The Classic arcades of the 80s and 90s are dead or I am massively jaded?

[redsteakraw]

So a Dave & Busters recently opened by me and for those who don't know it is a chain of Barcades / Restaurant where you can take your kids out and drink alcoholic beverages(seriously there are tones of kids and parents drinking). Anyways what I saw was mostly all new / newer arcade games. It looks almost completely different from an classic arcade where the "traditional games" are gun games or driving games and what is left are mobile game ports using ridiculous slap buttons. I only saw one fighting game and it was the DC injustice but without a joystick and only the large slap buttons to do your moves. There was no skee-ball but there were a small assortment of carnival style games. I went to another arcade that was in a bowling alley and it was all the same things. except they had skee-ball but it cost ~$1 per play.

 

What they do seem to have is a rfid card that you load credits in and tap your rfid card on a small screen that reads the amount of credits the game costs. They absolutely have no Atari Games or traditional arcade cabinets with a joystick style game. No more are the joystick games or classic arcade buttons no more are any hardcore skill games. In someways I get it but it seems as if decades of arcade games are just gone from any new arcade. I remember arcades always used to have the older games, in the 90s they still had the games from the early 80s. Gone are the arcade tokens a tradition reaching almost a century back is gone in a modern arcade, they will only appear as a novelty in the gambling coin push games.

 

If that doesn't make you feel old I don't know what will. What are your thoughts on this and modern arcades? Has the Classic Arcade come to an end? Post any pics of classic arcades to keep it's spirit alive. But hey maybe I am just jaded and becoming an old curmudgeon.

[R.Cade]

Have you been in a coma since 1994?

[redsteakraw]

Have you been in a coma since 1994?

 

No but what is your point? Arcades in 1994 still used tokens, had joystick games and had traditional arcade cabinets.

[Keatah]

I have yet to visit a "modern recreation" of an arcade that's true to the 80's. Some come close, but all fail. Go into any modern one and there's always something breaking the vintage flavor.

[R.Cade]

 

No but what is your point? Arcades in 1994 still used tokens, had joystick games and had traditional arcade cabinets.

I meant that arcades have been dead already since 1994. My comment was just that you seem to just be noticing that...

Edited March 2, 2019 by R.Cade

[ccatalyst]

know this pain all too well, check out this link in miami,fl. you will not be disappointed.it is called arcade odyssey.

 

 

rick

[redsteakraw]

know this pain all too well, check out this link in miami,fl. you will not be disappointed.it is called arcade odyssey.

 

 

rick

 

Looks great, they have a large x-men and a tapper.

[youxia]

I wouldn't say 1994, at least in Europe they were still going on fairly strong. Complete extinction around the year 2000-ish. Nevertheless,OP had 15+ years to get wise to this fact of course

 

I don't know about US but in Europe a "barcade" would be 9 times out of 10 some insufferable hipster joint with overpriced beer and eyeroll-worthy inhabitants. Not for me really. Nevermind the fact I'm not a great fan of all the replicas anyway, what with their numeorous technical flaws. They're okay for hobbyist game room I guess, but I wouldn't go out and pay to play on one.

 

Arcades are dead, and that's that, for me at least. The games aren't though and that's most important. If I told my 11-year-old-self that one day he will have all of them on a tiny black box in his room I'd get a healthy dose of a side-eye for sure.

[Keatah]

A quick look at the pics in the link shows all the machines crammed against each other. Fractions of an inch apart. Vintage arcades weren't like that.

 

Part of the social experience of a real arcade is you being able to slip between the machines and watch the player moreso than the game, if you wanted to. And you get to view the artwork with correctly spaced machines.

 

The place has the look of a warehouse, simply rows upon rows of games. No intriguing layout or asymmetries in the design aesthetic whatsoever. Typical of the modern arcade.

