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Games Entertainment

Another Arcade Standby Calls It Quits 122

Posted by timothy from the and-how! dept.
wokness writes with this bit of depressing news. "The arcade business is getting thougher and tougher -- from shoryuken.com: 'The Nikkei Telecom 21, the largest online news & information database in Japan, has reported that Capcom will discontinue sales and development of arcade games.' More info here. This sucks!" Seems like Capcom wasn't making enough money to justify themselves selling large boxes to arcades. Now, they'll go all the way (instead of just using emulation to make cross-platform games) and make games for home consoles instead.
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Another Arcade Standby Calls It Quits More

Another Arcade Standby Calls It Quits

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  • When designing a new video game, do not include a "continue" option.

    That's it. That's the rule. That's all you have to do.

    Bad game design results from the continue option. No one really tries to make learnable games that start easy yet require AND ALLOW the player to become skilled in order to reach higher levels and eventually master the game. With acquired skill, your game should be playable to the end on a single credit (I guess I can't say quarter anymore).

    A new player is killed in 10 seconds? Oh, he can just keep "continuing" until he beats the game. Why bother fixing the design? And arcade operators like this arrangement better too. More $$$. Fuck the players and who cares what they want, right? They are cash cows to be milked. Their wishes are irrelevant.

  • But in Asia... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you have ever been to Asia however you would see a different side of the arcade gaming world. I'm talking about one city block with five or six different arcades. And not wimpy inside the mall arcades... I spent a year in Japan, in Nagoya, and there are entire buildings devoted to arcade machines, floors and floors of nothing but pure gaming bliss. Men and women alike, people of all ages. I spent a little bit of time in Korea and saw much of the same. I'm no expert, but I think that Capcom quiting the business will have a larger effect on things overseas.
  • The game, I believe, is "Hard Drivin' [yesterdayland.com]" by Atari games.
  • So what you're saying is that since xbox won't compete in making boards for arcades, which we can assume from this article are on the way out, that they're fucked in Japan, which is not even close to the amount of revenue that the US and England create for video game companies?

    Who cares?! Let the japanese be bigots. Microsoft will still make boatloads of money in the real cash cow market.
  • Posted by Ieshan:

    I work in an arcade, therefore, I suppose I have a right to speak on behalf of Capcom et al.

    Capcom games are, for lack of a better english description, extremely god damned popular. We've got people who play Capcom as their crack. I don't understand why Capcom needs to close up, and I don't understand why people need to bash Capcom for making a merciless army of StreetFighter2 clones.

    Sf2 was an extremely popular game, and now, the Marvel vs. Capcom series, with Megaman and Spiderman and Whateverdeeman is extremely popular as well. Most of these games cost about 50 cents to play, and most of them need to be repaired once or twice daily because of button mal-alignment (caused by too many people hitting on them too hard). I think its unfair to say that Capcom hasn't made a good game since SF2 - in a lot of ways, they've taken an old idea and morphed it into something quite different from SF2, but sort of reminiscent of its previous state. I like it. I play it a lot, on those free credit tokenie things.

    Ieshan, Master of All Things Evil [aim]

    Quick response to Capcom Games in General: I think Capcom made a few vital mistakes in its games, one being that the 'special moves' and stuff aren't easy enough to access. You have to have played the game a bajillion times to understand the combos and the complexities of it.
  • Posted by IWAssassin:

    When you can go out and buy a game for your PlayStation or computer for $40 brand new and get hours and hours of fun out of it, the only reason for the arcade is the environment. The thing is, that environment has died off, everyone is off trying to perfect new skateboarding moves or other equally unproductive things, that are more fun than sitting in front of a screen wasting even $0.25 every 10 minutes. As a result the arcades have had to increase prices to $1.00 a game. Net result nobody new becomes interested in it. I would want to get into the arcade business about as much as I'd want to do an internet startup right about now.

    On the other hand, I despise Arcade Games, most would run on my old Commodore64, the best would require my Pentium-120 with 1mb ISA Video Card. Now When I'm used to playing Half-Life or Quake3 on the Internet or LAN, what am I going to do. The atmosphere is the same as hosting a small LAN and ordering Pizza and soda from somewhere, and costs LESS! I can host an overnight LAN of 10 people for $30. I can spend 8 hours at an arcade and spend $80. What am I going to do?

  • Posted by mutex42:

    I've been going to the arcades for longer than I can remember. For the past several of those years, I've only gone for one reason... fighting games. Not just any fighting games, but 2d fighting games exclusively. Everyone seems to think that the arcades are dying because everyone can just buy the games for the consoles and have just as good a time with it without having to blow tons of money in an arcade. When it comes to fighting games, you couldn't be more wrong. Arcades are where you go for the competition. It's like trying to tell me that you enjoy playing Quake more against bots and maybe one friend that lugs his computer over than you do over the internet. The arcades are where you're gonna find people to match skills with. That's where you learn new strategies, new fighting styles, new traps and techniques. That's where you teach them to other people and make friends along the way. Playing at home with a couple friends every now and then just isn't the same. Especially when it comes to the controls. I don't consider playing SF games serious when you're playing on the consoles with those crappy little joypads. The only real way to play is in the arcade. I'm sure this view is absurd to most people, but I'm actually devistated by this news. It means that from now on, I'll never be able to uncover the real depth of any fighting game because I'm forced to play against one or two friends on crappy controls. This means the death of one of my favorite pasttimes. And for all those people that think fighting games will live on after moving to the internet, please try to realize that they are built on reflexes. Latency goes against everything they stand for. Lighting fast reflexes and thinking are what these games are all about. 100ms is enough to lose any match, and ruin any fun.
  • Posted by lazarus142:

    OT III

    [Operating Thetan Level 3]

    BODY THETANS

    by L. Ron Hubbard

    The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet - 178 billion on average) by mass implanting..

    He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken - in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".

    His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc was placed in the unplants. When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert.

    The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development. One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.

    In December 1967 1 know someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.

    One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.

    One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing.

    You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.

    Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error.

    Good luck.

    For the purpose of clarity, by BODY THETAN is meant a thetan who is stuck to another thetan or body but is not in control.

    A THETAN is, of course, a Scientology word using the Greek theta which was the Greek symbol for thought or life. An individual being such as a man is a thetan, he is not a body and he does not think because he has a brain.

    A CLUSTER is a group of body thetans crushed or hold together by some mutual bad experience.

    Character of Body Thetans

    Body Thetans are just Thetans. When you get rid of one he goes off and possibly squares around, picks up a body or admires daisies. He is in fact a sort of cleared Being. He cannot fail to eventually, if not at once, regain many abilities. Many have been asleep for the last 75,000,000 years. A body Thetan responds to any process any Thetan responds to.

    Some body Thetans are suppressive. A suppressive is out of valence in R6. He is in valence in Incident I almost always.

    One can't run a human being on these two incidents since human beings are composites and would not be able to run the lot. Aside from that, non-clears are way below awareness required to even find these Incidents.

    Huge amounts of charge have already been removed from the case and the body thetans by Clearing and OT I and OT II to say nothing of engrams and lower grades.

    Awareness is proportional to the charge removed from the case.

    Although a human is a composite being there is only one I (that is you) who runs things.

    Body thetans just hold one back.

    You will continue to be you. You, inside, can of course separate out body thetans and so solo auditing is the answer. How good do you have to be to run body thetans off? Well, if you didn't skip your grades, Clearing and OT II particularly, you. should be able to'command body thetans easily.
  • Posted by hairy_palms:

    Well, it dosn't supprise to me to see alot of gaming corperations dropping out of arcading. People have quit going to arcades because all these games, they can get an equal ammount of quality at home. And not have to have a big pile of quarters. There just isn't money to be made in arcading anymore. I don't blame them for dropping out.

