Why Arcades have failed

[DEL]

The smaller ones will have some type of print club floor or something to get the hos in and spending the money they make from smoking pole or whatever it is young women do for work.

[D]

The smaller ones will have some type of print club floor or something to get the hos in and spending the money they make from smoking pole or whatever it is young women do for work.

What?

I wonder what gajinpunch's take is on how mature women get their money. Ye shall Enlighten us, harrrrrrr.

[Hannah Kim]

The local arcades around here in the Modesto, CA area are either serviced and maintained by Patton Vending Co. or another local arcade vending company. They make their local rounds of emptying out the arcade/pinball machines and restocking the money changer/token machines. Profits are split 50/50 between the said arcade operator/street location route and the arcade distributor. So if said local arcade has the newest arcade machine, he or she will only see 50% of profits (unless he or she owns the said arcade machine -- then will he or she claim 100% of the profits).

Once, I called up Patton Vending Co. to inquire about buying an arcade Jamma PCB from them and the reply back was: Sir, we only sell the full-sized arcade cabinet with the said arcade PCB in it. (So it isn't possible to buy just a lone PCB from them which sucks big time but that's the way they do business). I told the secretary that I really didn't have the room or space for such an arcade cabinet but just wanted the PCB but she wouldn't sell it as a "barebones" PCB. And I asked how much for the said arcade cab with said PCB inside it -- $400.00 USD was the selling price. I politely declined the offer... ^_~

Plus the fact that I've noticed that all the arcade and pinball machines are funneled through C.A. Robinson & Co. (based in Southern CA) before being distributed throughout the Western part of the USA (CA, OR and WA areas).

And are there still USA arcade trade shows like the AMOA and what not these days? (I do recall that they were strictly trade shows for those who work in the American arcade industry & the general public wasn't invited anyways...)

The small independent local arcades (at least in the Modesto, CA area) have vanished -- the last one closed it's doors back in March of 1998 due to losing it's rental lease. Gives you an idea of how long that type of business has been gone...and yet the youth complain that there's nothing to do around here.

I'd rather risk some $$$ to open up an state-of-art local independent arcade joint and see what happens...it's been said if your small business can survive the first five years in business, then you have nothing to worry about. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

I just want you to know that I am very thankful that I have read your post this day!
Hoping that I could read more post written by you for the next day!




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Vending Machine

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

PCEFX should start his own cult .

[captpain]

I would spend a massive amount of time at a well-stocked arcade within an hour or so drive. Unfortunately, no such arcade exists. It's a shame, the state of arcades in the States. I'd love to go somewhere to hang out with lots of actual arcade folks who enjoyed games which required serious skill to master... to actually leave my house and go to a fun hangout type spot and enjoy a hobby with friends. Oh well.

[neorichieb1971]

$30000 for Tekken 6 is ridiculous considering 1st world countries will have the game in homes by end of the year.

Agreed, Namco and co are just robbing poor villagers blind. Better put a PS3 conversion kit inside a lookalike cabinet. Seems much more profitable to me.

[GaijinPunch]

PCEFX should start his own cult .

I know it's a bot/spammer but I think it's classic that he/she/it picked one of PCEFX's rather informative arcade posts.

[kccttzj]

I'm surprised I missed this thread the first time around, lol. But, anyway...

I can't say for sure the actual status of arcades in the US, as I have very limited experience with any outside of those in my area. I agree that most arcades tend to house flashy dedicated cabinets and motion rides and all those stupid redemption games nowadays, but there are a lot of factors that have led them to this point.

I'm not even sure where to start, really...

One of the biggest issues I've encountered is the fact that developers typically don't have a gap between release for console and arcade anymore. There is a gap, but for the most part it's very limited. Soul Calibur III didn't even come out in the arcade until after the console release, and Soul Calibur IV didn't even come out for the arcade at all. Soul Calibur II was one of our top earning games for quite a while and the follow-ups for the arcade industry were very disappointing to say the least. And often times when they do release it for console, they have exclusive content and nobody wants to play at the arcade anymore.

A lot games haven't even been released in the US and the cost of importing isn't worth it. We considered Street Fighter IV, but by the time we'd purchase the machine at the price they were asking, it wouldn't have profitable, because the home version came out so shortly after. If the price goes down, it might still be worth purchasing, because it is Street Fighter and we do have a decent fighting game scene, but for now, we couldn't justify it.

