Thoughts on "Arcade games are designed to steal your money"?

[BIL]

The goofiest thing is that like, Smash TV is obnoxious, but doesn't really do anything other than be hard as balls for way too long. There are games that aren't just "give me your money", but more "you literally cannot beat this game on one credit".

I don't think Smash TV AC has actually been 1cc'd by a human or even close. The fact that it gaslights you into thinking you just need to get better is almost worse than straight up killing you.

IIRC, it has. I remember thinking this, only to discover BBH had murdered its face off, and knew at least a few other guys who had, too. On that day I was reminded that BBH-sama is an American Ninja.

I'll go dig something up. Christ, those games are nightmarish to contemplate.

[BryanM]

Smash has been cleared plenty of times with a thick stack of lives, a very RNG heavy game. I'm not sure if it's possible to no-miss it though, I don't know the game near well enough to know that.

~$150? For hanging around an arcade for 8+ hours that doesn't sound totally nuts. Check some mobile game IAPs and see what $150 will get you.

Rationing play time isn't something they really do anymore, you can put a bucket under yourself and play all of Genshin from beginning to end over its 300 hours (+50 hours per years that pass from this post) for entirely free.

They're meant to be played like MMO's, over a long period of time. An optional $5 a month subscription fee if you want extra stuff or whatever. Actually spending $800 to buy a character that doesn't matter, is for filthy rich bastards or someone sliding down a very ugly pit of despair.

Just being allowed the privilege of playing a game isn't really special anymore, they're like the drinking fountain at Wal-Mart.

[Austin]

IIRC, it has. I remember thinking this, only to discover LordBBH had murdered its face off and knew at least a few other guys who had, too. On that day I was reminded that BBH-sama is an American Ninja. I'll go dig something up.

Mark Turmell (one of the designers) has also claimed in video interviews that he's done it too.

[velo]

I stand corrected... found this apparently legit Smash TV 1cc, and he does indeed finish with a thick stack of lives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLeL6ONPNiw

Arcade version looks easier than the Megadrive version.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[BIL]

IIRC, it has. I remember thinking this, only to discover LordBBH had murdered its face off and knew at least a few other guys who had, too. On that day I was reminded that BBH-sama is an American Ninja. I'll go dig something up.

Mark Turmell (one of the designers) has also claimed in video interviews that he's done it too.

Yeah MJT seems like a cool cat! Studied directly Jarvis himself, IIRC, who taught him that, white it was good he'd created a Cool Thing, he needed to make said Cool Thing happen x100 more often and at twice the volume, hence Mutoid Man's neck stump spewing an unbroken stream of new heads. NO WAYYY :O

I stand corrected... found this apparently legit Smash TV 1cc, and he does indeed finish with a thick stack of lives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLeL6ONPNiw

Aha, that's the one I found too. By The Pro of MARP, quite the chap it seems.

I will try to hunt down some commentaries, like this one with BBH (from before he'd nailed the Total Carnage 1CC ), re: TC's sneakily-vanishing Invincible Frames On Bomb.

Said timed mechanic making me think of Namco's topdown arena STG Grobda, whose bitesized BATTLINGS operate on an entire "shadow economy" of player buffs / enemy debuffs, limited to their opening ten seconds. Player NRG Recharge UP / Enemy Speed DOWN / Player Shield Strength UP / Enemy Shield DOWN, etc. All totally unannounced and un-timered. Once that grace period is up? Things get a lot harder on them BATTLING streets! You better carpe diem, motherfucker, or else face a punishing slog to victory, assuming you survive at all

And it hit me, contrasting the Midway and Namco games... Grobda by default has two extra lives, no extends, no continues, and ch-ch-ch-checkpoint restarts The fuckin balls on that Endo prick! Still became quite the hit - A Reminiscence of Grobda. Two diametrically differing schools of hardcore design.

I wish Midway's games had someone like Hamster producing reference-standard translations for modern console, playtested by OG arcade vets, like ACA Grobda. 3; I'd snap 'em all up right now. For more than a dollar, even!

Arcade version looks easier than the Megadrive version.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

At least he didn't say SFC VER (comfy joint! still pretty tough, certainly by console standards, but sensibly toned down; I imagine a 1LC would be easier than an arcade 1CC)

[Jeneki]

Out of curiosity, how much does pinball cost to play in everyone's local area these days?

There's a local bar I visit with a buddy that uses one of those stupid card systems. You get around 3 plays for $20US, so over $6 per credit. I know pinball has a lot of maintenance involved but dayum.