  • I grew up to Double Dragon, Pole Position and Super Sprint. If I wasn't so damned young, I would have spent even more money on those games. As it stood, I would go very far out of my way to play those arcade games. In the time when the NES regined, they had SNES quality graphics. The games seemed to be about the most exciting around.

    Fast forward to any time in the last five years. Arcade games can be broken down into three categories, in my experiences: Racing, Shooting (gun to monitor) and fighting. It's my experience that when the gaming industry finds a hit, it takes years to recover, and it's a damned shame. I believe the gaming industry (as well as other industries) calls this phenomenon "genres".

    After Street Fighter 2, for instance, most arcades became a waste of wood and paint with all the cloned games out there. I remember games like NeoGeo's Fatal Fury adding a few new features to the gametype and calling it a day. Some say Mortal Kombat came close, but let's face it. The game lost out big because there was no real decent aerial action compared to Street Fighter with the likes of Vega and Ryu/Ken's Shoryuken attacks.

    I'd like to see a truly original game for arcade systems. As for the newer arcade games out there today, well, goodbye. We never really loved you.

  • Let's do some simple substitutions:

    With the widespread availability of affordable HOME VIDEO PLAYBACK systems (both VHS and DVD), it's understandable that the MOVIE THEATER business might suffer a few losses. The price of valuable floor space (especially in malls) is becoming extremely expensive, as is the cost of MOVIE THEATER EQUIPMENT. Accordingly, the MOVIE TICKET prices are going up a great deal - a $5.00 is a rarity, and it's not uncommon to spend $10.00 to watch a 90 minute movie.

    Simply put, this is just too much money for too little entertainment. I live somewhat near a BOWLING ALLEY (with 100 lanes and pro shop). Going to BOWL for 2-3 hours is much cheaper than spending about an hour in the MOVIE THEATER!

    If one is a serious movie goer, the time spent WATCHING MOVIES every week is mind-boggling. Purchasing a cheaper VIDEO PLAYER (VHS, DVD, etc) is FAR more economical than ATTENDING ONE'S FAVORITE THEATER every night. In addition, DVDROM PLAYERS are everywhere for those with PCs, playing the old classic MOVIES. For those true geeks who like the MOVIE THEATER EXPERIENCE, there have been posts to alt.home-theater.misc about turning a DEN IN YOUR HOUSE into a dedicated MOVIE THEATER with a custom THX SETUP.

    The ONLY real advantage in a real MOVIE THEATER is unusual hardware - especially THX and DTS Decoders. However, even that HOME THEATER hardware is becoming increasingly affordable.

  • I haven't seen Stunt Drivin', but if it's by Atari, then it's the same thing with different maps, essentially.

    Stunt Drivin' had some very diffrent tracks indeed. I distinctly remember a corkscrew, it is the only time I have driven upside down. A pity it didn't have decent force feedback.

  • I dunno. At that point the games start getting fairly complicated, as well as expensive.

    In Boston, Jillian's had a thoroughly kick-ass game called IIRC Lightspeed. (that could be the name of the company - I forget) Basically it consisted of eight two-man pods. Six of the pods were on hydraulic rams for motion. (the other two were cheaper, but noone ever wanted them ;) Each pod had a pilot and a gunner, and the entire thing was a networked flight sim.

    A 4cpu SGI Onyx ran graphics, and each pod had an NT box for networking.

    The problem was that it occupied one or two operators just to keep things going. It wasn't something that could be picked up easily. It cost $5 per person per round, and each round only lasted five minutes. And it took a couple minutes to do a load/unload. And, from time to time the stupid things would crash, and the operators weren't always that good at getting it up again. Needless to say, it didn't last terribly long.

    I, and several friends were great at it, and played it every chance we had. But it was no fun unless you played it against people you knew, and relatively few people could get into it enough to come back for more.

    As for Battletech, there's one in Seattle, but I've never really been interested; I enjoyed piloting the little pods that I could make stand up. Another arcade here has a different flight sim that can spin around in two axes, but it's not networked to anything, so I'm still not particularly interested. And I never think that they'll get the cost down.
  • Shouldn't that be "arcade mainstay" rather than "arcade standby"?
    --
  • I'm not gonna mis Super Mega Ultra Street Fighter vs X-Men II Alpha Championship.
  • Good lord you have a nice boss. Where the hell do you work?

    www.ism.nl [www.ism.nl], Innovative Solutions in Media. Not too big, not too small, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Mostly e-commerce web development, although every now and then there are other interesting projects.

    And yes, we are hiring.

    EOSP (end of shameless plug)

  • Not home computers, LANs (Score:5)

    by Rob Kaper ( 5960 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @07:04PM (#354837) Homepage
    I do not believe home computers are the problem. We have been able to play games (include arcade alikes) on the home computer for ages.

    LANs at home/school/parties are the problem. Playing a game over the Internet might be fun, but what was the best feature of an arcade was racing against your friends - sitting next to you.

    This is possible using a LAN. You can play against each other while being in the same room. You can yell at each other, laugh together, share a beer minutes after the game.

    I doubt many people went to arcades just for the games, it was also a social event for most. I bet a lot of people on /. have multiple computers and could have a friend over to play Quake in the same room against each other. Heck, my boss even bought us a PS2 for the cantine at work (SSX definitely kick ass by the way). Why go to an arcade?

  • There used to be a game I loved playing at the arcade, and now I can't seem to find it anywhere. It was a driving game with somewhat boxy graphics. You had a choice of four cars -- three had manual transmission, and one had automatic. The automatic's just had "drive" for all of the gear shift knob positions. The car had three pedals, with the appropriate functionality, and they actually worked as expected. The steering wheel had force feedback. Most versions I've seen were sit-in ones, but I once saw a stand-up version as well. I last played this game about two years ago. Anyone remember what the game is called?

    (I've been waiting for an article where this would be at least partially on-topic. If you're really annoyed, then mod me down. My karma is non-refundable. Sorry...)

    --

  • It was actually Race Drivin', since I remember that there were four courses. Thanks so much for the answer.

    Leave it to Atari to come up with a decent driving sim. :-)

    --

  • They're all different editions of the same game, released within a few years. I haven't seen Stunt Drivin', but if it's by Atari, then it's the same thing with different maps, essentially.

    --

  • A pity it didn't have decent force feedback.

    Well, the game is more than 10 years old. I was very impressed by it even in 1999. And not because of nostalgia. I actually thought that the game was fairly new. I think that says something about it... :-)

    I'm now looking for an arcade version for sale on eGay or something, but no luck so far.

    --

  • A 25 cent game that lasts ten minutes provides a lot of value for the money. Even if I can buy the same game for $30, that's 120 plays at the arcade. But at 50 cents/game, that's only 60 plays. And at $1/game, that's 30 plays.

    More to the point, I can walk into a 25 cent arcade with $5 and be amused for an hour. I can walk into a $1 arcade and be amused for maybe fifteen minutes if I stretch.

    The lack of innovation in the industry recently hits home consoles and arcades alike. We used to have dig dug, bubble bobble, pac man, lock 'n chase, space invaders, frogger, blue print, and galaga. We blew stuff up with planes, tanks, motorcycles, and cars. Games were based on time travel, outer space, cartoons, ninjas...

    Now we have street fighter clones, shooting things on screen with light guns, and a few racing games. (Hydro thunder runs on W2K, I saw it crash and reboot.) The "innovation" is putting street fighter in 3D (virtua fighter, soul edge, spawn, etc).

    The closest thing to an exciting new game was a rewrite of Gauntlet. There are a couple of "puzzle" type games from japanese companies (anybody remember when Tetris was in the arcades?). But these days, large corporations put out the games, and innovation simply can't survive a cost benefit analysis. Why they didn't do a cost benefit analysis raising their prices until they weren't worth our time is beyond me...

    Rob

  • You are correct in your assessments about the decline of arcade games.