In the case of Tekken 6... We have two machines, one 6.0 and one Bloodline Rebellion. The price was nowhere near $30,000. That was for the "deluxe" version, two cabinets - one for each player. Our machines cost us around $10,000, but add shipping and other added fees it was around $12,000 a piece. Granted, that's a lot of money, but our first machine more than made it's money back in about 3 months.

Fighters aside, a lot of developers don't even have arcade divisions in the US, and the ones that do... man, they don't know what they're talking about. I hate to say that, but I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people on the "inside" and they cannot answer my questions. There was one time in particular, where the guy like freaked out, because they were telling me about a game they might localize and I asked about the features and the importance of it having some of them. He had no idea. Just totally caught him off guard and said he'd find out right away. Even people high up that I know should know more, have no idea. They've lost touch with the real gamers and just go for the easiest out, or at least that's how it seems to me. I'm sure there are some people that do their best but they're probably not able to do much about it. Unfortunately this seems to lead to more focus on redemption/prize machines. Even the ones they do release are almost insulting when you look at how terrible it is compared to the console version.

A lot of companies also have this obsession with releasing dedicated cabinets that can't really be used for much else. We've had this problem as well. The game flops and we're stuck with a useless machine that's making no money and can't be turned into anything else.

I've also seen a lot of problems with maintenance. It seems like operators seem to care less and less about the condition of machines, or with the more advanced technology they lack the skill and/or staff to fix the problems. A lot of places I've been to also seem to not care so much about their more hardcore gamers as they are with mom and dad that come in willing to spend a ton of money because billy wants to ride the roller coaster simulator. Unfortunately, I don't think they seem the potential profit in the market of the more hardcore gamers.

I talk from a business standpoint, but also as a gamer. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can try to do something and make our place a little different. Do we have a lot of stupid redemption games and roller coaster sims? Sure, but at least I can try to make a bit of a difference by listening to the customers and trying to get what they want. I went through hell and back to get the Tekken 6 machine in terms of convincing the higher ups to purchase it, and 3am phone calls and emails to people all over the world trying to find kits, machines, cards, anything, lol. But we got it done, and we're seeing the benefit of that. I even keep the store open later certain nights all the players gather so they can get in some extra games since some of them can’t get out this way as often. Establishing a community is really important to keep the video games making money.

All right, rant done. =P

[captpain]

My local arcade would take a lot more of my money if they had decent, standard joystick-and-buttons games (which would be a lot cheaper for them to get and maintain, incidentally) instead of stupid-ass megacabinets that house boring games.

[Elixir]

Arcades aren't really dying here which is quite a surprise. There's even one in my own town, which has a bunch of DDR machines and Tekken 6. There's one in my city with about 200 different games including almost every SF and KoF, BlazBlue, KoF XII, TvC, Mushi Futari 1.5, Raiden 2, Raiden DX, Raiden Jet, Raiden 4, Zero Gunner 2, Gunbird 2, Pop'n 14, IIDX 7th, JuBeat, EZ2DJ, 8 head-to-head Daytona cabs, Initial D fourth and in the last month, Initial D fifth.

I've never been into arcades that much though, so I've only been to the town one maybe three times. I find them suspicious, grimey and pretty noisy. Most of the arcades like the one we have here locally are actually holes, and not really worth going to.

Companies like Namco, ECOLE and Cave are slowly draining the operators dry with their "updates" for games. It sucks, but that's the price you have to pay for being an arcade operator.

[captpain]

Arcades aren't really dying here which is quite a surprise. There's even one in my own town, which has a bunch of DDR machines and Tekken 6. There's one in my city with about 200 different games including almost every SF and KoF, BlazBlue, KoF XII, TvC, Mushi Futari 1.5, Raiden 2, Raiden DX, Raiden Jet, Raiden 4, Zero Gunner 2, Gunbird 2, Pop'n 14, IIDX 7th, JuBeat, EZ2DJ, 8 head-to-head Daytona cabs, Initial D fourth and in the last month, Initial D fifth.

I've never been into arcades that much though, so I've only been to the town one maybe three times. I find them suspicious, grimey and pretty noisy. Most of the arcades like the one we have here locally are actually holes, and not really worth going to.

Companies like Namco, ECOLE and Cave are slowly draining the operators dry with their "updates" for games. It sucks, but that's the price you have to pay for being an arcade operator.

Whereabouts are you, Elixir?

