when will it die?

[jakejake28]

hey. i was thinking about how long the arcade industry will last, ie. how long till no more new arcades are being produced? what with consoles and the advent of emulation, its most surely dying, but how slowly? just wanna hear yer thoughts...

i personally think that no new arcades will be brought onto usa soil after 2005, and a few years later for the rest of the world, maybe 2010. as popular as they are, most companies realize that the arcade's do not bring in a quarter of the possible console profits.

just my quite a few cents

[DaveMMR]

I think the arcades are already dead.  You can no longer walk in with a pocket full of quarters like Brucker and Garicia did when they contracted Pac Man Fever.   Now it's a hassle.  Every arcade I go to requires you buy a card, and every game is pretty much at least a dollar to play on some crazy contraption.

It'll be soon when it's all filled with just some virtual reality version of a vanilla shooter.  

Oh well...

[Magnet_Eye]

I think the arcades are already dead.  You can no longer walk in with a pocket full of quarters like Brucker and Garicia did when they contracted Pac Man Fever.   Now it's a hassle.  Every arcade I go to requires you buy a card, and every game is pretty much at least a dollar to play on some crazy contraption.

It'll be soon when it's all filled with just some virtual reality version of a vanilla shooter.  

Oh well...

Dude, get real. When arcades first started all the adults at that time said similar things to you...like "to play on some crazy contraption." Sorry, but you are showing your age. To the 11 year olds, those "crazy contraptions" are the bomb! There is nothing to compare them to! So, please step back and think about it a bit first!

Though, I do have to say arcades are FAR FROM the way they used to be. Atmosphere and all. Arcades are drab. boring. redundant. I don't like them. Just my opinion, but I can see how some of the new games appeal to the younger crowd.

Anyway, when I was 11 (1981) all I had was the arcade. I didn't have an Xbox, or Playstation. So the rules have changed. Arcades are going away, BUT arcade games will always be around. In bars, movie theatres, etc. Those of thus that experienced the arcades of the 80's should feel proud. priviledged to have been there.

Besides, who knows what the future holds? A new type of mad virtual arcade experience? Something to make us all intreged, like the days when PONG arrived, or Pac-Man, or Space Invaders.....It was an amazing time. A revolution!

It will happen again.

 

[DaveMMR]

I wrote my original post when I came home drunk -- but I still stand by what I said.  Even after I "stepped back" for whatever reason.

I go to Jillian's a lot and that arcade is definately catered towards adults with deep pockets.  11 year olds need a pretty good job to have the same fun they could have had at the old arcades.   I even had to pay a BUCK for the Ms. Pac Man/Galaga reunion that gave you one life!  Some of these games may be fun to the younger crowd, but they're not putting that much money in.

Oh and here's another thing:  bars, movie theatres, et al. have no interest in keeping those games in working order.  I've must have lost enough quarters to claim a tax deduction on games that were broken (and still remain broken to this day).

And no, the arcade industry is not going to bounce back anytime soon.  Companies are focusing most of their attention on the home front, where there's billions of dollars to be made.  And when the next big game comes to the arcades, it'll just get ported perfectly to a home console (i.e. Crazy Taxi).

[tiggertoo]

Die!?!?

Never!

As long as each of us has a few cabs in the garage.

Hmmm....

Paint it black, put up some funky lights, hire some shady looking character to stand behind some bars handing out tokens.

Yeah! The Garagecade. I can smell it now. Mmmmm.

[zero-one]

Die!?!?

Never!

As long as each of us has a few cabs in the garage.

Hmmm....

Paint it black, put up some funky lights, hire some shady looking character to stand behind some bars handing out tokens.

Yeah! The Garagecade. I can smell it now. Mmmmm.

LOL!

I think the arcades as we remember them are dead already. It's very sad to have to _drive_ to your _local_ arcade that services a population of 300,000.

I think the video game machine industry was always screwed up. What was the point of selling a few thousand machines and not getting part of the revenue generated by these machines. There's way more money in developing software for the consoles.

Think about it; if arcades still existed as they once did this hobby wouldn't exist. The demand for it has grown with the decline of the arcades.

[shmokes]

I'm just waiting for Holodecks to be made.  They'll be way too expensive to have in your home in the beginning so you'll have to go to the arcades.  Holosuites will be nice too.

[paigeoliver]

Will arcade games ever fully die out? No of course not.

But, the industry is changing. The standard upright 19" cabinets with actual joysticks that us collectors like are already dead.

All it is these days are driving games and gun games and touchscreen countertops. Sure, there are other games, but that is the stuff that is getting all the play.

[TalkingOctopus]

There is a very large and pretty decent arcade near where I live in Ann Arbor.  Pin Ball Pete's!  It uses quarters and has an allright mixture of games.  Last time I went I played for an hour on a dollar.  It seems to be fairly crowded most of the time.

Unfortunately, I think that dedicated arcades may be slowly dying out but I think arcade games will always have a presence in other places like bars and bowling alleys.

[Magnet_Eye]

Have any of you been to Speilberg's Arcade? Um, they're called GAMEWORKS. I have been to the one in Seattle a few times. They have crazy games there! Also, a bunch of classics too.

There was this one game that you stand in an open area and kick/punch in thin air, and it can pick up your movements and the character on the screen does your moves! Weird stuff.

Also there's this one where you strap into a seat that moves vertically to different screens. There are four very large screens. You start at the bottom and shoot like crazy, if you are doing well the seat launches you upward to another level/screen to play on. You move up and down to these screens. It's fun as hell! It is 2 stories up. The arcade has 2 floors, but in the center of the upstairs is a hole where that game goes into. If that makes sense.

And lots of racing games where you sit in a car or on a motor bike, or a wave runner. They have lines of like 10 cars all networked to race.

Most of the games in GAMEWORKS are huge. They border on being rides actually. Check it out if there's one in your metropolitan area.

 

[DaveMMR]

Yeah I went to the one in Vegas and they had pretty much everything you mentioned.  I spent like 15 minutes playing Moon Patrol, and to their credit, it only cost me a quater!  

[Chris]

Arcade machines are just going to continue moving to things that are hard to do on a console like DDR, or use special, immersive hardware like Beach Head 2000, or are best played in a social environment, like Golden Tee Golf.  And as long as there are little kids who like cheesy toys there will be redemtion games.

So yeah, traditional joystick-and-buttons games could die out eventually, but every movie theatre I go to still has a game section packed with people, so someone's making money, even if it's not in a dedicated arcade...

Now, Pinball could be in real trouble...

--Chris