    I mean, think about it: the current PlayStation 2 and the upcoming GameCube and Xbox consoles now have computing power that just about equals what dedicated arcade machines can do. And all three consoles will likely have the ability to connect multiple players over broadband Internet connections.

    It's small wonder why Capcom wants to concentrate on console systems.
  • Xbox will not be a bust in Japan.

    The reason why it won't fail are:

    1. Microsoft is willing to spend a lot of money promoting the system in Japan.

    2. Microsoft has gotten just about every major Japanese game publisher (with the notable exception of Square) to write games for Xbox.

    3. Even the Japanese are not so interested with arcade units anymore. Look at how fast the PlayStation 2 has sold in Japan, and you know that GameCube will be flying out the door of retailers in Japan this summer, too.
  • I remember the first time I saw Strider in the arcades. Damn that was elite!

    Watching the "big kids" fight the boss where you're spinning in orbit in a big sphere attacking the gravity source in the center. I had never seen anything like it.

    It was a platformer with floors that were not always horizontal! Slanted floors! And parallaxing backgrounds!

    And then the games like Bubble Bobble that you can hardly resist sticking quarters into.

    Nothing in the arcades today wows me near as much.
  • Also, I may be a dying breed, but I like pinball and I can't play the new pinball machines anywhere but at an arcade. There, at least, is a market (tiny as it is) that consoles can't usurp.

    Um, I hate to be the one to tell you, but pinball isn't just dying. It's dead. Sega bailed out of the market. Capcom bailed out of the market. Even Bally/Williams has bailed out. The only company left making pins is Stern [sternpinball.com], and I've never actually seen a machine from them. (At least, not one made since they restarted the pinball division after Williams shut down.)

    Yeah, it sucks. I was a programmer at Capcom Coin-Op (the pinball division) when the axe fell. I love pinball, but let's face it: From an operator's perspective it's a nightmare. The machines are expensive; they have a ton of moving parts which can break; they need constant maintenance (cleaning the playfield can be a bitch!); and they really only serve a niche market of hardcore fans.

    Sigh. At least I have a Big Bang Bar [lysator.liu.se] in my basement to go play when I'm feeling depressed about the whole thing...


    Chelloveck
  • ....This a month after i get a tattoo with Ken and the japanese for "Shoryuken" on my shoulder...

    now my kids won't have a clue what I'm on about :-(

    Arcades are a great place to be to kill an hour or so when you've got nothing to do and a few spare dollars, if they fade from view I'll be upset, and if there's no street fighter machines i'll be going less and less often.... This is a rather sad day for those of us who enjoy the odd hadouken... it's just not the same at home.


    --Gfunk
  • Don't neglect the social aspects of the arcade. People don't only go to the place for the games. It's a community thing as well.

    Of course, if the games suck and are really expensive, well, then, that will adversely affect the community.
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
  • Hey, as far as I can tell arcades are doing OK! What are dying are some types of games.

    Locally there are two Dave & Buster's. These are combination food/drink/arcade/ticket games. They're doing great, partly at the expense of more old-school arcade places. After all, you can go with just about anyone to D&B and have a good time while only hardcord gamers and teenagers hang out at Real Arcades, and I wouldn't even take a casual group of people from work there to have a good time.

    Thus, the market shifts to follow the types of games places like D&B want and people there play. Fighting games are only a small portion of what they carry - much more popular are games like the various racing or cooperative games (like Rapid River (sp?) or gun-based games).

    I just think Capcom was less successful than most at shifting to follow the market. Personally, I also thought they were way behind the curve on following even just the fighting market into the world of 3D. I think they'll fare a lot better in the console market which still has a large group of people that appreciate what they produce.

  • it's really sad... (Score:3)

    by Raleel ( 30913 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @05:57PM (#354850)
    Arcades have been going away for a while, but I think it's really starting to die seriously. There have been very few new games to hit the arcades in a long time.

    I, for one, will be very sad to see them go. They were a part of my growing up. I actually learned the value of money there, because it was valuable for me to play those games.
  • Showbiz pizza purchased Chuck E. Cheese (which was either partially or fully owned by Noland Bushnell, of Atari fame). The mouse was embraced and extended into the Showbiz Pizza family.

    It is a pleasant surprise that they are still around. Too bad they haven't upgrading the animitronics.
  • Earlier, I said that that the arcade games currently stand out only as 'glorified amusement park rides'. Your post reminded me that it isn't entirely the case.

    The other two categories are redemption games (put in $.25, get three tickets, you're 1/10th of the way to a plastic ring), and gambling machines (ala Video Poker and Video Slots).

    How the mighty have fallen. Atari certainly was a market leader, was it not? They were the first to market with a number of neat things, and one of the first to disappear (first the home games and computing divisions, then the coin-op branch).

    The classic 'arcade' is pretty much gone. This will continue unless the arcade game manufacturers (which are actually the home video game publishers) decide that the arcade actually qualifies as a form of 'advertisement', and decides to subsidize the cost of arcade games.

    If home arcade games are just as good as the home versions, then the only reason (aside from nostalga) to go to an arcade is to see the latest stuff before they are released as home versions.

  • Arcades: Slow death and bleak future (Score:3)

    by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @07:15PM (#354853)
    Your avid arcade game collector knows that the arcade industry has been on the decline since 1984. A number of reasons have been given. The main reason seems to have been a glut of copy-cat games and an end of originality in the arcades. (This was briefly broken by the Street Fighter genre. Briefly, mind you.)

    Modern arcade games seem to be a kind of advertisement for the home game. I obtained a Killer Instinct PCB a year ago, only to be bombarded with a intro screen announcing it would be available for the "Nintendo ULTRA 64". Probably one of the most blatent examples.

    Then, there's the glorified amusement park rides. Either your racing games, or your motorized/pnumatic/hydrolic controlled simulator type of environment. That's about the only way an arcade game can differentiate itself from the home game.

    At the start of the arcade business, that was not true. The "home version" was pale in comparison to the arcade original. The arcade showcased the latest in technology, which was years away from what was available in the home.

    Today, the situation is quite difference. In fact, the X-Box seems to put the final nail in the coffin. Arcade game manufacturers may very well stop creating arcade games on custom hardware. Instead, they'll compile for an X-Box style platform. Why? For the ease of conversion to the home game. That's where the money is. The arcade game is just the 'advertisement' to create the buzz.

    Sega once made an unsuccessful attempt at something similar. Remeber the Sega Saturn? Well, it has its arcade counterpart, the Sega Titan hardware, which a number of games were based off of (example: Die Hard Arcade, Batman, Winter Heat). But it failed to catch firew, and a small number of games were targeted to the Titan platform (which had an easy route to make the games work on the Saturn).

    It is very likely, however, that Microsoft is going to win where Sega failed. The X-Box is a 'sure thing' platform. Create your arcade games for the X-Box platform, and you'll have an easy route to make a home version.

    What arcade collectors may not realize at this point, is that if Microsoft pull things off right, the existing arcade standard, JAMMA, could go the way of the vector game, into arcade history. X-Box could very well become the next arcade standard -- and home platform standard.

    I'm not looking forward to it, myself. But I'm willing to believe that home and arcade game manufacturers are. Of course, Microsoft seems to have a habit of getting version 1.0 of everything wrong. But with no real competition, I think it puts a nail in the coffin of the arcade industry as we know it today.


  • No arcade Xbox board availible, doomed in Japan (Score:3)

    by bbk ( 33798 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @08:25PM (#354854) Homepage
    The Xbox is pretty much doomed for failure in japan - by the time it comes out, the PS2 will have been in the japanese market for almost 2 year, and the Gamecube will have just come out. Japanese gamers are wary of an american console, thinking it will be the next 3DO, a console which bombed horribly in both countries. Japanese console developers haven't signed up en masse, and big names like Square haven't definitely announced any product.

