Article: Why arcades are dead in NA but popular in Japan.
Saw this on Reddit. Interesting article.
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/
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."



