The Death of Arcades and why it sucks...
For the past week I've been travelling, and I've been in at least 7 diferent airports... spent lots and lots (and lots) of hours in them waiting for the right airplane...
Now I'm a heavy computer gammer, I could probably say that I'm a bit adicted to it, and I remember that it wasn't that long ago, that you would go to an airport and you would have tons of arcade machines all over the place...
Nowadays with the "death" of the arcades and the idea that every one has a portable console or a iPhone with games, you can't find a single one anywhere...
This is the typical case where an arcade machine still makes sense, a fast paced game that you "burn" a few minutes (and tons of coins) to let your steam go away... (heck it would be better than staying 7 hours in Charlotte Airoport looking at a small TV playing some Oprah copycat).
I could spend hours talking about how a console can never replace a good arcade machine (after burner anyone?) but what pisses me off is that the "market" has not thought about a decent substitute to them... (i'm even more pissed because after a week with out any kind of games, I came back home to find that my PS3 is broken again...)
Now I'm a heavy computer gammer, I could probably say that I'm a bit adicted to it, and I remember that it wasn't that long ago, that you would go to an airport and you would have tons of arcade machines all over the place...
Nowadays with the "death" of the arcades and the idea that every one has a portable console or a iPhone with games, you can't find a single one anywhere...
This is the typical case where an arcade machine still makes sense, a fast paced game that you "burn" a few minutes (and tons of coins) to let your steam go away... (heck it would be better than staying 7 hours in Charlotte Airoport looking at a small TV playing some Oprah copycat).
I could spend hours talking about how a console can never replace a good arcade machine (after burner anyone?) but what pisses me off is that the "market" has not thought about a decent substitute to them... (i'm even more pissed because after a week with out any kind of games, I came back home to find that my PS3 is broken again...)
Post edited by VanTammen on
Comments
its odd that they are not in airports as much. i used to look forward to playing the arcades at the aiport when i was a kid. not so much now, as i dont have my parents to tap for cash, and i dont like spending coin on arcade machines these days.
unless its one of those 4 player ones and my mates are joining in.
there are still plenty of arcades knocking around though, on the english coast usually.
maybe they dont want the kids all worked up before they get on the plane.
[1] Cheaper (after the initial outlay on the iPhone, of course).
[2] Can play it anywhere not just whilst waiting for the plane - on the plane whilst waiting for take off and in flight (once they get to the cruising altitude), for example.
[3] No need to wait if someone else is hogging the arcade machine you want to get on.
[4] No need to ensure you have an adequate supply of change, in order to stay on the machine you're playing.
[5] No annoying kids crowding around the screen gawking at how well you're doing and offering "advice" on how to play.
[6] If you get a great high score it's on your device for good. Chances are if you return to an arcade machine another day the high score table has been reset.
Given the choice I'd rather have all my arcade games in my pocket. But I know I won't convince any arcade machine die hards. :)
They're all full of fruit machines now though :roll:
I got dragged along to Chuck E Cheez the other week for one of the wifes relatives birthdays, it was horrible. My wife says to me go play some video games, I said I bet they're all driving, shooting, hunting or flying games there won't be anything good cos' of the little kids....and they were. Plus I told her I was just gonna sit at the tables because I felt like a beast walking round this weird place full of games and little kiddies everywhere.
I did find 1 machine that caught my eye though so I lobbed a few tokens into it, until I was bored. King of Fighters Neo-Wave. Had a few blasts of it and soon realised that even though the place I was in was meant for young uns they still had it set to super hard, I thought you money grabbing basts!
The Wal-mart here has an arcade in it, but it's crap, has 2 driving games, a hunting game, and a 4 player beat em' up with some superheroes in it. Everything else in there is those stupid grabber machines.
It's like watching a film at the cinema or at home; at home is better, cheaper, more comfortable,... but there's nothing like watching a film at the cinema with a bucket of popcorn (yes, you're thinking anyone can eat popcorn at home, but you know... it's different at the cinema! :smile:)
My perfect machine: an arcade machine with a MAME emulator inside, plus hundreds of ROMs... and a bucket of popcorn! :p
Chuck Yer Cheez left my town over 5 years ago and took all the games with it ... as did the only arcade left back then ... so now the only place that still has a few (maybe five) machines is the movie-theater. Otherwise it's just the odd grabber machine at WallRat and similar behemoth stores.
Ditto.
Back in the 80's Speccy/C64 games looked so basic compared to something in the arcades and slowly consoles/computers caught up and eventually overtook them in terms of quality/graphics/sound etc.
When i've got some arcade quality game on a small handheld i'm not forking out 50p's or ?1 coins just to play one on some old machine.
Yeah of course its better on the original machine but obviously finance wise they just cant survive nowadays which is a shame.
