13/...to-arcades-launches-at-dave-busters-oct-28th/

http://arcadeheroes.com/2011/12/06/...eluxe-launches-at-all-dave-busters-locations/

http://www.daveandbusters.com/play/games.aspx - Ten Games of Summer (2012)


I myself have tried to keep up on brand new games, I've added Super street Fighter IV, Terminator Salvation, Pac-Man Battle Royale, Friction, Dariusburst Another Chronicle and within the next week or two, Big Buck HD. The problem is that those get very expensive to take care of. So lately I have been putting a stronger focus on classic games. I am one of the guys quoted in that article, where I have been witnessing an uptick in classic locations for the past while. It seems that most new locations are about nostalgia and classics. It is certainly becoming a trend, the Idaho arcade will be another. How long this type of nostalgia-cade will last though, is anyone's guess.

I definitely agree on the angle that creativity is mostly dead. There are a few rare cases of something that stands out but arcade makers have been content to mostly play it safe. Part of the reason is that when an innovative game does come along (The Act, Dariusburst, Sega Card Gen) it is often plagued by poor testing since players do not want to put their money into it against another driver or gun game. Game makers cannot take many chances on something original if they flop all of the time. I don't want them to give up on trying new creative ideas by any means but I do understand that very unfortunate angle.
 
Arcade are starting to decline in Japan too, according to a few friends of mine that live over there. There are still lot of games coming out but the redemption type stuff is taking over just like it did over there, and locations are closing up
 
Nostalgia may be what's driving people to open barcades. But it's the desire to play games in a social environment that is causing people to go to such places. 95% of 1UP's (a barcade here in Denver) customers weren't even born yet when the golden age hit. They're playing 30 year old games not to relive old memories, but because the games are still fun even today. You can spend $25 million making a shiny, "realistic" looking game, but the core game design is probably going to be much less perfect/pure than something like Pac-man.
 
I have never bought into the idea that consoles killed arcades in America. This is an interesting little blog-article that offers some debunking...

http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2009/03/home-video-game-consoles-did-not-kill.html

Ahh, but 1996 was about the time that home consoles had games of the same quality as the arcades (Playstation and Sega Saturn), and that is when the arcades die.

videogamesales.JPG


Anyone else's mind boggled that that in 1980 there was $5 billion in arcade sales? And that it was never topped? And that isn't with inflation!
 
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And if you look at this graph, it shows consoles spiking at that point, and arcade games being nearly unchanged for 2 more years. If anything this shows that the spike in console popularity had absolutely no effect on the decline of arcade games, otherwise there would have been an equivalent drop from 1996-1998.

I don't believe that the graphics/processing power of consoles ever made much difference. One of the main reasons you played games in the arcades was that they were new and not available on consoles yet. This continues to be the case in Japan, despite the equal power of consoles.

If consoles really killed arcades, then blu-ray should have killed movie theatres.

Also don't forget that some games had controls that could not be duplicated at home, and in general arcade controls were much better. All the graphics power in the world won't help you there.

Ahh, but 1996 was about the time that home consoles had games of the same quality as the arcades (Playstation and Sega Saturn), and that is when the arcades die.

videogamesales.JPG


Anyone else's mind boggled that that in 1980 there was $5 billion in arcade sales? And that it was never topped? And that isn't with inflation!
 
I think when people call arcades 'dead' they're referring to the once vibrant scene from the 80's and 90's. Huge, crowded locations filled with kids pumping quarters into machines. It'll never be like that again, and while that's a little sad, it's okay. It's how things go. But we have our hobby and we love it, and we'll keep a little piece of it alive. And something new and exciting will take it's place, like how we are seeing barcades on the rise, and basement/home arcades growing! Dead may not be the most accurate term, because it suggests that something is completely over. Then again, it might be the right term, and we can think of the current developing cultures as the inheritors.

I do wonder what the numbers are when people consider private collectors. Then again, I can't remember when someone made a new arcade game that I saw as being a must own. Most of the new machines just feel so rehashed. I mean, was Marvel vs. Capcom 3 even made as a cabinet?
 
I remember fondly the Salem Mall in Dayton, Ohio. 2 Arcades. Heaven. The Dayton Mall only had 1, but it was huge. Putt Putt Golf, the Orange ones all through Ohio, everyone of them had their own arcade. We would swarm over them on the weekend.

I don't know why they are dead. My kids still love them, go through $10 worth of quarters in my Frogger every evening this past week. 7 and 9 yrs old. Can't wait to bring them to FunSpot this summer. Well past time I made that trek living in the state and all.
 
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