 

And 3 tokens on the dollar? Nope. I'm happy to stick with my personalized 80's playlists in my carpeted spaceroom which has non-white walls and subdued lighting. And the little black box I actually envisioned when I was a kid.

 

---

 

It was somewhere between 1994/1996 and 2000'ish here in the states when the traditional arcade died out. By then though MAME and emulation in general were getting underway. Emu was cool even despite being very limited. It would take nearly a decade and a half before it became comprehensive. But throughout those ~15'ish years it would make steady progress.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Keatah

[spacecadet]

A quick look at the pics in the link shows all the machines crammed against each other. Fractions of an inch apart. Vintage arcades weren't like that.

 

Some of them were. The one I visited most often was. It probably just depended on how much space they had and how much rent they needed to pay.

 

I did make a special trip every few weeks once I got a car to another arcade that was a little more spacious and didn't cram their machines together. But my regular arcade that I could walk to did that.

 

Also of note, many of the machines in those photos are Japanese (as in, from Japanese arcades) and Japanese arcades *always* cram those sit-down machines together.

 

All that said, I do think the premise of this thread is a little... odd? in 2019. There are a lot fewer arcades and the games in them have changed. This is a trend I feel like people started noticing in 1995. It's 2019. We've all moved way beyond the 7 stages of grief and into the acceptance phase.

 

Anyway, I don't really remember a time when arcade games were static. They were always changing and doing new things, though most of them were a lot simpler than a lot of people probably remember (unless they've done a random sampling on MAME recently). I don't think there was really a time at all when you'd walk into an arcade and everything would just be controlled by joystick, for example. Track balls, spinners, digital joysticks, light guns, analog flight sticks, steering wheels, and various other controllers and game types were around basically from the beginning. So today you might find an arcade game with a drum controller or a guitar; to me it's all in the same spirit. There are still plenty of driving games, gun games, etc. in all the arcades I've been to recently (I was at one in Las Vegas just a couple of weeks ago, I think in the New York New York hotel).

 

So it's just different games, but to me it's pretty much the same as it ever was, if you can actually find an arcade.

[Keatah]

I must have been "lucky" in that none of the arcades in my area BITD were overstuffed. A minor point to some, a big deal to me.

 

Moving on. It was sometime in the early-mid 90's that I began feeling that going to the arcade morphed into a chore, a job. Somewhere in those years or thereabouts it felt more and more like I was going through the motions. Had to make time to fit it in, had to make my weekly contributions to the machines. It was no longer a day of discovery & adventure into a virtual out-of-this-world world.

[Pixelboy]

I spent a week-end at FunSpot (New Hampshire) last October, and the machines still work with tokens. The selection of arcade games is very good and well maintained, with a lot of old classics. My only real gripe is that they're missing a lot of my personal favorites which I really wanted to play, like Discs of Tron, Arabian, Cabal, Joust (they did have Joust 2), Wardner and a few others. They had several Mortal Kombat machines, but I don't recall seeing a single Street Fighter II machine anywhere.

 

Still, I had a pretty good time, but the experience ended up a shallow one for me. Not just because my faves were missing, but because there are just too many games. Arcade games are pretty hard (they have to be in order to keep you spending quarters) which means when you pick and play one, you get your @$$ handed to you, and then you have to choose between popping more tokens into the same game to practice more and try to get a better score, or you can try another arcade game. With all the games available at FunSpot, you don't want to walk away at the end of the day saying that you only played a few machines and didn't have time to play the rest, so you don't persist on any particular machine and just play as many different games as you can. And believe me, time passes real quick. But then, when the day is over, you feel like you only skimmed over most of the games and didn't really sink your teeth into any of them, except for a few like Lethal Enforcers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Star Wars Trilogy that offer unlimited continues as long as you keep popping tokens into them, which I ended up doing. Those were fun.

 

But I'll probably never return to FunSpot again, or any other similar arcade. It was just a thing on my bucket list, and now that it's done, I don't feel the need to do it again. If I want to play arcade games, I'll just fire up MAME or something.

