(Insert stupid Blog name here)

Interesting. I know some of those classics guys have been working all along though so I'm not prepared to think of this an an automatic win. It will be interesting to see what they can come up with though.

A bit more from the gang at Innovative Leisure, comparing the golden age of arcade gaming to mobile games. (No link to the actual keynote at DICE yet, however.)

 

Still, some interesting observations...

1. Arcade games, like mobile games are "things you do while you're waiting."
   
2. People played arcade games like Frogger using one hand - sometimes holding a drink in another hand.
   
3. Mobile games fail unless they offer instant gratification. The sale is made in the first few seconds.
   
4. In the 1980s, visitors to arcades were greeted with lines of competing machines, all designed to attract the attention of players through garish marketing. App stores use similar techniques.
   
5. Arcade games, like mobile games, are developed in just a few short weeks.
   
6. Development teams are usually made up of small numbers of people, often taking a chance on a big idea.
   
7. Players of both game types tend to behave promiscuously, hopping from one game to another before they settle on a longer term relationship.
   
8. Arcade games were field-tested and the behavior of gamers was watched carefully. Makers of mobile games also tend to test their games in the open market, rather than behind closed doors in focus groups.
   
9. There were a large number of bad games created by charlatans, in the early 1980s. Consumers lost interest. This has not happened in mobile gaming, but there are many games on the market with little or no merit.
   

For me though...

1. Everything else was something I did, while "waiting to play arcade games." Mobile games are things to do while you're waiting, however.
   
2. Can't play Defender with one hand!
   
3. Instant appeal anyway. Gratification came in steps as you progressively got better at a game and achieved new scores/reached new levels.
   
4. Yeah baby, those were the days!
   
5. Homebrews, on the other hand, take years.
   
6. So true. I wonder how many people it took to develop Mr. TNT?
   
7. I feel so dirty now. I hope Battlezone will forgive me for my past indiscretions with all of those other games. They meant nothing to me, baby!
   
8. Always wondered who those people were, hanging over my shoulder and watching me play. I just assumed they wanted the next game.
   
9. I think this is a lot more true in consoles than arcades. Arcades were killed by console gaming and home computers, and by the fact that the arcade boom was essentially just a non-sustainable fad. Arcades grew too quickly and became too numerous to sustain the business model when the general public lost interest and all that were left were the gamers.
   

5) yeah, that it can.

5. I suspect very few arcade games were developed in weeks. A few months perhaps.

 

9. Arcades were successful when it wasn't possible to play similar games at home. Arcade games managed to stay ahead of the first few generations of consoles and PCs by having dedicated graphics hardware. But once 3D games came to PCs and consoles arcade games were reduced to specialized controls and ticket dispensers.