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Japanese arcade
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Dreamwriter:
I read somewhere that there are around 8000 arcades in Japan...and only 2000 in the US.  Ones in the US are few and far between, they aren't just "evolved", they are dead.  The big ones still manage to survive, but those are rare even among the 2000 - Gameworks, for example, there are only 14 in the US.  Most people don't live anywhere near any arcade at all anymore, unlike Japan.  And they are still dying - there was an awesome place near me, Illusionz, an arcade+minigolf+lasertag+rock climbing+magic shows, far enough away from Gameworks they should have had plenty of business, but they died at the end of 2006.
Crowquill:

--- Quote from: Dreamwriter on July 01, 2007, 03:19:46 pm ---I read somewhere that there are around 8000 arcades in Japan...and only 2000 in the US.  Ones in the US are few and far between, they aren't just "evolved", they are dead.  The big ones still manage to survive, but those are rare even among the 2000 - Gameworks, for example, there are only 14 in the US.  Most people don't live anywhere near any arcade at all anymore, unlike Japan.  And they are still dying - there was an awesome place near me, Illusionz, an arcade+minigolf+lasertag+rock climbing+magic shows, far enough away from Gameworks they should have had plenty of business, but they died at the end of 2006.

--- End quote ---

I guess I should clarify. By "evolved" I meant "doing whatever they could to survive". I thought the initial post was implying that arcades do not exist at all. There are only a few companies still releasing games (Sega/Sammy, Namco, Konami, Raw Thrills, EA, IT, maybe a few more), Only Stern is remaining for Pinball. I'm not the biggest advocate of GameWorks and D&B. They're big and expensive and have nothing but giant super-deluxe games. But I do like to play games and that's where to find the most games. I find it a bit depressing not just that the game market died out, but also that traditional cabinets died out. It's rediculously hard to find an arcade anymore that has rows of cabinets lining the walls. I can only think of 4 games that they have in all of gameworks that use traditional joysticks (Tekken 5, Madden, Virtua Tennis, and a Frogger that's meant for kids). I need to stop. I'm depressing myself. I need to go play Robotron.
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