100 yen: New arcade documentry in the works

[TrevHead (TVR)]

http://www.indiegogo.com/100Yen

I thought i would just point u guys to this project thats in the works to make a documentry about the arcades in Japan. Theres a trailer vid on the site. I dont kinow when its going to be made as they need some funding first.

[JAPJAC]

Thank you for the heads up. One of the best things about living in Japan is her arcades. This documentary has a lot of potential and I would really like to see it be made and made properly. His book on Japanese game centers was pretty awful though but I will give this the benefit of the doubt. Good luck to them. Cheers.

[drunken starsailor]

Whatever money we raise will be used to pay for travel/accommodation expenses, if we do not reach our goal we will explore other means of fund-raising/use our own funds, to return to Japan.

lol. You idiots should be doing that anyway. If you really wanted to go to Japan bad enough, you would save your own damn money.

Oh wait, but it gets better!

$9000 will supply my crew

They can suck my balls.

And their documentary will most likely suck too. "There is something about walking into a game room, sitting down at a cabinet, and knowing that on the other side, there is a real person." Fail. Yeah because when I sit down at a beautiful Egret 2 machine to play Dodonpachi DOJ, the first thing I think about is the person in the cab opposite myself.

Give it up, guys. The shtick is up. We know you couldn't give a rat's ass about arcade gaming. Leave the commentary for the experts. Everyone is laughing at you.

[Taylor]

When people talk about the person on the other side of the cabinet they mean your opponent in versus games. Which is a valid, if banal, point.

[drunken starsailor]

The banality is why he sounds so stupid and unqualified to cover this subject matter.

I mean look at this shit,

You can go to Akihabara and see basically a museum of games like that...(duuuurr *saliva drips from his mouth) ...how they regressed.

Fuck you, asshole. Take two seconds to look up the word "regressed" in a dictionary for God's sake (not like it would do you any good, as you lack a brain to understand what it means). Those "regressed" games are the best fucking games of the genre -- games which if you spent a good couple of hours playing -- not credit feeding -- with improving your playing being in the forefront of your mind throughout -- then maybe you would understand them better. Until then just stop talking about them. You'll save yourself a lot of embarrassment that way.

You are a regression; a regression of the human race.

[Ed Oscuro]

Damn son, you mad?

Not really sure what the point is. Yeah, I don't feel like donating tons to JAPJAC here but if he wants to make a movie I say let him. (By the way, if anybody is interested, $9000 will cover me getting most of the way to a EOS 1D Mark IV and a 200mm IS USM II lens! Who wants to chip in?)

And I think what he's saying in the line you've quoted is that he feels that Japanese gaming regressed from cooperative arcade experiences to people at home, alone, yelling into 360 headsets and/or fapping to Two Who and Nier pr0jnz. Which may be a perfectly valid viewpoint according to many shooter game fans!

I would agree that it's a rather mean-spirited thing to say when talking about gaming...but then again obviously I don't spend enough time in the "Japanese gaming is dead" style threads. (Then again I don't see JAPJAC starting or maintaining flame wars.)

So, in closing...

*discreetly puts the meds on starsailor's tongue when nobody is looking*

What are my concerns with the project? Well, simply put, nothing is quite as exciting as playing games, not even watching other people play games, and talk about them, unless it's a classically-trained Shakespearean actor who's doing the talking, like William Shatner or Sir Pat Stewart, who incidentally are both very different types of people (and Starfleet Captains) but who both will likely look down on you with a barely restrained sense of loathing when you try to convince them that being on the wrong end of the screen makes you a star. And then the Shat will have a big guy stuff you in a suitcase and throw you off one of those neon skyscrapers.