[Elixir]

Auckland, New Zealand. The arcade is called Yifan's. Here's a video.

[Aru-san]

Auckland, New Zealand. The arcade is called Yifan's. Here's a video.

DAMN, I wanna go to an arcade like that. Too bad there's hardly any arcades around here in America that's like what I just saw just now.

Personally, this is how I viewed the last arcade I went to (crap amusement park analogy included). It was a Cyber Quest just 2 floors underneath Red Hawk Casino, and boy, was it crap. The only thing I wasted my money on was OutRun 2 (paying 75 cents only to justify approx. 4 minutes of game time).

For some reason, it seems that arcade operators nowadays don't want you to make your money's worth. You can't really 1CC anything in most American arcades even if you so desperately wanted to because they only consist of thrill rides and ticket games. I guess this is what it takes for an American arcade to get a decent profit.

Not to mention that little kids who don't know any better would just trash the place and break arcade games all because they were just fucking up the machines AND their controls as if they were some damn toddler toy. Then the maintainence crew's too lazy to do anything about it. When they see that something is wrong with an arcade machine, they just slap an "out-of-order" sign and leave it at that. Proper maintainence is, IMHO, one way to keep profits racking, no matter WHAT arcade game because for every broken down arcade game that's left broken, YOU LOSE PROFITS YOU COULD HAVE EARNED.

I'm honestly thinking of bringing a post-it note packet, playing the arcade as usual, writing down SPECIFIC DETAILS as to what's wrong with the game (if there is any), and ways to fix it. I'll SLAP it on the arcade machine so that way the maintainence crew will at least have SOME idea to fix stuff up.

...

Then I'll laugh if they just end up taping the coin slots shut or slapping an out-of-order sign on the machine, not even taking into consideration the fix-ups that could occur. America these days....

[emphatic]

In Sweden, we have state controls with ridiculous fees just to have 1 cabinet. It's all because of greedy operators of course. They installed "slot machine" software into their cabinets, and as that's a state monopoly, arcade cabinets are more or less "outlawed".

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Could a traditional arcade complete with a mixture of classic and modern PCB titles along with up-to-date pinball tables (without those pesky prize redemption machines and ticket redemption ones) survive in the USA? That particular arcade would definitely cater to the hard-core arcade crowd. This above listed senario was typical of the American arcades back in the 1980s and into the 1990s. I used to patronize a local arcade like that and it didn't even have a snack bar whatsoever -- it was purely arcade games + pinball and no prize redemption/ticket spouting machines whatsoever. ^_~

The real reason why some arcade manufacturers resort to dedicated and highly specialized one-off cabinets is that it isn't available to play at home or on Mame emulation and thus the only way to play it is at the local arcade. So yeah, if said specialized cabinet bombs big time, then the profits aren't going to materialize anyways.

Ever notice with Bandai/Namco's Wangun Midnight: Maximum Tune arcade racing series (already at WM:MT 3 version), not a single one has ever been ported to a gaming console? Guess they want it to be regarded as a pure arcade racing experience as it was meant to be. So in order to play it properly, you'd have plunk down some serious $$$ for a two player sit-down cabinet setup. Is it time to open the wallet and charge the ol' credit card to do so? ^_~

Some street locations have consignment deals with the local arcade vendors, is cheaper than flat out buying the arcade games and if they aren't making any profit, said vendor removes it and puts another one in place. Check the newly installed arcade game to see if it's taking in any profit, make the all important decision to keep it on location for the time being. Said vendor is responsible for handling of all repairs/coin collection and related job duties. Of course, profits would be split 50/50 between said business and vendor. ^_~

You might recall that it was with the Chuckie E. Cheese franchise that started it all with the tickets for prizes redemption thing back in the early 1980s. Remember Jasper's General Country Store? You had to have "X" number of tickets to get a prize or money could buy the prize instead. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[ROBOTRON]

I miss the arcade seen....it was so exciting to hit a movie and then shoot over to Time Zone or The Electric Palace.

I'm afraid the arcade scene is finished for now. With lan gaming becoming so popular with machines equal or more powerful than any cab. Its too bad...unless someone comes up with an idea to make people get off their butts and go out to play, its a done deal.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I miss the arcade seen....it was so exciting to hit a movie and then shoot over to Time Zone or The Electric Palace.

