How did the arcade in North America 'die'?

[Cassidy Nolen]

What happened to all the old Atari and Williams games, or the more recent gun games, or even SFII, MK, and Tekken

 

You sort of answered your own question....the Ataris and Williams blew up sometime in the mid to late 80's and sat broken in warehouses (mind you, few people knew how to fix them and there was no money in the business anymore). These cabs were gutted in the early 90's, fitted with 4 buttons and 2 sticks, and BAM, a fighter was born.

 

As the industry re-grew, these games got convered to SF # Million, and Tekken Something or other...after a while, the big 25 inch cabs were phased in, and those tired Williams cabinets were pretty bad for the wear of two lifetimes on route.

 

Is there an arcade-machine rarity guide?

 

Yup, and it was also a price guide. It ticked a lot of big time collectors off, because it made the 'big mistake'; try to assign prices to the super rare stuff. It would have been far more credible to leave out the expensive few and focus on the rest (some games just do not have a value; protos, limited releases, etc). I know the author, and he did a good job, just not in the marketing area I would say Galaga, one of the Pac's and Centipede probably saw the widest distribution. Each had a run over 80,000 units (Atari was building them in Cali and in Ireland at one point).

 

Cassidy

[chadtower]

Nah, this was in MA... Salem MA, in the East India Mall.

[ussexplorer]

I probably put the same amount in weither it was nickel or quarters. Just be mor satisfied and they did have plenty of .25 games to play too. Yes I played those to. So basicly a nice mix.

 

Later,

 

ussexplorer

[tyranthraxus]

I believe KLOV has a list of the production numbers of early Atari made

games.

[AtariDude]

I really think it is a shame that arcades are mostly gone from sight. It is part of Americana that we will never see again. Now the closest thing to an arcade is either a Dave and Buster's, Sega's Gameworks, or the movies if they have a few arcade games set up.

 

I used to remember having arcades at just about every corner when I was a teen growing up. There was always a challenge between me and my friends to try to get the best score at some game (console games today don't even keep scores except for a few games).

[BigFairy321]

EXACTLY.

 

todays Pc or console games have no hi scores..

 

most games today arent competitve excpet some online games like Battlefield.

 

Most games are concerned with " lets see what the next graphical sequence is and save it" syndrome which makes them only playable once, if that ( except battlefeild 1942 )

[AtariDude]

Another problem is the fact that arcade games had a preset skill level but modern online games don't so you can be playing someone who is light years ahead of you and the competition is not fair. I know that I would sometimes get this with Counter Strike where some players were just so good that I felt that I never had a chance at all.

[chairmonkey4406]

 DDR made an impact, but many of us would never be caught dead dancing at an arcade so the audience is still limited.

 

I love getting caught dead playing DDR in the arcades ....mmmm people watching me......

[AtariDude]

I haven't played that game since I doubt I am in good enough health to play it but it looks like something that would be fun, especially if it were set up side by side where you can compete against one of your friends with the same steps that have to be done.

[raindog]

At Xmas, before visiting my family, I bought a couple of playstation dance pads and one of those EMS dual PS->USB adaptors, and set up pydance on my laptop with a set of Disney DDR songs from Japan. My sister-in-law, niece and I had a great time with them, but admittedly we were on "Basic".

 

Oddly enough, since the two of them put together are like half of me, I was the only one to ever make it to "A" level (pydance grades you A through E like some schools do.) I suppose that's just because I'm accustomed to seeing things on a screen and reacting in real life. I think I'd have to do it a LOT more before I ever tried it in an arcade, though.

[NE146]

I still WANT to try DDR.. I haven't had the nerve to do so however. I'll get me one of those mats eventually so I can give it a try. I will admit however I have a hard enough time doing the game with my fingers.. I wonder how it would go on my feet

[NovaXpress]

I'll give it a try when they create FFR - Fuck Fuck Revolution.

 

You don't wanna even know about the conroller I have in mind.

[raindog]

I find DDR, at least on Basic, to be easier with my feet than my hands. If the people who did the song put some thought into the steps, after once or twice through the rhythm makes sense and you can actually sort of "dance" to it. No, it's still not real dancing, but the physical concept is still kind of the same.