[redsteakraw]

I spent a week-end at FunSpot (New Hampshire) last October, and the machines still work with tokens. The selection of arcade games is very good and well maintained, with a lot of old classics. My only real gripe is that they're missing a lot of my personal favorites which I really wanted to play, like Discs of Tron, Arabian, Cabal, Joust (they did have Joust 2), Wardner and a few others. They had several Mortal Kombat machines, but I don't recall seeing a single Street Fighter II machine anywhere.

 

Still, I had a pretty good time, but the experience ended up a shallow one for me. Not just because my faves were missing, but because there are just too many games. Arcade games are pretty hard (they have to be in order to keep you spending quarters) which means when you pick and play one, you get your @$$ handed to you, and then you have to choose between popping more tokens into the same game to practice more and try to get a better score, or you can try another arcade game. With all the games available at FunSpot, you don't want to walk away at the end of the day saying that you only played a few machines and didn't have time to play the rest, so you don't persist on any particular machine and just play as many different games as you can. And believe me, time passes real quick. But then, when the day is over, you feel like you only skimmed over most of the games and didn't really sink your teeth into any of them, except for a few like Lethal Enforcers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Star Wars Trilogy that offer unlimited continues as long as you keep popping tokens into them, which I ended up doing. Those were fun.

 

But I'll probably never return to FunSpot again, or any other similar arcade. It was just a thing on my bucket list, and now that it's done, I don't feel the need to do it again. If I want to play arcade games, I'll just fire up MAME or something.

 

I heard that Funspot passed on the fighting games after real world fights broke over playing the games. Did they have Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Simpsons, X-men or Area 51?

[redsteakraw]

I must have been "lucky" in that none of the arcades in my area BITD were overstuffed. A minor point to some, a big deal to me.

 

Moving on. It was sometime in the early-mid 90's that I began feeling that going to the arcade morphed into a chore, a job. Somewhere in those years or thereabouts it felt more and more like I was going through the motions. Had to make time to fit it in, had to make my weekly contributions to the machines. It was no longer a day of discovery & adventure into a virtual out-of-this-world world.

 

I hear you, Arcades used to have better graphics and gameplay than what was possible in the home that stopped being the case around the Dreamcast launch. They still are making new games but they all have to have some mimic either they are racing or some sort of gun game or a cheap mobile conversion. At Dave & Busters I beat Terminator Salvation with a friend which was a high point. I miss the Beat Em Ups and Smups though as well as the classics.

[Keatah]

A side thing we always did as kids was compare the arcade games to home games. And we always hoped and dreamed that home games would someday be the equal of what was offered in the arcade.

 

It was only mildly upsetting that a $2000 Apple II COMPUTER couldn't come close to any arcade cab. And we always tried to figure out why. It was fun to see advancements in programming, and we always hoped (sometimes futilely) home systems would catch up. After all, my home hardware was a computer! In the early/mid 90's computer games caught up and it was a non-event. It just sort of happened and was one of the reasons why I stopped visiting arcades. I would have stopped going anyway, it just happened sooner with the advent of good VGA (and better) graphics.

[bubufubu]

I meant that arcades have been dead already since 1994.

 

This is utter bullshit. Classic arcades were still very much alive here for many years past 1994.

[Tanooki]

The post itself smells a bit of bullshit. Maybe it's deja vu, but I don't believe in that, so I know I've read that post somewhere before as I know I've read that ridiculous argument very recently elsewhere and it was met with not the nicest attitude in responses either.

[redsteakraw]

The post itself smells a bit of bullshit. Maybe it's deja vu, but I don't believe in that, so I know I've read that post somewhere before as I know I've read that ridiculous argument very recently elsewhere and it was met with not the nicest attitude in responses either.