Even the local "pay once at the door and then all arcade cabs are free" place still charges $1 for pinball after the cover fee.

[Air Master Burst]

Out of curiosity, how much does pinball cost to play in everyone's local area these days?

There's a local bar I visit with a buddy that uses one of those stupid card systems. You get around 3 plays for $20US, so over $6 per credit. I know pinball has a lot of maintenance involved but dayum.

Even the local "pay once at the door and then all arcade cabs are free" place still charges $1 for pinball after the cover fee.

The local axe-throwing/go-kart/arcade bar doesn't charge more than 50 cents a play for pinball and they have a pretty decent selection of tables. No cover charge, either.

Sadly, their arcade game selection is kinda lacking (way too many mounted light gun shooters and no fighters or shmups).

ETA: They do also use the stupid card system instead of quarters as god and nature intended, but the prices aren't bad.

[BryanM]

You get around 3 plays for $20US, so over $6 per credit.

Jesus christ.

I know it's the apocalypse, but you'd think they'd ease up on the atrocities on some fronts.

That ain't right.

[Steven]

I wish I could find some damn pinball here. It's like it doesn't exist at all here and it's really weird. Maybe nobody in Japan aside from the dude that made Slap Fight MD cares about pinball, and the only reason I know he likes pinball is because his company's URL is literally pinball.co.jp.

And he hasn't updated it since 2017. Great.

[cfx]

OT, I miss interesting videogame pinball. There's those things now that are recreations of real tables and they're probably interesting though I've never played one.

But KAZe on Saturn were awesome, and I miss that.

As far as real pinball, there isn't anything anywhere near me. I probably haven't seen a real table in over 20 years.

[BrianC]

Out of curiosity, how much does pinball cost to play in everyone's local area these days?

There's a local bar I visit with a buddy that uses one of those stupid card systems. You get around 3 plays for $20US, so over $6 per credit. I know pinball has a lot of maintenance involved but dayum.

Even the local "pay once at the door and then all arcade cabs are free" place still charges $1 for pinball after the cover fee.

yikes. The arcade I go to in MD (Crab Towne USA) has some nice pinballs and they range from 25 to 75 cents. Earlier ones are 25, 90s are 50, and newer ones are 75 IIRC. Just quarters, no card. I haven't been to that barcade in Annapolis yet, so I don't know how much they charge. Solid arcade line up at Crab Towne, but I find I prefer Sanwas to the controls there (Stiff diagonals on those Happ joysticks). My favorite stick there was that 8 way one on Gyruss. Those leaf switch on a few older games are alright, but feel more like some of those Atari 2600 sticks or the NES advantage. Nintendo stick is small, but I managed to get all the way to my usual sticking port in Vs. SMB (5-2, very tough without a mushroom), though I have gotten past it before. I wish Assault was still there. Fun game with those twin sticks. Nice seeing the Midway Mappy cab again. Fun game and haven't seen that cab in ages.

[null1024]

I live nearish to the Silverball Museum, which is $20 at most for an all day pass with re-entry, all games rigged up with a button in place of the coin slot.
It's been a while since I've been down to Arcade Odyssey way down in Miami, but last I saw, they were like 2-4 tokens/play ($1 got you 3 tokens). I think they recently switched to swipe cards, so my numbers could be wrong there.

$6/credit is nuts.

[blackoak]

I wish I could find some damn pinball here. It's like it doesn't exist at all here and it's really weird.

Same here. Did Japan ever have a notable pinball scene? I've read lots about the history of early electro-mechanicals in the interviews I've translated, but I never really hear pinball get mentioned...

[Steven]

I wish I could find some damn pinball here. It's like it doesn't exist at all here and it's really weird.

Same here. Did Japan ever have a notable pinball scene? I've read lots about the history of early electro-mechanicals in the interviews I've translated, but I never really hear pinball get mentioned...

I am starting to think that pinball more or less never really existed here for some reason. I am going to Mikado today, so I'll ask the owner about pinball if I can find him. He knows pretty much everything about Japanese arcade history and I can't think of a better person to ask than him. He wasn't there the last few times I was there, so hopefully he is there this time.

[qmish]

From what I've read on the Reddit...

1.

If you are looking for More retro machines, The Showa Shoutengai at Odaiba Decks has a bunch of machines (And Pinball!) from Showa / Early Heisei period.

2.