[sigma]

 DDR made an impact, but many of us would never be caught dead dancing at an arcade so the audience is still limited.

 

I love getting caught dead playing DDR in the arcades ....mmmm people watching me......

Wouldn't you rather be caught alive?

[sandmountainslim]

I live in a town of 1200 people and I remember in the early eighties we had THREE arcades on Main Street plus the Quick Mart and grocey store had a handful of games also One of the arcades soldiered on until around 1994 or so and I had a good time playing Rolling Thunder and whatnot in the late 80s era but like an earlier post said none of the arcades were really "Family friendly" we went there with the pie in the sky idea that we were gonna get laid , drank beer behind the building and smoked dope in the parking lots all the while dropping a hell of alot of quarters in those old machines. Nowadays the only arcades I know of are in the mall and are mostly for young children and morons who drop change in those damn "quarter slides off the edge" contraptions, How I miss the good ole days

[Shaggy the Atarian]

While many problems have been mentioned here, I think the prices companies like Namco or Global VR charge for their new games is insane. The arcades are lucky if they EVER make up the money again on these new manchines that cost $8000+ (I've found a few for $14,000 like Ghost Squad) and on top of that many games these days are just ports from the game consoles. The arcades need a killer app that won't be ported to all the consoles. That's usually why people by a PS2 over a Xbox and vice versa, because of the games that one has that the other won't. But you know that if there's a major hit in the arcades that it will inevitably show up on the home consoles which takes away the deisre to play that game in the arcades instead. And as long as that will happen then arcades will never be popular again.

[keilbaca]

 DDR made an impact, but many of us would never be caught dead dancing at an arcade so the audience is still limited.

 

I love getting caught dead playing DDR in the arcades ....mmmm people watching me......

556723[/snapback]

 

I fully agree with you. I attracted a good crowd at Six Flags...

 

Arcades died because of the console, and the internet. MMO's suck your life away.

 

You no longer need to go to the arcade to kick someone's ass at a fighter, DoA plays online.

 

The reason why you only see fighters, huge racing machines, and DDR is because you cannot get that kind of feeling at home. No one has a racing setup in their house, but at the "arcade" (usually in a corner of a food court), you can. Same for DDR and fighters. The best competition for fighters is the arcade (Just play me at Marvel vs Capcom 2, and no I don't use cheap characters) and only a few people have a good Fighter stick (I fully recommend the Tekken 5 stick.. that thing rocks), and DDR because no one has the hard pad. Plus, its quite a feeling to attract a crowd. None like it

Edited May 10, 2005 by keilbaca

[yuppicide]

Don't know where you are from but DirecTV here in New Jersey has G4tv. It's channel #354 and is even listed on their websites lineup. DirecTV has !always! carried G4tv and before that it was TechTV.

 

No, I don't get G4tv, DirecTV doesn't carry it, and neither does either of the two cable companies around here.

 

If you could serve it, that would be great.

551062[/snapback]

[yuppicide]

The arcade by my hometown has been there for 20 or 25 years and is still in business today. He changes with the times. He went with fighting games, dancing games, whatever people want. He rotates his games regularly, keeps his pinballs in good condition because he also repairs games and rents them out to other places. I think they used to own a place down at the Jersey Shore on the boardwalk.

 

He hosts a bunch of tournaments.

[atarilovesyou]

..I agree, early arcades in my hometowns were dens of smoking, drug dealers and other scumbags...and there I was, all crazy playing Defender and Asteroids!...yep, they were seedy places, but you learned alot about THE STREETS if you could survive!...hahaha!..

 

...I loved arcades right up till their demise in the mid nineties...and the reason was, drumroll please:

 

STREET FIGHTER 2

 

Yep, this lil game single handedly ended all original thought and new games in a mad dash to crank out as many shitty fighter clones as possible...mind you, I still remember when I LOVED playing SF2 in the arcades, but soon that's all you had! ...then began the downward slide of the fancy sit down games like Daytona...and by the time the Playstation got off the ground, arcades were fininshed.