    As the only console games I play are RPG's, and the occasional game of Dance Dance Revolution (all very japanese games), I doubt I'm going to buy an Xbox any time soon - which is probably the case for most of the hardcore gamer market. As for the rest of the american market, I think the Xbox will do ok. It'll all depend on the games.

    Anyway, the Naomi (dreamcast equivalent) and System 246 (PS2 equivalent) boards are already in use in arcade systems - and the Naomi 2 (4x power of dreamcast) is coming out pretty soon as well. Microsoft has no standard arcade Xbox based system, and hasn't made any overtures of creating one, IIRC. Because of this, arcade ports are much more likely to be made to the PS2 and Dreamcast.

    BBK

  • Face it, the Marvelization of Capcom's fighters was mere pandering to the American taste. The hard-core SF games are masterpieces, although many elite purists would say that the Street Fighter Zero/Alpha series aren't in the same league. Oh, and I'm not talking about the SF EX series.

    In my SF-playing days (high school through college, SF2WW through SFA2), I witnessed a whole culture being born around this genre. There were classifications for people based on ability, e.g. people who overspecialized in one style of play or one type of character or who played and acted poorly were called scrubs. People who preferred huge flashy combos to strategic play were called dialers. Dialers, in particlular, were looked down upon by strategic players, because they lacked finesse and relied on sheer finger-speed. (I remember some dialers used to practice on Track and Field...go fig.) Perhaps the clearest, most direct example is this: Strategic players liked Virtua Fighter; dialers _lived_ Tekken.

    When Capcom came out with X-Men (their first SF2-styled Marvel fighter), it was clearly an effort to appeal to dialers. It didn't take long for hard-core SF2 players to realize this. It was an answer to Midway's ridiculous finger-speed contest, Mortal Kombat. And Americans ate it up.

    Incidentally, I should point out that SF Alpha 2 (American) is my all-time favorite fighting game, with Capcom's Warzard/Red Earth a somewhat-distant runner-up (because you fight huge-ass MONSTERS and gain levels and techniques like an RPG). It has the perfect balance of restricted options, damage control, speed, and finesse requirements. Also, it should be pointed out that in a recent USA vs. Japan Capcom fighting tourney, the Americans dominated the professional Japanese players at the Marvel-style games, while the Japanese players were able to beat the top American players (a certain Mr. John Choi included, whom I've never beaten =) quite handily.

    In short, you can't blame Capcom for publishing so many inane titles for audiences that appreciate them. Ahh...I think it's high time I visited alt.games.sf2 [alt.games.sf2] and relived my wayward youth.

    < tofuhead >
    --

  • Capcom fighting games, at least, are not like this. A good player can dominate a machine indefinitely, limited only by the number of challengers willing to play him/her.

    Yep, nothing beats the feeling of looking at your watch and saying to the next person in line, "you want my game? I have class in about 15 seconds." And there are plenty of places in the 408 area (at least, there were, when I was a local) that have inexpensive, <25 cent games, for a minimum entrance fee of about $2.00.

    < tofuhead >
    --

  • I used to play SF2 a lot, so I know where you're coming from. But I think there's an aspect to the "community" that you're ignoring.

    Personally, I loved playing against friends, but I preferred playing against strangers, especially local superheroes. Of course, you walk into the wrong arcade (Sunnyvale Golfland) while the wrong people are there (certain nameless best-in-the-U.S. players that I won't mention) at the wrong time (tourney night) and you end up getting reamed, with so-called friends laughing at you the whole time. Oh, I digress.

    Hmm, the point? I don't know. "Always ask if your opponent is 'ranked,'" I guess. Or something. Bah.

    Oh, and don't forget, there are no stakes in net-play, or a "tourney" at your friend's house. I happen to like putting my money (all twenty-five U.S. cents) where my mouth is.

    < tofuhead >
    --

  • Yeah, yeah, replying to self, bad form, etc.

    Just now got to check out shoryuken.com; they have a link to that tourney between USA and Japan [shoryuken.com]. They pretty much tied at SSF2, Japan kicked it on SF3TS and Alpha 3, and the U.S. dominated on the (pfff) Marvel dialer game. Read into that (or my previous post, parent to this one) what you will.

    < tofuhead >
    --

  • Funland on Yonge St. is THE arcade. Anyone who disagrees can go to hell.
  • > Fuck that. It reminds me of some old SNES and NES games with large levels. Oh, sure you could continue, but you'd have to continue from the beginning of the level and do it ALLL over again just to get killed by the boss at the end one more time.

    So - this is game design we're talking about - get rid of the "boss".

    IMHO game design started to go downhill when the "boss" concept came into vogue. The term we used was "quartersucker", in that the game was typically designed to allow you an easy romp through most of the level before utterly slaughtering you at the boss stage.

    A positive monotonic learning curve is a good thing - the game gets harder as the player gets better, and it does so at a reasonably uniform rate.

    The games of the 80s featured this - but the difficulty usually maxed out at some point where the CPU was incapable of throwing more stuff at the player and maintaining frame rates (or keeping track of everything in the 64K RAM typically available to CPUs of that day.) Difficulty typically maxed out after 15-20 minutes, after which time the length of play was limited only by the player's bladder capacity and/or number of lives.

    The boss concept introduced a discontiunity into the learning curve, allowing all players to enjoy the game up to a certain point, then ending the game (or forcing the addition of more quarters).

    With modern CPUs, we could remove the upper limit on difficulty imposed by the 8-bit CPUs of the olden days, and do away with the boss and the continue concept. Gameplay can become "infinitely" hard; limited only by the player's nervous system.

    Think of the 100-meter dash - a "game" that's thousands of years old. There's an upper limit to how fast even the most steroid-enhanced runner can run 100m. But nobody knows what that is, which is why we still revere folks who set records. (Or Konami's "Track and Field" with a CPU fast enough that your final score won't max out when you use a vibrating buzzer to tap the buttons for you - the game becomes a test of engineering skills ;-)

    Getting around the problem you describe ("boring easy levels") is easy enough - just allow the player to start on a harder level, and give a bonus (score or time) for doing so. (as in Atari's Tempest, 1982).

    Getting around the other problem you describe ("starting over from the beginning every time you get killed in 10 seconds by that goddamn boss") goes away when you get rid of the boss.

    My candidate for "worst offender" in the "continue / boss" category: Rabbit Punch. Great game, funny as all hell. You "continue" through the entire game, utterly failing to build up any skill whatsoever, until the final level, at which point you can no longer continue, and have to restart the level from scratch. There's a special spot in hell waiting for the game designer who did that.

  • > Arcade games can be broken down into three categories, in my experiences: Racing, Shooting (gun to monitor) and fighting. It's my experience that when the gaming industry finds a hit, it takes years to recover, and it's a damned shame.

    I don't think it's coming back.

    The real reason isn't so much that apart from racing and shooting games, everything's doable at home, but that arcade operators can no longer make a buck.

    1981: Buy a Missile Command for $2000-3000. There's nothing at home that can match it, except for people who own $2000 computers - that's what a 6502-based computer cost back then, and it didn't even have graphics! There's nothing even comparable until the Atari 800, and it's not like very many kids own one.

    So you make your money back in 3-6 months, and then it's all profit for the next year or so.

    1998: Buy Mortal Kombat 4 for $4500. About the same as your $2000 Missile Command after inflation. Problem is, the home version comes out a month or two later, and the kids stay at home. At $0.50 per play, you barely make enough to pay for the machine.

    2001: Don't buy Mortal Kombat VIII - you learned your lesson with MK3 and MK4. Instead, buy the latest racing game for $20000. If it turns out to be the next "Cruisin'" or "Virtua Racing", you might make money.

    If it doesn't, you've got a $20000 piece of junk on your hands. It takes up four times the space of a regular machine. It's just that after barely breaking even on four MK3 machines a few years ago, you figure at least this thing won't be available in the home for another six months.