The Silver Ball Planet. More than 100 machines starting at 10 yen (about 10 cents) per play. Looks awesome.

silver ball planet is my favorite place in Osaka

3.

Pinball at Natsuge Museum in Shinjuku City, Tokyo

p.s.

Also I wonder if anything from here is still viable.
http://www.tea-works.com/pl/

[Steven]

Well, I went to Mikado and he wasn't there again. Some absolutely crazy motherfucker called AAAAAA managed to get a score of over 12,000,000 on Kyuukyoku Tiger, though, which was pretty cool to see. I didn't actually get to see it, though, just on the high score table thing.

Will attempt again tomorrow because I need to talk to the owner dude about other stuff (he wants to stream Toaplan games with me. That will be interesting, but we have to schedule it first and stuff), but I know that Natsuge has pinball because Mikado had a pinball event at Natsuge today. I didn't see any pinball at Mikado, though.

[Rastan78]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kbzxjy/ ... all-arcade

Here's an older article about pinball in Japan. It doesn't sound like it ever really caught on there outside of a few boutique places that imported machines from the west.

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

When I read that type of comment, it always comes across as dismissive of a style of game they don't like and know nothing about really, probably never played an arcade game seriously, if at all, and only like typical western "AAA" games.

it'z awesome getting mad abOut a fabricated abstraction cooked up by yOur imagination, huh =D

anyway, yOu had to drop a quarter into a machine to play it and needed to enter anOther quarter in order to continuing plAying. it'z design is a trade-off for the plAyer in skill develOpment payoff while the arcade owner has an economic pAyoff. it hElped keep arcades in business. it'z nOt like tHat'z a bad thing. tHat'z just how they were played =x

So it's both, I think. It's fair to be pissed at those comments because those making them most likely don't know any of the games well enough to be doing anything but just dismissing something they see as too difficult.

lmfao
wtf dOes it even matter when you can play these games fOr fukken free on mame nOw?

[To Far Away Times]

I wish I could find some damn pinball here. It's like it doesn't exist at all here and it's really weird. Maybe nobody in Japan aside from the dude that made Slap Fight MD cares about pinball, and the only reason I know he likes pinball is because his company's URL is literally pinball.co.jp.

And he hasn't updated it since 2017. Great.

In Portland, OR we have a good amount of pinball and not a whole lot in the way of arcade machines. What arcades that are here are mostly the classic retro games.

Have to go to Washington to get to a Round 1 to play contemporary arcade games, and even then, it's almost all music games.

[Despatche]

It's mostly bullshit. The fact that it's only "mostly" is why you keep hearing it. Various replies already cover this.

The problem is that nobody is willing to make a distinction between "hard game that wants you to keep putting money into it to beat it (not credit feed it)", "bullshit impossible game that can only be 'beaten' by credit feeding", and "older game with no ending where your goal is to get as far on one credit as possible". As long as this is the case, you're going to continue to see people throw this horrible "quarter muncher" phrase around with impunity.

Oh, and this doesn't really need to be said, but anyone with sense would be better off spending 20000 yen to learn an arcade game, than to spend 20000 yen on a bunch of loaded dice rolls in some junk mobile game. Unfortunately, it's clear that not many out there have sense.

I wish I could find some damn pinball here. It's like it doesn't exist at all here and it's really weird.

Same here. Did Japan ever have a notable pinball scene? I've read lots about the history of early electro-mechanicals in the interviews I've translated, but I never really hear pinball get mentioned...

As far as I can tell, there just seemed to be a small crowd of folks over in Japan who thought pinball is the coolest thing ever. I get the feeling this came about from some business trip to the States.

I'd like very much to go to Silver Ball Planet. It's such a shame that video games and pinball have always had to oppose each other, even when the same people were doing both. Pinball deserves better.

[Sumez]

In Portland, OR we have a good amount of pinball and not a whole lot in the way of arcade machines. What arcades that are here are mostly the classic retro games.

This can't be. When I was in Portland we visited an arcade there, which was by far the largest modern day arcade I've ever seen, they had a ton of cabinets, and a ton of pinball tables too, everything split into like five or more rooms, some of them in multiple levels. I can't remember its name, but if you live there I'd assume you're aware of it. The place was massive!
Their TGM3 cab was in complete disarray though, but at least they actually had TGM.

[BryanM]

than to spend 20000 yen on a bunch of loaded dice rolls in some junk mobile game.

>95% of the players of such games spend $0.

~3-4% only pay the monthly subscription service of $5.