 

Unfortunately, it's not like an old console we can find on Ebay and re-live those bygone days...unless you go to Videotopia, that is.

 

Too bad, cause I used to love arcades. Two bucks never went further in my life than it did in those days!!! HOURS!!!

[catharton]

Today the arcades are going the family route because that's a safe crowd that pays the overhead.

 

Not in Europe they're not, all the ones I've seen lately have been pretty scary places full of scary people very much like the arcades of 1983 that you mentioned.

 

They weren't always like that, but it seems like ever since consoles started outclassing arcade machines the actual arcades became dingier and dingier. Most of the ones I know that are still around are now mostly filled with gambling machines and gambling addicts, despite having desperately non-threatening names like "family leisure centre" or "amusement arcade" etc.

 

On a brighter note, one sort-of rebirth of arcades has been the demo console booths you see quite often in cinemas and fast food places. I assume the console companies give them out for free, to get people to try the console and then (presumably) buy one so they can play somewhere other than Mcdonalds.

 

 

DDR made an impact, but many of us would never be caught dead dancing at an arcade so the audience is still limited.

 

Ohhh, dance machines are great! I used one with a friend (not in an arcade, it was in a museum for some reason) and it was just brilliant fun! I've never enjoyed an arcade machine more than that, and a nice little crowd built up around us (it was a two person machine, we both had to dance simultaneously). If video games have been perceived as too introverted in the past, things like dance games are a great way out of that.

[sandmountainslim]

Catherton mentioned something I had almost forgotten , by the time the late eighties had arrived every arcade I knew of in Alabama had more illegal gambling machines than actual amusement machines, I sat and watched a guy put $500 in a Cherry Master machine one night and be left there to walk home by his girlfriend and friends, he broke down and cried in the floor when his last dollar was gone I am all for a good game of Poker but those damn machines are a fools downfall.

[catharton]

I am all for a good game of Poker but those damn machines are a fools downfall.

 

There was stuff on the BBC about fruit machines ages ago (are they called fruit machines in America? they're one-armed bandits):

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2979142.stm

 

"The Fairplay group has emulated the workings of the majority of fruit machines currently in use in the UK and studied what happens at crucial moments, for instance when a player gets a chance to gamble for a big payout.

 

At these times fruit machines studied by the group stop a player collecting the jackpot no matter which choice they make. One of the machines tested has a hidden display which decides in advance when a player will stop winning."

 

"This is all absolutely deliberate," says Stuart Campbell, spokesman for the Fairplay Campaign.

 

"There's certainly no randomness involved," he says. "At times it will throw you a jackpot to keep you interested but most of the time it has a pre-set block on what you can win that will be quite low."

 

...so basically if you get into a situation that's close to winning the computer often deliberately alters the game so it's impossible to get the jackpot.

 

But even with the old mechanical fruit machines, gambling can very easily prey on vunerable people.

Edited May 15, 2005 by catharton

[Bryan]

I agree that technology was the major force in killing the arcades. It's the same as with consoles: The kid who has the newest console and the best games is really popular until enough other kids get them. Well, the arcades were once the kids with the best games, and these games were priced well out of the reach of the average citizen.

 

Once gaming technology became cheap, there was no reason to pay someone else for the use of it. All the cabinetry, lights, and custom controls are nice but they're not a compelling enough reason to get people to leave the house (It's also true that some arcades were scummy places with no supervision). Now coin-op games are only located in places that can already pay the bills, and can keep an eye on the kids.

 

-Bry

[Foxsolo2000]

I had no idea that it was so bad in the States. In the UK there are two types of arcades, city and seaside. The city arcades are dark, dank, unpleasant places that you have to be 18 to enter while those at the coastal resorts are open, airy, pleasant and family orientated.

In the mid to late 80's the UK faced an arcade crisis for what new games came out were usually in recycled cabinets and were few in number yet in 92 Street Fighter 2 made arcading popular again. In the arcades I frequent fighting and shooting games are king and a decent player can still attract a large crowd to watch the action so I am surprised to hear that arcading is declining over the water. Seems strange to me here in the UK arcades have found a new lease of life while in the States it has been killed off.