 

I posted a similar post elsewhere in general chat but it was based on limited information and had a bad title that didn't help the conversation. This post is in a more relevant section with expanded and new information with a more relevant and constructive title. I am also far more self deprecating in this post. I am satisfied with the response and it has been mostly positive with people agreeing with me. In fact someone went even farther than my position. I am still learning what the community expects and how it reacts so I am trying to do better. Now I am not saying there are no classic arcades but they are few and far between and all newly built arcades seem to follow the same model. If you think that is bullshit I don't know what to say to that other than this seems to be the case in North America / Europe and may not apply to Japan. I hope that clarifies things a bit.

[DragonGrafx-16]

There's a real arcade in my area... it's also a bar. But there's no ticket crap whatsoever.

[redsteakraw]

There's a real arcade in my area... it's also a bar. But there's no ticket crap whatsoever.

 

Tokens, Quarters or do they use a card and credit system?

[DragonGrafx-16]

 

Tokens, Quarters or do they use a card and credit system?

Quarters

[Pixelboy]

I heard that Funspot passed on the fighting games after real world fights broke over playing the games. Did they have Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Simpsons, X-men or Area 51?

They do have The Simpsons, pretty sure I didn't see the other three you mentioned, but I could be wrong. If they were there, I didn't get around to playing them. I'm pretty sure they didn't have X-Men, because I think I would have certainly tried that one.

 

EDIT: Also, it makes sense that they would remove Street Fighter games because of real-world fights. I'd imagine that would happen a lot during the "Biker Week" festival that happens in Laconia every June.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Pixelboy

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Arcade operator here, someone with 10+ years experience in the industry. I've worked in every facet except game development at this point. Day-in & day-out, I'm running my own arcade (shameless plug link in my sig).

 

The answer to this question depends on what the expectations of the person asking the question are, which seems to vary. To your points about joystick games:

 

Since the late 90's, manufacturers have focused more on racing/light-gun/music games as these tend to provide a control scheme that cannot be easily replicated at home or on your phone. Yes, there have been light-gun or racing wheel accessories, but those are always better when designed as a part of a specific arcade experience (you also get a better firmament; with steering wheels, you're usually having to try and hold the thing on your lap or a table in front of you; it's all solid and built in with an arcade cab).

 

The problem with most joystick games is that they can easily be replicated at home, so they would all get ports. Most games when ported, stop making anything at arcades. If a game cannot have decent ROI (most operators hope for 1 year on average, although really good games will have six months or less), then we won't touch it. Arcade games on average cost between $8000-$12,000 at the moment; many are coming along that are pushing the $30,000 range (the new House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn and Halo: Fireteam Raven 4-player).

 

Fighters in particular have been rare in the modern days because developers can't help themselves. Everything released gets a home port or they simply don't release an arcade version at all (Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur are two famous examples). Street Fighter IV & Tekken 7 were released to arcades first, but they usually gave 1 year or less of timed exclusivity. I was one sucker that wasted $10,000 on a Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition kit, only to have Capcom release the console port 1 1/2 months after I got it (when I bought it, Capcom claimed there would be no port). I never made my money back; although for that month and a half, it was pretty incredible how well it did and the business it brought in. Afterwards, it made less money per week than Street Fighter II did.

 

Most operators are not multi-million dollar corporations that can take hits like that; I only survived because I brought in games like Terminator Salvation which made up for the drop that SFIV had.

 

It should be noted that Dave & Busters has tested out big name fighters - they tested Pokken Tournament and Tekken 7. But the games performed poorly in both instances (as player knew that Namco would release it to console). If you go back to D&B, you'll also see a new exclusive they have that is based on Injustice, Marvel: Contest of Champions. This one has joysticks, although it's still a bit more casual than you get with something like Street Fighter.