~<1% spend the scam prices. No one besides addicts and richers is expected to whale.

The two markets are completely different. A dedicated player of an old style arcade game may put in one or two hundred hours into one game. A dedicated incremental player will stick around for two years on average.

Modern arcade games are wonderful frankenstein's monsters of the two. At least they got the memo that current standards require lots of content.

The two issues of arcade games are the same as ever: Value in being given a privilege to play is low in the modern age, as is the novelty. Maybe some people can watch an infinite number of Batman movies or play an infinite number of Street Fighter 2 reskins, but most have some threshold where they get bored.

Like I always say, for someone to go to an arcade for the arcade's sake, and not as a side distraction while waiting for their food... it'd have to be some BS scifi full-dive kind of game. Where you play beach volleyball and wrestle, or something.

We really undervalue novelty in favor of mastery here. Not having to play the same stages in the same order every single time helps replays so much. Many games like Metal Slug 3 feel too damn long, and just wished they had a couple stages we didn't have to play through every run instead.

[null1024]

Pretty much the only times I see people go to an arcade for the games at this point are either a: old-heads who have been doing this for the last 25+ years and aren't ever going to stop [and many of them will play like one or two specific games], or b: rhythm game players [some are in the former category, but you do see a fair bit of new blood entering].

Really though, rhythm games are damn good value for money given the way most machines are configured [I've seen fewer and fewer machines configured to give you a game over, whether just for the song or eating your whole credit].
Your credit gets you like 7-10 minutes of guaranteed play, you get a large variety of songs to play, and a lot of games provide an experience you can't get at home due to the fancy control setups. Probably the absolute opposite of this thread's title.
Yeah, your credit outright cannot last as long as it could in a different genre of arcade game, but you know exactly what you're getting into and can also pick an experience that's just as difficult or easy as you'd like.

[Despatche]

>95% of the players of such games spend $0.

~3-4% only pay the monthly subscription service of $5.

~<1% spend the scam prices. No one besides addicts and richers is expected to whale.

Assuming these numbers are even accurate, and putting aside just how utterly large "less than 1%" actually is, how many people do you think are sitting down to master an arcade game?

A dedicated player of an old style arcade game may put in one or two hundred hours into one game.

There are games that cannot even be cleared with "one or two hundred hours" unless you're a literal god, let alone doing literally anything beyond that.

an infinite number of Street Fighter 2 reskins, but most have some threshold where they get bored.

Good thing this very specific subcategory of games all have the name "Street Fighter II" somewhere in them, then.

We really undervalue novelty in favor of mastery here. Not having to play the same stages in the same order every single time helps replays so much. Many games like Metal Slug 3 feel too damn long, and just wished they had a couple stages we didn't have to play through every run instead.

Nah, say no to false novelty. Stage select only works casually. Games are too complicated to make a stage select that doesn't have a "true path", unless you're prepared to devote x10000 more effort beyond "making a good game" towards something that will go unappreciated by literally everyone. The correct solution to Metal Slug 3 problems is to get rid of half of that shit, never mind that you're mostly talking about the ridiculous final stage anyway.

Like, I get it, you're trolling, but come on.

[BryanM]

how many people do you think are sitting down to master an arcade game?

There's a ton of hobbies to kill time with. None of them are inherently "better" than another. You're a paper clip maximizer. It's not intrinsically "worse" than any other way to kill time.

Nobody has time or unlimited brain matter to master every skill, and it's hard to begrudge someone who wants downtime and experiences from one of their side hobbies instead of pursuing bettering themselves in some useless (as measured by extrinsic motivations) way. Almost everything has better extrinsic value than playing video games.

Good thing this very specific subcategory of games all have the name "Street Fighter II" somewhere in them, then.

Nope, they have names like "Darkstalkers", "Melty Blood", "Dragon Ball FighterZ", "Granblue VS", etc. All the same game. Different coat of paint and some deck chairs moved around. A divergence of ~15% is incomparable to fighting games that are actually a different game, like Yie Ar Kung Fu or Smash.

Games are too complicated

Blast'em up are literally move and shoot. Platformers are "move to the right". Racers are "go around in a circle".

If different enemies, formations, music, platforms and art are "false novelty" then why have graphics or different games or anything at all.

Noiz2sa is fun for a while, but the "different" stages quickly become tiresome and blend together.

[Squire Grooktook]

Nope, they have names like "Darkstalkers", "Melty Blood", "Dragon Ball FighterZ", "Granblue VS", etc. All the same game.