I'm afraid the arcade scene is finished for now. With lan gaming becoming so popular with machines equal or more powerful than any cab. Its too bad...unless someone comes up with an idea to make people get off their butts and go out to play, its a done deal.

You'd still have to get off your ass if you want to play the latest offerings from Cave like with DDP-DFK PCB since you can't play it with lan gaming anyways. Has anybody seen DDP-DFK stocked at a local arcade business establishment in the USA? ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[gameoverDude]

I don't like when arcades try to be a "virtual amusement park". Roller coaster sims have to go. Stuff like Sky Pirates should be ditched too, and I don't really care for Out Run 2 SP SDX when the standard and regular DX version is every bit as good in gameplay. I know redemption games bring in money, but they could do with one half the number of RGs they have.

One Namco mall arcade (now closed, small loss though) started out nice in 2000 with stuff like Crisis Zone, TC2, etc. but later it ended up not having much more than redemption shit, old dated racers (i.e. Final Lap 2 instead of an Ace Driver game, Suzuka 8 Hours), Soul Calibur 2, and Tekken 4. Tekken 5, Time Crisis 3, 500 GP, and Warzaid did make brief appearances there however.

The only redemption games an arcade needs are Deal or no Deal, Solitaire Challenge (old, but not bad), a crane, and a skeeball alley IMO.

[quote=PCEFX] Remember Jasper's General Country Store? You had to have "X" number of tickets to get a prize or money could buy the prize instead. ^_~ [/quote]
Sounds like a good idea. You should be allowed to "Buy Out" part or even all of the ticket price with cash. The prizes should be sold for retail value if you choose to buy them out in cash. Really good prizes are so high priced they'd take years to save up tickets for- and you spend more than they're worth unless you are VERY lucky or skilled.

[dpful]

1. Risking some $$$ to open one up would simply be a magnanimous gesture with you being the Benefactor, unless you combined the business/arcade with slot machines or some other revenue gaining service to bolster up the lack of revenue coming from the vids.

if i had some undgodly amount of money, i'd do this. get a decent space, some nice japanese cabs, loaded with great games. and i'd have a membership program for entrance. with terms to protect my equipment, and i'd collect id's at the door.

when of my more pipe-ish dreams.

If _I_ had some ungodly amount of money, I'd do this. But have it set up so I can play in the comfort of my own home like the lazy North American I am. Wouldn't be open to the public, either. Not like the public would want to play nothing but shooters anyway.

That's what I've done

[captpain]

You'd still have to get off your ass if you want to play the latest offerings from Cave like with DDP-DFK PCB since you can't play it with lan gaming anyways. Has anybody seen DDP-DFK stocked at a local arcade business establishment in the USA? ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Hah, right next to the Galaga machine at the movie theater, right?

[Dave_K.]

Auckland, New Zealand. The arcade is called Yifan's. Here's a video.

Woah, I thought the exceleena blue's were pretty rare, and this arcade has row after row of them! Impressive.

[doctorx0079]

I miss the arcade seen....it was so exciting to hit a movie and then shoot over to Time Zone or The Electric Palace.

I'm afraid the arcade scene is finished for now. With lan gaming becoming so popular with machines equal or more powerful than any cab. Its too bad...unless someone comes up with an idea to make people get off their butts and go out to play, its a done deal.

Volumetric 3D displays will do it. Games using them are still a ways off but they are coming. You will see games using them and you won't be able to play them at home for quite a while.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I miss the arcade seen....it was so exciting to hit a movie and then shoot over to Time Zone or The Electric Palace.

I'm afraid the arcade scene is finished for now. With lan gaming becoming so popular with machines equal or more powerful than any cab. Its too bad...unless someone comes up with an idea to make people get off their butts and go out to play, its a done deal.

Volumetric 3D displays will do it. Games using them are still a ways off but they are coming. You will see games using them and you won't be able to play them at home for quite a while.

Talk about arcade exclusivsity with the highly specialized 3D display technologies...that would be something to look forward to. ^_~

[Twiddle]

I miss the arcade seen....it was so exciting to hit a movie and then shoot over to Time Zone or The Electric Palace.

I'm afraid the arcade scene is finished for now. With lan gaming becoming so popular with machines equal or more powerful than any cab. Its too bad...unless someone comes up with an idea to make people get off their butts and go out to play, its a done deal.

Volumetric 3D displays will do it. Games using them are still a ways off but they are coming. You will see games using them and you won't be able to play them at home for quite a while.

5 dollars a play