 

Now beyond that, there are some new joystick games out there, but they do not earn as well as something with a gun or a wheel does. Pac-Man Battle Royale and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a couple of the few examples. I have both and they do solid numbers, but Cruis'n Blast, Jurassic Park Arcade and The Walking Dead all do better. I'll soon be getting Cosmotrons, which is distinctly retro in style; I'm hoping it does well, but we'll see. It's not a game that Dave & Busters will ever pick up.

 

To that same point, classic games do NOT earn very well in most arcades where they are installed. Bar/Arcades can be an exception, but put Ms. Pac-Man in any Dave & Busters and it won't break their top 10 (or 25, or 50). In part that's because it's old and familiar; available on every platform; or as mentioned in this thread, a person just loads up their favorite classic on MAME once in a while and doesn't care that it's not on the original cabinet or using the controller.

 

In my venue with about 70 games, a little over half of my titles are from the 80's & 90's. I use tokens (4 for $1). I collect tokens weekly. I can take all of the classics and combine their earnings together, where it will not touch the earnings of a single Raw Thrills game. Like it or not, that's what most players want (new, different, licensed, relatively dumb & easy to play). I've heard that it is a little different at some bar/arcades, although a lot of classic or retrocades will not use tokens, instead doing an entry fee with everything on free play.

 

(A lot of places are embracing cards because these are shown to earn more for a location and allow you to do flexible/special pricing with ease and you don't have to spend time collecting coins or dealing with coin jams).

 

You mention that D&B has no Atari games - that's because Atari Games was absorbed by Midway back in the late 90's, then around 2001 changed to Midway Games West; then Midway shuttered all their arcade operations in 2002. I love Atari titles and have several Atari games from Warlords to Road Burners, but only Road Burners does ok. The rest I'm lucky if they make $5 a week (something like Crystal Castles makes 75¢ a week; Tempest $2, Centipede $2-3 usually). The only reason I really have these games is for my personal vanity; as a business decision, it makes little sense.

 

Back to the original point, if players want to see fighters in arcades again, then they have to support them when they do show up. Poor earnings will mean poor market sales (no demand, no supply).

 

There is some hope on the horizon as next month a new system by the name of Exa-Arcadia is launching worldwide that is joystick-based. It works like a Neo Geo MVS (supports cartridges) and the games have to have arcade-specific modes/content to them. It will have fighters like The Kung Fu Vs. Karate Champ, but we'll have to see if it is successful.

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Shaggy the Atarian

[redsteakraw]

Arcade operator here, someone with 10+ years experience in the industry. I've worked in every facet except game development at this point. Day-in & day-out, I'm running my own arcade (shameless plug link in my sig).

 

Will do if I am ever in the Utah area. Is the West Valley the best valley I haven't been there?

Edited March 3, 2019 by redsteakraw

[redsteakraw]

Arcade operator here, someone with 10+ years experience in the industry. I've worked in every facet except game development at this point. Day-in & day-out, I'm running my own arcade (shameless plug link in my sig).

 

The answer to this question depends on what the expectations of the person asking the question are, which seems to vary. To your points about joystick games:

 

Since the late 90's, manufacturers have focused more on racing/light-gun/music games as these tend to provide a control scheme that cannot be easily replicated at home or on your phone. Yes, there have been light-gun or racing wheel accessories, but those are always better when designed as a part of a specific arcade experience (you also get a better firmament; with steering wheels, you're usually having to try and hold the thing on your lap or a table in front of you; it's all solid and built in with an arcade cab).

 

The problem with most joystick games is that they can easily be replicated at home, so they would all get ports. Most games when ported, stop making anything at arcades. If a game cannot have decent ROI (most operators hope for 1 year on average, although really good games will have six months or less), then we won't touch it. Arcade games on average cost between $8000-$12,000 at the moment; many are coming along that are pushing the $30,000 range (the new House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn and Halo: Fireteam Raven 4-player).