    But even at a buck a play, it's no different than having four normal machines at $0.25 per play in terms of revenue per square foot. You just hope that the kids don't get bored with before before you pay off the initial cost.

    Arcade machines are no longer cash cows - they've become very expensive gambles. There's a reason Sega owns the Playdium -- it's because nobody else is willingto risk it. In fact, I'd bet that Playdium and the other "really big arcades" of today would be losing money if they paid the prices the average arcade operator would have to pay. The "play center" arcades are loss-leaders in order to generate interest in the console markets.

    If you make consoles or console-based games, arcades aren't "good business", they're just part of the marketing budget. For everyone else, arcades aren't good business. Period.

  • > Only problem is america seems to have a heavy anti-bemani sentiment.. finding an arcade on the east coast with bemani games is near impossible, while in cali, there are dozens :(

    Although bemani is cool as hell - the games are much larger than their 1980s-style cash-cow predecessors, and cost a lot more.

    I don't have current pricing, but I'd imagine these machines are comparable to the driving games. Maybe $10000 vs. $15-20K. But still a lot of money for the small-time "hometown arcade" operator to gamble, particularly with the cultural differences wrt Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, and so on.

  • I think they mispoke. I understand business, and I bet they think arcade games are profitable, but counsole games give MORE profit. That's all it takes in the business world.

    Has anyone here BEEN to an arcade recently? Hardly anything new, machines widely spaced apart. Someone mentioned the superiority of arcade machines, I've yet to see it.

    Later,
    ErikZ

  • The thing is that sound and video on most stand up arcade games just isn't all that much better than a decent computer or a console connected to a big TV, especially not on the older ones. Buying the custom hardware for a good home theater is WAY WAY WAY more expensive than buying a TV and a console.

  • I'm not too big into playing all the street fighters out right now (I was wicked good at the SNES version though!) but I often find myself going into the arcade on campus just to stare at the latest SF incarnation (I really like the Marvel crossover).
    Capcom should really be commended for staying true to the original gameplay and feel of the SF series, while doing amazing things to improve the game. I know, I know, the many iterations of the game are just to suck the latest quarter out of your pocket without you getting bored of the game, but the hacker in me really respects the amazing look and play of the games. They are all still 2D, which means that instead of buying into the 3D hype, capcom focused on squeezing as much gameplay out of SF as possible. (I know about SF:Ex, but after that failed, they didnt try again at least :)

    It'll be sad to see SF in the arcade disappear...

    --
  • The little guys might be dying out

    Capcom a little guy? Capcom games (SF *) are the most popular games when I'm at the arcade. People still are pumping quarters into the latest version of SF, which is why the news that Capcom is opting out is pretty scary: if the most popular arcade games arent good enough, then how can any of the other companies continue the arcade biz?


    --

  • Turns out that they're not pulling out completely.

    From the link, the official Capcom statement:

    "Today, there have been some reports by the media that our company will be withdrawing from the arcade game software market. These reports are not official announcements made by our company, and are not formal decisions made at the current time.

    Though our company will cut down on the arcade department in the next fiscal and focus on the home console market, we will also continue to provide software for the arcades as well."

    Next stop: Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat! :)

    nlh

  • Link to the English version of the statement is here [mmcafe.com], and the Japanese version is here [mmcafe.com].

    nlh

  • There's also a BattleTech setup in Circle Centre Mall in Indianapolis, IN. Unfortunately, every time I've been there at least two of the pods are down for whatever reason. I guess the good thing about the Indy setup is on Tuesdays it costs next to nothing to play BattleTech. I haven't been to that arcade in almost a year, so things might have changed by now.

    I used to be a huge fan of arcades. Went to the one in Forest Fair Mall near Cincinnati, OH every Friday when I was in high school. Loaded up the car with my friends, and proceeded to blow about $40 on air hockey, the big screen Street Fighter games (which I sucked at horribly), some of the flight sims, and then we'd go see a dollar movie (in the mall right next to the arcade). Ahhh... The good ol' days! ;-)
  • Arcades may go the way of the dodo in our lifetime, but that doesn't necessarily spell the end of social gaming. We've still got LAN parties!

    I play LAN games with friends and family all the time... At least once a week. Definately a blast, and much more fun to scream at your opponent in the next room and hurl empty soda cans in frustration than it is to type in stuff on chat in the games. hehehhee!

  • If you think Arcades are losing steam because of competition from home consoles, think again. Read this excellent article [shoryuken.com] by Seth Killian from Shoryuken.com.

    Here is an excerpt:

    Blaming consoles because "they let you play the same thing for free!" goes wrong in at least two serious ways. First, it doesn't explain why the same thing doesn't seem to affect other industries of which EXACTLY the same thing is true. Take for instance the absolute *explosion* of coffee houses over the last few years. Gamespot reasoning: "Can't people get coffee at home? Virtually everyone has a coffee machine- and they're cheap, too. Sure, the coffee houses have fancy machines with lots of chrome- but that's essentially just a gimmick, right? It's still coffee. And 3$ a cup?! Who do these coffee places think they're kidding? No thanks- I think *I'll* just stay here and drink my perfectly-good coffee in the comfort of my own home!". Seems "logical" enough, right?

  • Actually, they've still got it at Dave & Busters downtown Chicago. My department goes there about once every other month and spends an afternoon playing video games.

    The Dave & Buster's Battletech center consists of about 8 pods. Everything runs on Macs. The graphics are absolutely horrible now (equal in quality to about Heavy Gear). The pods are nifty, and the price is cheaper than it used to be but it's still prohibitively expensive.

    We usually spend most of our time shooting things at the shooting games, or playing Daytona USA instead of doing the Battletech thing. Amazing how a 3-4 year old racing game is STILL better than all the new ones that have come out :)
  • Really, it's not a big loss. When was the last time you saw an arcade game made by capcom that WASN'T Street Fighter or some derivative of it? In fact, Capcom's games lately have been utter copy-cat trash (take a look at the obscene # of Capcom fighter clones that are available for the Dreamcast).

    Capcom USED to make good games. Remember Final Fight? Remember Mercs? Those were good times.

    But then one day, Capcom released Street Fighter 2. That was a great game at the time. Then they released Street Fighter 2 Turbo, then Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition, then about a bazillion other Street Fighter 2 clones. What happened? Did the creative staff up and leave?

    You wonder why they weren't making any money? It's because they weren't making any good games. Now, I'd care if Sega or Namco stopped making arcade games. That would be a sad day indeed. Those two companies do a lot of copy cat stuff as well, but at least some of their games show SOME creativity.
  • Um first off, what sort of crack are you smoking?

    Battletech (in VR as you mentioned it) is (to my knoledge) still going on & they are considerably more advanced than any home box (or PC for that matter). heck they spawned ~5 gamecenters in various locations across the country... I only wish I had the chance to go to one...

    Next there si this 3dfx & Sega thing... 3dfx & Sega have never worked together... in fact 3dfx came closest to such a thing in the bidding for the dreamcast 3d chip, but lost to PowerVR/Imagination Technologies...

    I will mourn the loss of the arcades as this is truly a sad time for some of us gamers... It was the first chance I ever had to interact socially with gamers (& consisted of much more than 'I ownz you!' as we see today). Heck in my place I woudl have to talk my parents into driving 20 miles into the city & letting me go off to the arcades just so I had the chance to enter a place where I felt I was like other people... somethign I didn't have in school...

    When I went off to colelge though there were no arcades (it seems the cities favored gaming pasttimes were drinking & pool). I missed the arcades... When I came home I foudn that the only arcade left had next to nothing worth playing... a few carny type games & 2 or 3 lightgun games where all that was left of my past haunt where I could challenge a peer to a game of Samurai Showdown or Timekillers...