When I think "Japanese Gaming Culture!" I think of this. Perhaps it's far too negative. But I don't see a row of arcade seats and think "oh wow, look at all the culture!" I think of a bunch of smelly folks and wonder where the restroom is. Perhaps this is unjustified but I think that you've got to balance the good and the bad to be respectable in my view (yeah, too much of the journalist in me, not so much the pom-pom swinging cheerleader for hopeless causes like trying to revive dead industries). And I don't mean "Daigo shenanigans = DRAMA = JOURNALISM!" either. (This is not a specific criticism of the trailer, which I can't hear right now because I'm in the process of sorting out sound on this new PC build, but mainly anticipating a particular direction I think that this "documentary" could take, which other documentaries have taken in the past. But people do like the drama. See Nier, again.

Also, obligatory "fuck you" to Ashcraft just because he's part of the evil Gawker Media empire. Damn, that's not gonna cut it for my hate cred. Well, gotta try something to hang tough with this crowd.

[JAPJAC]

Yeah, I don't feel like donating tons to JAPJAC here but if he wants to make a movie I say let him.

You've done badly. I have nothing to do with this 'movie'.

Ashcraft is a sex pest from what I read from him. Obsessed. His Mrs must be a grenade then.

[drunken starsailor]

What are my concerns with the project? Blah blah blah.

It seems you have the posting mindset of "the more nonsensical assertions I type, the more my post makes sense". In the world of conversation, stuff like this is unhelpful to anyone. No one can understand what you are saying. Someone foolish enough to be fooled by your assertiveness would reply to you with more nonsense, and so on, and so forth until this thread is filled with entire pages worth of bullshit (those threads are popular here, btw) -- which is why I will now do the honors of debunking your post to prevent that from happening once more.

The following paragraph is complete nonsense, so I won't even go into it.

Not really sure what the point is.

Are you serious? It is bleeding obvious that these guys know as much about arcade games as my dog knows about marksmanship: goose egg. But judging from your post it seems that this distinction is lost on you.

When I think "Japanese gaming culture!" I think of this.

I was not talking about "Japanese gaming culture" regressing; I was knocking that idiot at the end of the video for saying Japanese STGs have "regressed".

Well, gotta try something to hang tough with this crowd.

Ah, here lies the problem: you speak for "the crowd". Wouldn't you want to speak for someone else? Yourself, perhaps?

[GaijinPunch]

One of the best things about living in Japan is her arcades. .

Japan is male.

[dcharlie]

there has to be scope for making a JPN based one ?

the problem seems to be paying to have X people here for XXX hours time here - i can see why a $9000 investment without sponsorship is a big risk, but i also don't see how a mildly faked IMDB entry with your name on it helps (though the signed joystick may draw some interest)

[Ed Oscuro]

(This is not a specific criticism of the trailer, which I can't hear right now because I'm in the process of sorting out sound on this new PC build, but mainly anticipating a particular direction I think that this "documentary" could take, which other documentaries have taken in the past. But people do like the drama. See Nier, again.

)

Quoted for mutual profit, because some lovable cuss CAN'T (or doesn't) FUCKING READ.

So sorry that my admittedly slapdash and imprecise reading of the particular failures of this project are a source of great inconvenience, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

I've got to say, it's always amusingly disconcerting to walk in on somebody having a conversation with a blank wall. It's like you're yelling at your own television, starsailor, because dollars to dimes the guy isn't here, taking notice of your criticisms; even if he is he most assuredly doesn't care. Reading through things again - JAPJAC's mention of the guy putting out a subpar book before would be evidence towards this guy being a repeat offender.

Apologies for assuming you were speaking about yourself in the third person, JAPJAC, I just blame the videography for looking oddly familiar.

And speaking of speaking for oneself, it's a damn shame. All of it. This entire thread, for a start. Well, I'll grant GP made it all worthwhile, just about.

[JAPJAC]

Apologies for assuming you were speaking about yourself in the third person, JAPJAC, I just blame the videography for looking oddly familiar.

The JAPJAC is fully accepting with your apology that you was given.

[GaijinPunch]

there has to be scope for making a JPN based one ?