The fruit machines nowadays seem far worse than they used to be as well. Used to get a lot of 'sub games' on them but nowadays doesnt seem so many, press spin 3 times and thats your quid gone.
As for your perfect machine you should make one. I recently sold my 'perfect machine' (for only ?125 !). Had a small bartop with proper arcade controls, inside was a small fast PC running MAME. Loved it and expected it to sell for far more ! Lots of people make these, well worth getting one or making one yourself.
Oh, come on... how can you not enjoy Big Buck Safari? It's a riot!
But yeah, all the arcades round my way are either filled with fruities now, or loads of driving games (which I hate, except Mario Kart GP, which is quite fun with a mate). I have seen a few on my travels that look quite interesting though, like one where you ride a big horse thing, and another where you play pool against the computer using an actual cue and ball. Prop Cycle is another good one too, and no one ever plays it in my local bowling alley, so it's always cheaper than the other machines, which is nice. :smile:
but the amount of money I spent in such places was silly, so thats the only good thing about it
The Malt House had Defender, Double Dragon, Side Arms, Gauntlet II, Smash TV... great stuff. Every Saturday my mum would tell me not to go in, and every Saturday I caught the bus into town and went straight there :D
I was offered cannabis while playing Double Dragon, and the Gauntlet II machine itself (!) while playing Gauntlet II. Sadly I didn't have the room for the latter, even though I did have the cash in the bank at the time. Oh to have that much free cash now :)
The Malthouse has long since closed. The "other one" is still open but is now just fruit machines. The main pier arcade is pretty much just air hockey tables, grabber games and the odd DDR machine. I haven't had the heart to check on the one further down the pier...
Hastings is still riddled with arcades though, as is Margate. Oh and Barry Island. So they're not all gone yet...
I have prettty much followed the arcade game scene from around the early mid 80`s until the millennium and i can safely say that in my opinion during the late 90`s home entertainment simply caught up with arcades pure and simple,there were signs the consoles were catching up during the Snes era (Street Fighter II) and later the Saturn and PS had there own great games as well as emulating classics from 10 years before perfectly like the `Sega Classics` Outrun and Space Harrier,the arcade G-Darius (1997) actually used PS hardware and the release of the Dreamcast finally signalled the end because you actually could play current arcade games like Crazy Taxi and 18 Wheeler..
Home entertainment was simply close enough to the arcade and cheeper as a result the arcades started to die and fill solely with fighting games and games you had no choice but to look a tit by sitting on them or by holding large plastic gun-this was the end of hardcore arcade gaming for me personally.
Its a great shame as i have great childhood memories of arcades, meeting up after school with mates and traveling to various chippys,taxi ranks and cafe`s just to play the games and see which ones had been changed,in 2005 i created a somewhat simple archive on my webpage of all the games we remember playing in various locations in the area we lived in.
Arcade Games-locations
These days, it's just fruit machines, prize giving machines and the ones where you put coins in and hope it helps push coins down the tube for you to collect..
Here in Scarborough, we still have several large arcades, but gone are most of the arcade games. We have the big name ones (Terminator, House of the Dead 2, 3 & 4, Ghost Squad, Out Run 2 etc), but other than those kinds of machine, it's all 2p pushers, fruit machines, dance games, guitar hero and those side show type things that issue tickets that you can swop when you have a few thousand (you may get a badge or a pencil for that :lol: ).
We did have one retro machine for a short while. It was one of these...
http://www.globalvr.com/products_gac.html
It always seemed to have people on it whenever I passed and it was fantastic to see games like MK II and the Dragon's Lair games in an arcade again. Even though I have MAME and Daphnie emulators at home, I'd still stop and play this from time to time. Sadly, it was only there ofr about 6 weeks. One of those "sticker photo thingys" have taken it's place :(
If I had the space, I'd love to have a MAME machine made to have at home. I have the money to buy one (not one of those in that link though ;-) ) but I sadly don't have the room for one. Well, I have, but the hose is already full of too much rubbish as it is :lol:
I played one at VCF just didn't like how it squished the screen for 1942 etc.
Was going to say the same thing. The bartop ones are great, a lot cheaper, dont take up a ton of space either and the buttons are pure arcade ones.
On-topic, it is the same over here. Shame that also a lot of the remaining arcades have hardly any pinball machines around, apparently they are expensive to maintain. In the early to mid-90s some of the reasons I went to arcades were those cool pinball machines like Attack from Mars or Medieval Madness ...
Judge DREDD pinball machine! They had one at the Hard Rock Caf? in London the 1st time I went there, and after that I would always look for that machine! (only found one of those in portugal, and unfortunatlly didn't have the gun in it...)
just found this link of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKUr8QYRp1c