    Hopefully places like the Battletech arenas continue as the 'next generation' of arcades... it's frankly the last hope we have for people to get together as a group to truly play a game without the use of the net...
  • The only 'newer' game to truly make a advance on the tired fighting game genre was the Soul blade/Edge/Calibur series which has probably the best combat system in a fighting game I have ever seen... sadly I doubt you can even find those games anywhere in a palce that may be called an 'arcade' these days.... My Dreamcast (which was bought soley for some of my fav modern arcade game translations) is the only place I'm likely to see them now...
  • How nice that your able to do so... In my case I simply don't know anyone who would heft there PC over to my cramped little place for a game or vice versa... That was the conveniance of the arcade, all the machines were already in one centralized spot... & everyone knew where to meet...
  • Huh SF2 unbalanced characters...? Well then why did I used to kick the crap out of people with Chun Li? Ryu/Ken sucked...

    As for MK, well I disliked it because basic moves did not win the game... you had to learn the dif characters moves to suceed at the game because withotu those moves you would loose... with SF2 onward you could get by on normal moves with the occasional better move happening by chance (where as in MK special moves where abnormal to just accidentally run across)...
  • never had that problem... I've played all of them up to the last couple which I only saw for PS1... hence why when I bought SNK vs. Capcom for my DC (which I had hopes for, but it pretty much sucks) I can't figure out who people like Sakura are (though I know they are Capcom characters)...

    But if I'm playing Chun-li I could very much get out of the corner... if I remember correctly she's in fact the only one who could do a corner double jump (hence jump against the backwall & spring over the person completely) in the first couple versions... & it was a high enough jump I could throw you in midair if you tried to use his flip kick move to stop me... but I degress... suffice it to say you would not suceed in beating someone who is good with a particular character just because you played as Guile/Ryu/Ken/etc in SF2. That was what annoyed me with Tekken actually as Law was the cheapest character in the game, learn 1 move & win 99.99% of all fights... The same was not true in any of the SF2's I've ever played...
  • I've been thinking for a number of years (especially with those head-to-head driving games) that arcades would be a nifty place for networked games - but a GLOBAL network, not just inside a single arcade.

    You could have arcades being part of a franchise, or you could have multiple arcades cooperating with each other, where all of the arcades are hooked together with fault-tolerant high-speed connections, and the games are set up so that you can choose to play anyone at any of the other arcade locations.

    Throw in the opportunity for players to interact with each other (good time to brush up on your foreign language profanities), and some funky controllers which would be too expensive to buy for home use, and I think that a visit to the arcade would still be pretty enjoyable.

    Of course, if the games DIDN'T cost $1/min, that would be even more enjoyable...

  • The "death" of arcades (Score:3)

    by BobGregg ( 89162 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @07:03PM (#354880) Homepage
    I have to say, I mourn the death of quality arcade game manufacturers. Fortunately, Capcom was not one of them. Sigh... my first job was running the game room in a ShowBiz Pizza (think Chuck E. Cheese with a bear instead of a mouse) the summer after I graduated from high school. By the end of that summer, I could rack up high scores on Spyhunter and Robotron 2084 without fail. I still remember some of the advanced levels of Bump N' Jump like the back of my hand. If only we'd had a Star Wars machine, I might never have left.

    I spent half my youth either in or begging to go into arcades. I remember the first time I saw PacMan, the week it was released in the US. I remember the first time I saw a Missile Command. There used to be a Lunar Lander in the Aladdin's Castle in the mall near where I lived. I got in trouble I don't know how many times for sneaking a mile and a half up the street past the junior college to blow my quarters on the Centipede at the Shop-a-Snak mini mart, or the Galaxian at the Majik Market across the street. And when I was in college, I was lucky enough that the one "leftover" arcade game the vendors installed in our cafeteria was Bubble Bobble. Now THAT was a game - maybe the best game ever released.

    I'm not going to lose sleep over Capcom not making money off of Super Ultra Street Fighter 2 Turbo Alpha Zany X-Men Spice Girls Crossover Mega. Gimme a break. I haven't seen an original arcade game in years. Though Dance Dance Revolution comes close, even if it is just memorization. At least it's different. :-) Sigh... I want my Robotron back.
  • I'm sorry, but I have to throw a word in for silent scope. It's a wonderful variation on the gun->monitor theme because you're not just blasting the hell out of everything, but really sniping. The only arcade game that has excited me at all since the days of Street Fighter 2 and TMNT. It's the only reason I'll even drop in to an arcade any more. Silent Scope 2's competitive feature can't be beat either. If only other arcade developers would come up with ideas that good.

    "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

  • Ahh, I couldn't have said it better myself. :-)

    Granted, it does take a certain amount of time (and money) to learn to be good at a game, but not an unreasonable amount of time. And there's a lot of crossover between games of the same genre.

    Take Crisis Zone, for example. It's very similar to Time Crisis and Time Crisis 2, and didn't take very long (less than $5.00) for me to become good enough to get 10-15 min playing time out of each credit. The same goes for SF2 and all its derivatives, Daytona USA and all of its derivatives... the list goes on.

  • Have you tried the Dance Dance Revolution games out there and the line of drums, guitar and samba games that accompany them? They are by far the most original thing that has come out in the past few years in the arcades.

    Though it's mainly the Asian public who plays them (in my experience that is) they are immensely popular, and fun to watch as well (with the exception of the samba game, I haven't tried them myself).

    So have a little faith. There's always room for real innovation, even in the age old arcades.
  • The situation in Italy is interesting, because except some particular places like bowling pools arcade and pinball machines are almost vanished, replaced with a sort of electronic slot macines. The technology of these is quite simple: I think they use 80386 CPU and VGA-like displays, or even Z80 systems, so they are cheaper than a regular arcade systems, and there are people that enjoy more these machine than a pinball.

    (Personally If I have to spend 1 EUR betting, I prefer betting on soccer results, because you can win 2.000.000 EUR with an 1 EUR bet, and not 2 EUR).

    So except on places like bowling pools, that have to have expensive systems anyway, arcade system are slowly dyning here.

  • >I'd like to see a truly original game for arcade systems. As for the newer arcade games out there today, well, goodbye. We never really loved you. Try Konami's bemani line. Games like dance dance revolution, beatmania, and guitar freaks are tons of fun. They are the most original arcade games to come out in the past five years, and they are addictive as all hell. Only problem is america seems to have a heavy anti-bemani sentiment.. finding an arcade on the east coast with bemani games is near impossible, while in cali, there are dozens :( Ah well, dance dance revolution usa mix should be out for psx, i need to check up on that. (case in point btw)
  • Yeah, i was looking into buying an arcade machine (no, im not going to buy one) and the price was around 8-12k for a SINGLE PLAYER dance pad. Single player is kinda silly in the arcade, better off getting the double.

    Its not like the other coin-ops.. alot larger. But w/ ddr the machine is occupied nearly all the time. It draws crowds into the arcade, crowds which then plop 2 quarters into another game :)

    We were tooling with the idea of buying a DDR machine, renting some space in the local mall and just throwing it in there, and see what happens.

    So, whats w/ the cultural differences? Ive lived on the east coast my entire life, and i sure as hell love to bust out my ddr skills on a mad afronova or butterfly upswing another routine. Maybe just cuz of how uptight eastcoasters are. But man, when your on stage playin ddr, and you look good... its such an ego boost.. that and it gets gamers to lose weight. the HORROR.. OH THE HORROR
  • No more Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo II for Playstation?

    I'll just play Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo I. OH WAIT...

    There wasn't one!

  • Probably the most annoying thing with Ryu Ken and Akuma is the rather large invincibilty window and priority of the Dragon Punch. There are numerous ways to get past fireballs (even more in more recent games, like CVS's evade roll) and the kick can easily be defeated, but the dragon punch (only theirs, it seems. Most other z-motion moves (Cannon Spike, Iori's Fire Ball in CVS, Sakura's dragon punch) have lower priority.