I'd have to see a serious outline of what they're hoping to achieve by coming here. That's to say, why would anyone want a documentary on the current state of arcades in Japan? Print Club and other bullshit is probably more profitable than games. Any one directing a documentary should first read It Started With Pong and then go from there. It is an amazingly dense book, and has more info on plenty of companies' early days, exceeding that which can be found on Wikipedia (E or J). I'd highly recommend nobody give any money unless someone on the team was familiar w/ this or this level of information. Then, it'd be nice to know how they'll address in the time that's lapsed between the books publication and now.

Second, they should dig up as many statistics as they can on how many game centers are currently running throughout the country. This would be hard, but possible.

Third, do they have a native speaker on their production team? Waste of time w/o one.

[cools]

Dude needs to learn to enunciate "progressed".

[dcharlie]

I'd have to see a serious outline of what they're hoping to achieve by coming here. That's to say, why would anyone want a documentary on the current state of arcades in Japan? Print Club and other bullshit is probably more profitable than games. Any one directing a documentary should first read It Started With Pong and then go from there. It is an amazingly dense book, and has more info on plenty of companies' early days, exceeding that which can be found on Wikipedia (E or J). I'd highly recommend nobody give any money unless someone on the team was familiar w/ this or this level of information. Then, it'd be nice to know how they'll address in the time that's lapsed between the books publication and now.

Second, they should dig up as many statistics as they can on how many game centers are currently running throughout the country. This would be hard, but possible.

Third, do they have a native speaker on their production team? Waste of time w/o one.

well, i meant that there has to be at least some level of expertese here in Japan that would negate the need for a team to have to come over to produce the article (given the costs are the main blocker) . As you (and others) have mentioned , the historical view of where arcades were, how they've changed, where we are now is the interesting part, but the current arcade scene on it's own isn't that great of a story - infact, it's pretty depressing but acts an an interesting closer.

[Magic Knight]

This seems more a case of a programme about "Arcades in Akihabara and Shinjuku, plus some other big places" rather than Japan as a whole. As GP and dcharlie have also said, I'm not sure what the point is, the arcades I have local to me are depressing, and all the money is in purikura and other rubbish.

I was looking through some old Gamest magazines from the 80's yesterday. Compare them to the latest issues of Arcadia, and that's documentary evidence for how the scene is.

[Taylor]

My problem with it is there's no concrete theme underpinning it. There’s no point in a documentary that says arcades exist and runs some jump cuts of games being played to Kotaku-affiliated talking-heads talking, with their heads, about how they exist. The only people interested in this will be enthusiasts who are probably above this level of understanding.

And why is every single reference Street Fighter 4 and Diago? If you’ve been inside a big arcade in Japan you’ll know comparatively it’s not actually that popular. There’s a reason Mikado has twelve Guilty Gear cabinets and only two Street Fighter 4 ones; they have taste. Rather than just playing to expectations, maybe highlight the vast amounts of other games that get played when you walk into a big arcade like Hey, which might even help expose these games to the homogenised western fighting game scenes. Like some kind of documentary.

Maybe show how most ‘arcades’ in Japan are crane machines and photo booths, and stop perpetuating the myth otherwise by showing, exclusively, Candy Cabs and bespoke rhythm games? Perhaps look into why this is happening? Why not expose Capcom's monopolising game pricing, their upcoming credit tax, and talk to arcade operators about it? Focus on the communities that exist in a place like Mikado and show how this turns them into really good players? Add some drama or human interest?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I think the video is targeted at the mainsteam gamer who is allot less knowledgable about the Japanese arcades then the denizens of this forum who all live and breath japanese arcade games

[Skykid]

Fuck that Ashcraft asshead, he just flogged his poorly written arcade book all over the place, he can pay $9k from his pocket. Jeez.

[Taylor]

I think the video is targeted at the mainsteam gamer who is allot less knowledgable about the Japanese arcades then the denizens of this forum who all live and breath japanese arcade games

Okay, maybe. It all stands tho'.