They're pretty different.

I like a few Gaccha games because some of them have pretty nice stories. Been playing through Project Neural Cloud recently and it's honestly one of the most gripping pieces of science fiction I've enjoyed in a long time.

The better ones are basically just inheritors to Nitroplus style sci-fi/fantasy Visual Novels. Except the sex scenes are replaced with slot machines.

[BryanM]

In retrospect I'm definitely one of those old bastards only interested in a few old arcade games. I'll try something new sure, I'm not literally Kosmic who can only play one game 1000 million more times until the sun burns out and his body turns to ash, but what I'm actually invested in? Things I've already put time into.

Where can you go that's higher after something like Ketsui? Once local maxima has been hit, all you can do is find another hill to climb.

They're pretty different.

To about the extent that different breeds of dog are different. But only dogs within the same weight class; chihuahuas and huskies are way more different than that.

Darkstalkers especially just feels like a coat of paint tossed over it. I'm sure there's some minutiae where it differs, but the first game in that franchise really made me feel "Isn't this just Street Fighter 2?" to a degree none of the other Street Fighter 2 clones managed to match, not even the Alpha series...

The better ones are basically just inheritors to Nitroplus style sci-fi/fantasy Visual Novels. Except the sex scenes are replaced with slot machines.

They really can be any kind of game you'd want them to be, the profit incentive just wants them to be forever games that don't require constant active play if someone wants to take a break.

The Visual Novel story delivery system of billboards-on-backgrounds and enormous stacks of dialogue is really beloved by many, but I've come to loathe it over the years for an enormous number of reasons that I could probably turn into an entire small webnovel. It probably works fine in a game where it's the actual game.

(I'm obligated to always bring up Kaden Shojo as the Sonichu of doomed mobile games. They weren't offering up much there. Kind of the anti-ArKnights.)

[Squire Grooktook]

To about the extent that different breeds of dog are different. But only dogs within the same weight class; chihuahuas and huskies are way more different than that.

Darkstalkers especially just feels like a coat of paint tossed over it. I'm sure there's some minutiae where it differs, but the first game in that franchise really made me feel "Isn't this just Street Fighter 2?" to a degree none of the other Street Fighter 2 clones managed to match, not even the Alpha series...

Maybe if you're only familiar with the first Darkstalkers (though even for the first game, having one of the first ever true chain combo system is a pretty huge deal in the evolution of the genre, even if the rest of the game otherwise is just a more experimental SF Alpha in a lot of ways). Vampire Savior (the third game) is a pretty wildly different game from almost anything that came before it, and that created many of the crazier concepts that games like Guilty Gear and Marvel would run with. Chain combos, air dashing, characters having unique transformation mechanics that allow them to split in two or fly around the screen as if they had shmup controls, etc.

Speaking of, I can understand the "breeds of dog" if you're specifically talking about more grounded games like SF2 vs King of Fighters (and newer titles that seek to deliberately return to that style, IE Granblue Vs): a normie not seeing the difference between the two at a surface glance (and to be sure these games play radically different if you're...you know...playing them) is understandable in the same way Grandma confusing Star Wars and Star Trek. However the later breeds of "CUHRAZY" games like Marvel Vs Capcom, Guilty Gear, etc. where characters are dashing in mid air at mach 9 and teleporting around the screen while doing 90 hit combos are about as easy to distinguish from the older breed as an alligator is from poodle. I'm pretty sure that even back when I was a relative stranger to the genre, I would've been able to tell at a glance that these two styles are radically different from eachother.

[To Far Away Times]

In Portland, OR we have a good amount of pinball and not a whole lot in the way of arcade machines. What arcades that are here are mostly the classic retro games.

This can't be. When I was in Portland we visited an arcade there, which was by far the largest modern day arcade I've ever seen, they had a ton of cabinets, and a ton of pinball tables too, everything split into like five or more rooms, some of them in multiple levels. I can't remember its name, but if you live there I'd assume you're aware of it. The place was massive!
Their TGM3 cab was in complete disarray though, but at least they actually had TGM.

Probably Ground Kontrol, I'm guessing?

Probably the best "bar cade" that I've been to. They brew their own beer, and its good enough that you can find it everywhere around here in grocery stores, bars, etc... It's a wonderful arcade, with all the fancy lighting and cool atmosphere, but its very retro focused, imo.

[Sumez]

Yes, that was the one!