    I never play as Ryu/Ken though. They really dont fit my style.
    ----
  • That game was awesome! It had great control and playablity. Plus the little videos were really funny! J.
  • For that matter, who needs the theme? All you need is the replay THWOK. There's nothing like that anywhere in videoland.

    REAL(tm) pinball machines never have more than five digits.
  • These are still among the best damn games a man can play. What is more entertaining than a silver ball and a couple of flippers? Give it a theme, and you're in for hours of play. Beats those PS2's anytime.
  • FIRST OFF...
    The arcades across America are being hit hard for what I believe are three major reasons.

    The first reason being the increasing popularity of the computer as a top of the line gameing machine. It used to be that you went to an arcade for top of the line games. Now you go to anywhere from Software Etc. to Kmart and pick up wonderfull games such as Half-Life, Sacrifice, and of course Unreal Tournament. The graphics on a computer moniter far surpas those of the arcade monitors.

    2.No new arcades are being built. As Older arcade owners retire.. The tricky business of when to buy and sell cabinets is going to be lost to but a few individuals who learned the trade. This directly affects capcom because without arcades to purchase games, you have no one to make them for.

    3. Public Intrest. In many cities arcades are banned, or HEAVILY regulated. This is partly because there is supposedly a minor increase in crime around arcades. What this does is cause potential proprieters to abandon the idea to to all of the strict ordinances against the arcade market.

    SECONDLY...

    CAPCOM was never King. The King and Queen (lol) were BALLEY/Midway, who kept up the arcade with a constant influx of awesome games from shooters, Pins, and Racers that attracted the general public and Hard-Core gamers alike.
    Medieval Madness
    HydroThunder
    Cruisin line of arcade racers

    Let's not forget Namco for makeing the # 1 running game for the past three years.
    TIME CRISIS II

    Write your city council to have all of the ordinances banning arcades removed!

    DW
  • This could just be a sign that the traditional arcade has given way to the home system just as flip movies in penny arcades gave way to the modern arcades today and made room for VCRs and Television and pinball and so forth.

  • ummm...New movie in theater==not available at home for months. Thats the selling point.

  • I think things will only get worse... (Score:3)

    by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @06:18PM (#354895) Journal
    I think that the further we progress with console technology, the more arcade game manufacturers will leave the market. Many years ago, back in the days of the C64 and the Spectrum, arcade games had much cooler graphics and sound. The gap in quality was quite big. Compare C64 Enduro Racer with the arcade version. Huge difference.

    The problem is, the gap has come down dramatically with technological advances, making it so items like the Metal Gear Solid 2 trailer for the PS2, which is all rendered in realtime, blow away a lot of arcade material, or at the very least equals it.

    With the cost of playing, coupled with the fact that the PS2 and other consoles now generate comparable graphics and sound that equal if not exceed their arcade brethren, the home console is becoming a more attractive proposition for a games player. Shell out a buck or two a go, or shell out 50 or so for a game you can play infinite times. Home technology has finally caught up.

    It could be worse though I guess. At least Capcom are still going to makes games.

    ---

  • I remember back in 1997 or 1998 when arcades promised to start offering "compleatly new types of games."

    Ok, sure I said, no prob, crap, I've been reading about them for ages and VR and motion sensers are about due to come into modern arcades.

    Heya, first few games in the new "mega arcades" where a bit original. Hell, even house of the dead on those gigantic ass screens was original.

    Shit, then the entire fun factor was over with when you released that at $1 per play, $1 per continue, MINIMUM (well, some games are $.75, but those are a rarity, ugh!) you where running out of money way to fast.

    Oh yah, and gameplay was sacrificed for money making. Of course money is the objective, but they where so blatent about it. Forcing the player to die often times (House of the Dead2 comes in to mind, certian boss's where pretty much guarnteed to hit you) and even going so far as to have monsters be unbeatable for short periods of time while they got their licks in on you (not in plateformers either, I am talking about area51 style games here!!) made it quite obvious to the player that the game was AFTER their money.

    Sure, sure, that thought is always in the back of your head, but while you are in some fantasy world blowing shit up, it should NOT be forced to the front of your mind by the game!!! I want a friggin fantasy land where I can kill shit left and right, if I have to pop a few quarters in now and then to keep the game a 'going then so be it, but hell, I am there for an adventure folks, I do not want to have my charecter lose life in what is plainly an attempt to rake in a few extra $$$'s on the part of the arcade company!
  • Too bad to hear that a company isn't building arcade machines anymore, I remember dropping a lot of quarters in street fighter 2.

    just a few weeks ago the local Pocket Change Park in the mall (Northpark mall, owned by Simon in Davenport,IA) closed up.
    It was a shame to see it leave, they had a big wooden carousel and everything. Very neat arcade/kiddie-ride place but it seems like arcade games REALLY have to be cutting edge for people to like them more than just home consoles or computer games.

    For example Police 911 [ezboard.com] by Konami. Really cool, you have to duck and move around and dodge bullets and crap, totally neat stuff other than the fact my legs turn to jello after jumping around for 10 minutes.

    gOOdByE squat machine, hello arcade game ;)
    Klowner
  • and it's not uncommon to spend $1.00 playing a 10 minute game.

    Try substantially less than 10 minutes.&nbsp Many of today's current games don't seem to want to reward excellence with more play time.&nbsp Regardless of how many times I came in first place on Taito's downhill skiing game from a few years back, I never got to race again.&nbsp I'm sure that an operator can set the option allowing another race but as it was, my dollar lasted about 2 minutes.&nbsp Not a good value IMHO.

  • I want my Robotron back. I want my Robotron back. ----> You can HAVE your Robotron back! No joke! Take a look at Mame [mame.net]. Over 2700 absolutely ORIGINAL arcade games that you can play on your PC. No quarters required.
  • Hard Drivin is available for Mame [mame.net] and you can play it on your desktop computer. No quarters required! (Mame is truly a cool thing. Available for DOS, Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac, you-name-it.)
  • "Sega once made an unsuccessful attempt at something similar. Remeber the Sega Saturn? Well, it has its arcade counterpart, the Sega Titan hardware, which a number of games were based off of (example: Die Hard Arcade, Batman, Winter Heat). But it failed to catch firew, and a small number of games were targeted to the Titan platform (which had an easy route to make the games work on the Saturn). "

    Sega did the same thing with the Dreamcast and their Naomi hardware for arcades. It was mildly successful, but we all know what happened with the Dreamcast in the end :(
  • I am not going to miss it either, since they never bothered to put Kittylicious Pryde in any of the X-Men games.
  • I think the games are too expensive - spending a $1.00 on 5 minutes of a game, then by the time you figure out the feel you spent $5.00

    I see less and less people at the games, it's easyer now to get a Dreamcast or PS2 and play all you want, and now they include modems and internet connections it's better that the arcades.

    I still think the best computer entertament is LAN games, get 4 PC install Hidden&Dangrouse and snipper your friends down. Such a good felling when you hit the CTRL and the next thing you hear is "AH SHIT!!!"

  • Arcades are becoming less useful (Score:5)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @05:59PM (#354904)
    With the widespread availability of affordable gaming systems (both PC and console), it's understandable that the arcade business might suffer a few losses. The price of valuable floor space (especially in malls) is becoming extremely expensive, as is the cost of these arcade systems. Accordingly, the game prices are going up a great deal - a $0.25 is a rarity, and it's not uncommon to spend $1.00 playing a 10 minute game.

    Simply put, this is just too much money for too little entertainment. I live somewhat near a theater and arcade combo (with bumper cars and mini-golf). Going to see a 2-3 hour movie is much cheaper than spending about an hour in the arcade!

    If one is a serious gamer, the time spent playing games every week is mind-boggling. Purchasing a cheaper console (Dreamcast, PS 1, etc) is FAR more economical than playing one's favorite arcade game every night. In addition, emulators are everywhere for those with PCs, playing the old classic arcade games. For those true geeks who like the boxed stand-up arcade set, there have been posts to /. about turning a cheap PC into a dedicated emulator in a custom built box.