[GaijinPunch]

Maybe I should fund my own. I actually know a few film-makers here.

[Ganelon]

And why is every single reference Street Fighter 4 and Diago? If you’ve been inside a big arcade in Japan you’ll know comparatively it’s not actually that popular. There’s a reason Mikado has twelve Guilty Gear cabinets and only two Street Fighter 4 ones; they have taste.

Well, it's true that SF4 is on the bottom of Arcadia's top 10 poll now (and is likely dead at the moment with SSF4 at the doorsteps) but Mikado isn't a fair representation when it's mainly populated by GG and 3S players. Big Box has been the main hub for SF4 play.

GP: Do it! It would also be cool if folks have videos/pictures of JP arcades in the early 90s. I'd be curious to see how many people they had at that time compared to now.

[Taylor]

Well, it was only ever mid of the table, except for when it had just come out. I guess the point was more that they play a lot of different games, and it came out wrong because of my own huge bias.

Big Box was cool because the shmups are only 50yen and it was the only place I could find with Progear without travelling to Akiba. Then after I hit the loop they replaced it with Ninja Turtles... :(

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Then after I hit the loop they replaced it with Ninja Turtles...

Was that as far as you were aiming to get? I think it was good of them to atleast keep it in untill you could loop it

As for a GP sponsered video that would totally rock as atleast we know you have good tastes

[Lordstar]

If you can better the book that one of the kotaku guys came out with then I will give it a watch.I suspect you would want me to buy this on DVD or DL right? So i dont really see why I would give my cash to a stranger so he can chase down his passion. Go get a loan from the bank dude if your that serious about it. Good luck

HAHA oh god i saw that too I thought Her? Naaah JP is such a fucking boy. . . Sitting alone on the table studying and working hard sure they can do a job but they have little to know people skills its any wonder how they manage to get laid (if ever)

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Im not sure who Lordstars talking too but if it was me then I have bugger all to do with the vid i was just bringing it to ppls attention. If it wasnt aimed at me then forget i said anything and this post will self destruct in 5 seconds

[sven666]

bump, movie is near completion, i just placed my order!

ed: i really hope japjac is in it, that would rock!

JAPJAC FANCLUB NO:1

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Makes me wonder if the 100 Yen staff will show this documentary at the upcoming 2012 California Extreme? A Q&A session would be ace as well.

1983 Joysticks Factoid time:

At the past 2010 CAX show, there were two special guest appearances by the director himself + actor Jim Greenleaf from the 1983 film, Joysticks. With a $300,000 USD production budget that the director put up himself, initial filming was completed (took three weeks from start to end) in 1982 & a nationwide release in 1983. It was the #1 movie at the U.S. film box office during it's run. Absolutely no deviations from the script were made (otherwise, it would've ran into overbudget issues according to the director).

Principle shooting was done in the LA area.

The inside arcade scenes were done inside a converted warehouse + all arcade cabs featured in the film, were rented from local arcade distributors in the Los Angeles area.

To get around the copyright IPs, the director asked the arcade game manufactuers to film their arcade games for free without monetary compensation in return. They agreed to this condition as it was considered free advertising for them anyways. Plus the director fessed up that he didn't have any extra $$$ for copyright clearances.

Bally Midway MFG Co. agreed to have it's latest Pac-Man arcade sequel, Super Pac-Man, filmed to better promote it (a very wise decision on their part indeed).

To this day, Joysticks is the only indy produced theaterical movie to cash in on the Golden Age of the Arcades fad/craze during that era.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[z0mbie90]

bump, movie is near completion, i just placed my order!

ed: i really hope japjac is in it, that would rock!

JAPJAC FANCLUB NO:1

Need to place an order to, looks awesome. btw where is this JAPJAC guy?

[Skykid]

Need to place an order to, looks awesome. btw where is this JAPJAC guy?

In a pram somewhere throwing his toys all over the sidewalk.