What modern games are very profitable?

General_Norris

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Other than dance games, which machines get a good deal of income and are enjoyed by many? Honest question here!

The only games that come to mind are Pac Man Battle Rumble, which I heard is very popular and Wangan Tokio Midnight.
 
Maximum tune wangan midnight is just like Tokyo xtreme and pretty popular at a local arcade here. I spent some money on it. Racing games and shooters seem to be the bulk of all arcades now besides redemption

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From the March Playmeter Operator Equipment Poll, Video Dedicated category: 1) GT Live 2012 2) Terminator Salvation 42" 3) Guitar Hero Arcade 4) Time Crisis 4 5) Terminator Salvation 32" 6) BBH Open Season 7) Extreme Hunting 2 Tourn. 8) Let's Go Island 9)Rambo DLX 10) SS Bowling
 
Anything Call of Duty.....J/K lol. But seriously all i have seen lately making money is the stacker machines and other redemption crap. People walk past actual videogames all day long. Such a shame.
 
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Shooters and drivers still have some life to them. House of the Dead games still make money.

The proliferation of iphone apps/games is really hitting the final nail on the coffin for the average standalone video game. The 99 cent phone app is the modern day version of the 25 cent arcade video game.
 
Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 20th Reunion, Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 25th Anniversary, multicades, multicades, multicades, iPhone apps, and redemption crap. And multicades.
 
There's an opportunity here for those horse racing games that you can raise your horse in and then go race. People could raise/train on a phone app, then plug in at the arcade to race.

No idea if that game is still popular today, though. But you can do a variation of it using other things, Pokemon, cars, armadillos....
 
I was picking some cabs up from an op a while back while not a video game he said his biggest money maker was those stand up punching bag machines.
 
Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 20th Reunion, Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 25th Anniversary

last time I was at Dave and Busters on a busy saturday night, the only play these got were from me. doesn't seem like a profitable machine to me :/
 
I would have to think that "The Grid" from Midway would do ok?
Any multiplayer competitive deathmatch game is OK in my book!
 
Well from what I have seen:

Terminator Salvation is the game to beat. When anyone in the industry right now quotes how a game is doing, they are comparing it to Terminator right now. I have been told that Deadstorm Pirates has been able to out earn Terminator at times.

Pac-Man Battle Royale which was mentioned has done well for me. It started off sort of slow but really jumped when the holidays came around. I am hopeful that the new update that will be out for it soon will drive even more play.

I'm not 100% sure on this yet but I think that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited will do really well - while it's an arcade exclusive release anyways.

Blazing Angels might be at the very top but it's a solid, consistent earner, for me anyways.

A new light-gun title by the name of Friction has also started to do extremely well at my place after we moved. It consistently outearns a Super Deluxe House of the Dead 4 I have and Big Buck Safari. It's been getting pretty close to Terminator, despite being a kit game.

I've heard varied earnings on racing games that go all over the place but Super Bikes 2 seems pretty consistent, making as much as Terminator does from what I have been told. But I also have heard that GRID makes a killing in some venues, or Dead Heat does in others. I'm sure there will be a whole new stock of racers by years end that will beat those all out too.

Fruit Ninja FX is also doing extremely well - it's a ticket redemption game so it's kind of cheating but it's outearning a lot of non-video ticket redemption games that are out there. I bet Angry Birds would do pretty well on that platform too.
 
The proliferation of iphone apps/games is really hitting the final nail on the coffin for the average standalone video game. The 99 cent phone app is the modern day version of the 25 cent arcade video game.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner! I can't speak for games in the few arcades that are left but for your regular street spots(bars and such), no videogames are "very" profitable. Occasionally a Golden Tee Live or Silver Strike Live will do well. Bartops used to do well but have been falling off. Jukeboxes are the best earners on our route.
 
What kind of numbers is Terminator Salvation putting up? Oh and Ken, how much is Lets Go Jungle bringing for you?

Btw, at my local barcade, which is all 80's and early 90's games, it seems that 6-player X-men is still a big earner. I would be interested in knowing how much it makes. It seems to always have at least 3 people on it, pumping in several dollars worth of quarters.
 
at the location (a console game store with 30+ arcade games) my Ninja Assault is the top earner. when it's acting up my CarnEvil tends to do the best. the owner says that as long as they've had games it's always been a shooter that's on top.

for reference they have a mix of shooters, fighters, side-scrollers and classics with a few other things thrown in. no drivers though i've been thinking of getting one to place there.
 
Yeah, I am wondering who these people are playing the games outside of arcade locations.

I never seem to see anyone other than myself play any games on location. Went a busy restaurant/bar on a friday night with my wife a few months ago. We were there a couple hours. They had one game, a Midway cocktail with a bootleg multiboard in it. I played one game of Dig Dug on it. No one else touched it the whole 2 hours we were there.

We used to go to the pizza buffet after church all the time. Place would always be packed with the sunday lunch crowd, tons of kids, and still no one was playing the games.

Maybe 8 years ago I went roller skating with some friends on a friday night, we had fun for a couple hours and then left (you can only take being 26 in a room full of 15 year olds for so long). They had 3 vids and one pin (the same Elvira and the Party Monsters pin that they had when I was 13 years old). I watched those games the whole time we were there and not one of them got a single play the entire time, at a busy skating rink full of teenagers on a friday night. 10 years before that (at the same location) you actually had to wait for a spot to get on one of the games.

Even arcade locations are getting very weird because almost nothing new comes out anymore (and what does come out is either an annual update that probably won't even recoup costs, a multicade of some sort or a deluxe game that costs $6000), thus arcades are filled with a lot of really old, worn out, beat down games. Not classics mind you, just old equipment, as locations and operators just still keep running the same games they had before the industry curled up and died. Even big locations like Dave and Busters are running lots of machines that are 10 years old or more (last time I was at D&B they had plenty of stuff dating back to the mid 90s, and lots of stuff right at 10 years old).
 
Terminator Salvation is the game to beat. When anyone in the industry right now quotes how a game is doing, they are comparing it to Terminator right now. I have been told that Deadstorm Pirates has been able to out earn Terminator at times.
I hear a lot about it making a lot of money, why is that? I don't think I will ever see it in person.

Pac-Man Battle Royale which was mentioned has done well for me. It started off sort of slow but really jumped when the holidays came around. I am hopeful that the new update that will be out for it soon will drive even more play.
Updates really keep games alive. I think a problem many arcade games have is it's short lenght. It seems to be that bringing people back is key. Around here most games are 10 year old and most people who care have already beaten them.

Blazing Angels might be at the very top but it's a solid, consistent earner, for me anyways.
Wow, that game looks really cool. Other than Afterburner Climax I didn't know about any flying games. Is it hard to pickup?


I was picking some cabs up from an op a while back while not a video game he said his biggest money maker was those stand up punching bag machines.
There used to be an arcade in Madrid that had Fighting Mania and it was constantly being played until the pcb got fried. Tough I don't know if it was worth it, being subject to so much abuse.
 
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