I’ve said it before, I think motivation is the key. I think there’s a subset of people here that grew up with arcade cabinets, have fun memories of them, and want to re-create that part of their youth, and I think there’s another subset that just wants a badass gaming machine for the man cave. I’m not saying one is more right than the other, but I think one group is probably looking for authenticity, and the other one just wants cheap, fast and flashy. Cheap fast and flashy leads to copycatting, and that’s why I think we haven’t seen any real Innovation.
It is what it is. I’ve worked on many projects over the years that I really haven’t felt motivated to post here because quite frankly, they fall more in the restoration category than anything else, and I just don’t think people aren’t that interested here in restoration. Which is sad, because this board ends up getting a bad rap on places like KLOV, because they think we’re all about LEDs and monster control panels. Sure, some people are, but not all of us. I’ve got 3 projects in the queue and haven’t posted anything on any of them.
So to answer your question, Lew, I think we’re not seeing much innovation because people aren’t feeling a need to be particularly innovative. They just want an end product that they can stick in the cave and play with/impress their buddies. I think the reason why you see Flynn’s Arcade copycatted so much is because he uses off-the-shelf products (like a large screen TV, not a scary, bulky old CRT), it’s extremely well-documented so it’s a lot of virtual handholding going on, and it’s four players so people think it’s party machine. Again, not pointing fingers or anything like that, but that’s why I think it’s so widely copied. I’m glad to see guys like Arroyo using it as a source of inspiration as opposed to straight cloning it.