 

Fighters in particular have been rare in the modern days because developers can't help themselves. Everything released gets a home port or they simply don't release an arcade version at all (Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur are two famous examples). Street Fighter IV & Tekken 7 were released to arcades first, but they usually gave 1 year or less of timed exclusivity. I was one sucker that wasted $10,000 on a Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition kit, only to have Capcom release the console port 1 1/2 months after I got it (when I bought it, Capcom claimed there would be no port). I never made my money back; although for that month and a half, it was pretty incredible how well it did and the business it brought in. Afterwards, it made less money per week than Street Fighter II did.

 

Most operators are not multi-million dollar corporations that can take hits like that; I only survived because I brought in games like Terminator Salvation which made up for the drop that SFIV had.

 

It should be noted that Dave & Busters has tested out big name fighters - they tested Pokken Tournament and Tekken 7. But the games performed poorly in both instances (as player knew that Namco would release it to console). If you go back to D&B, you'll also see a new exclusive they have that is based on Injustice, Marvel: Contest of Champions. This one has joysticks, although it's still a bit more casual than you get with something like Street Fighter.

 

Now beyond that, there are some new joystick games out there, but they do not earn as well as something with a gun or a wheel does. Pac-Man Battle Royale and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a couple of the few examples. I have both and they do solid numbers, but Cruis'n Blast, Jurassic Park Arcade and The Walking Dead all do better. I'll soon be getting Cosmotrons, which is distinctly retro in style; I'm hoping it does well, but we'll see. It's not a game that Dave & Busters will ever pick up.

 

To that same point, classic games do NOT earn very well in most arcades where they are installed. Bar/Arcades can be an exception, but put Ms. Pac-Man in any Dave & Busters and it won't break their top 10 (or 25, or 50). In part that's because it's old and familiar; available on every platform; or as mentioned in this thread, a person just loads up their favorite classic on MAME once in a while and doesn't care that it's not on the original cabinet or using the controller.

 

In my venue with about 70 games, a little over half of my titles are from the 80's & 90's. I use tokens (4 for $1). I collect tokens weekly. I can take all of the classics and combine their earnings together, where it will not touch the earnings of a single Raw Thrills game. Like it or not, that's what most players want (new, different, licensed, relatively dumb & easy to play). I've heard that it is a little different at some bar/arcades, although a lot of classic or retrocades will not use tokens, instead doing an entry fee with everything on free play.

 

(A lot of places are embracing cards because these are shown to earn more for a location and allow you to do flexible/special pricing with ease and you don't have to spend time collecting coins or dealing with coin jams).

 

You mention that D&B has no Atari games - that's because Atari Games was absorbed by Midway back in the late 90's, then around 2001 changed to Midway Games West; then Midway shuttered all their arcade operations in 2002. I love Atari titles and have several Atari games from Warlords to Road Burners, but only Road Burners does ok. The rest I'm lucky if they make $5 a week (something like Crystal Castles makes 75¢ a week; Tempest $2, Centipede $2-3 usually). The only reason I really have these games is for my personal vanity; as a business decision, it makes little sense.

 

Back to the original point, if players want to see fighters in arcades again, then they have to support them when they do show up. Poor earnings will mean poor market sales (no demand, no supply).

 

There is some hope on the horizon as next month a new system by the name of Exa-Arcadia is launching worldwide that is joystick-based. It works like a Neo Geo MVS (supports cartridges) and the games have to have arcade-specific modes/content to them. It will have fighters like The Kung Fu Vs. Karate Champ, but we'll have to see if it is successful.

 

Thank you for your great and insightful response.

 

The Injustice fighting game with slap buttons was the tipping point for me when I saw it I was like "oh my what fight games been reduced to "

 

 

I guess things change, and I know why the gun games and racing games are there, it just is sad how the classics are mostly gone or at the fringes.

 

I feel bad Capcom deceived you maybe they should change their name to CapCon.

 

I guess seeing as you are still in business you aren't letting nostalgia get that much in the way of the business. I guess the people that held on went out of business or had to pivot into barcade business models.