    The ONLY real advantage in a real arcade system is unusual hardware - especially racing games and VR games. However, even that gaming hardware is becoming increasingly affordable.

  • are we talking the original or CE or hyper fighting edition or what?

    If if was SF2 or SF2:CE then I would bury your Chun-li with my Guile... what's that? You can't get out of the corner? Poor Chun-li... heheh

  • Go ahead and try it against a good guile player... ;)

    Like the AC posted, it's not that you are not a good Chun-li player, it's just that the Guile corner trap is unbeatable when executed properly in SF2 or SF2:CE
  • the current PlayStation 2 and the upcoming GameCube and Xbox consoles now have computing power that just about equals what dedicated arcade machines can do

    No, Playstation 2s have now exceeded what modern arcade machines can do. You only have to look at Tekken Tag to be able to tell. I would say that home console machines technologically passed the average arcade machine with the introduction of the Dreamcast.

  • Arcade History (Score:3)

    by Bluesee ( 173416 ) <michaelpatrickkenny.yahoo@com> on Sunday March 18, 2001 @06:15PM (#354908)


    I wonder if those cool XBOX screenshots of the snowboarder with those sun dogs streaming off his glasses were the final straw?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Computer games have taken over the game industry. Why spend hours at an arcade when you can simply buy the games for little money, or swipe burned copies free, and play them as much as you wish from your own home?

    Not only that, but the computer game industry is moving ahead much more quickly, as well. I doubt there've been any recent arcade game breakthroughs. Last I saw, GameWorks still had arcade versions of Pong and PacMan. :P

    --

  • Shake Outs (Score:3)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @07:30PM (#354911) Journal
    Probably there are a lot of different reasons for this. Not just one reason why.

    For me, the main ones are the increase in cost, as well as the greater availability of pc systems.

    For a quarter, I might place a few games that I suck at, and wind up blowing 5 or ten bucks, because each games is only a quarter. But if it is a dollar up front, then I'm going to be far more careful with that money, and maybe only play it once or twice.

    Let's face it, what makes a pizza place or a bar more money: a pinball machine priced at a buck that no one touches, or a machine with people around it at a quater a pop.

    Now because of inflation, a quarter does not go as far as it used to. But sorry guys, things do NOT cost four times as much as they did in the 80s. So the guys got greedy, and people kept jacking the prices, and now we have things priced out of the market.

    For the cost, the games got to be harder, etc so that you can maintain your cash flow per hour. A five minute game for a quarter is pulling in 3 big bucks an hour for revenue maximum. This is probably not very economic. With games costing thousands, or whatever, the numbers get interesting.

  • Artists are required create games these days, not your average, innovative programmer.

    I find it funny that nearly the exact same comment was made here [slashdot.org] by someone who was working at Origin when Dungeon Master came out.

    The interesting thing was that the other comment was not in the context of originality being killed off, but rather that it was in the context of the bar being raised as far as what kinds of quality people expect. Even more importantly, the game that prompted his comments was extremely innovative -- it more or less birthed a subgenre of 3D, real-time RPGs with drag-and-drop inventory management. Even Diablo, which most people call a graphical version of Hack, also has a clear Dungeon Master influence in it.

    But to get back to the subject at hand, it's unfair to cite graphics as one of the "originality killers". I love pure, text-based, non-graphical Nethack as much as the next true geek, but there's something to be said for including graphics to drool over. They help immerse you in the world. Consider "Out of this World" and "Ultima VI". Both were innovative (OOTW provided a platform game that completely revolved around the story, included puzzle solving, and avoided lots of cut-and-paste level design. U6 created a giant above-ground world that was all one scale.), both have graphics that would be considered so-so by today's standard, but both have graphics that you can still point at and go, "That's more than just programming. That's art." (As a random aside, OOTW probably isn't the best example, given that there are only two names in the credits, with the second guy only helping with sound effects and doing the music, IIRC. But it still illustrates the point of good art.)

    So yes, some people will use gee-whiz graphics as a means to avoid producing something original, but you also have people using gee-whiz graphics as a means to produce something both original and beautiful.

  • The arcades have been sick for a long, long time (Score:3)

    by NixterAg ( 198468 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @08:03PM (#354917)
    The day that arcades began their funeral march was when a game could not be conquered by a single play. Innovation and gameplay have been replaced by gimmicks and graphics. Artists are required create games these days, not your average, innovative programmer.

    Someone please explain to me how game manufacturers benefit from charging a dollar to play a game. There was a Sega Star Wars Arcade game here at a local place that cost $1 per play. It sat empty 99.9% of the time. After it got a bit older and there were problems with the monitor, the price was cut to a quarter a play and now you have to wait in line to play...despite the fact that there is a nasty mark on the screen.

    When I was very young (6 or 7 years old), I would get $1 to play each time I went to the arcade. I had to stand on one of the little boosters to even reach the controls. I could enjoy myself for quite a bit of time despite my limited game playing skills, however, now that dollar would last 5 minutes as it would be fed into a game that is DESIGNED to kill me/beat me/take my money after a certain period of time.

  • The article has been updated with a reply. It's not entirely bailing, but cutting back. They conspicuously use the word "software" and avoid the words "hardware" and "boards." The most interesting thing is that I was under the erroneous opinion that Japanese Arcades were in great shape.

    ----------------------
  • These places will never die out because of the secondary use of arcades.

    If anyone has ever been downtown Melbourne, Australia, then they will see 100s of video arcades packed with machines. These machines take cash. The machine can be easily fixed to say that they have had $1000 passed through them for every $1. When put onto accounting books this looks legit. I would be willing to bet that this is an excellent opportunity to clean drug money, because every second arcade deals smack right outta the change booth. If this doesnt make any sense, then you need to get outta your glass house, away from the computer screen and down into the street where this sort of thing is common place.

  • Go Figure (Score:3)

    by The Evil Twin ( 217345 ) on Sunday March 18, 2001 @05:54PM (#354923) Homepage
    Well, you got places like Pladium which of course costs a fortune and has contracts with specific vendors. And then you got a bunch of dinky arcade hangouts in the heart of downtown. That's it.

    When I grew up there was the local pizza place with some arcade boxes and the local convenience store etc. Now there is none of that. Why would kids drop in coins when they can play way better games on way better TVs at home. It is also depressing when the average game is now $1 or more. It used to be 25c!
    And if the kiddies wanna spend loads of cash just go to Sega City or Pladium which are way more than an arcade anyways.

    Sad but true, the arcade days are numbered.
  • Vega? eh? There's no such character in Street Fighter. Just the red dude and the white dude, duking it out.
  • Sega still does the exact same thing with the Dreamcast (well, not exactly for much longer). The Naomi arcade board is essentially just dreamcast hardware with a solid-state game rom. Now they even have gd-rom (cds) games so you can have a naomi board and simply get new discs and change the cabinet artwork. Porting to the Dreamcast is exceptionally simple. Probably too simple as quite a few games get ported with zero changes. Arcade Naomi games include Crazy Taxi, Samba de Amigo, 18-Wheel-Pro-Trucker, and Ferrari F355 (though that one used 3 naomi boards - one for each screen.)
  • Don't sound the death-knell of arcades, just quite yet. The little guys might be dying out, but Sony's stepped up to the plate and done some good things with the arcade experience at Playdium [playdium.com].

    Like arcades used to, it's offering things that you couldn't get at home and, so, is giving people a reason to go to the arcade. The House of the Dead machines are always full when I go to one of my local Playdiums (Playdia?) so I wouldn't say that just because you can own it at home, people aren't going to go out and play it. I certainly do.

    Also, I may be a dying breed, but I like pinball and I can't play the new pinball machines anywhere but at an arcade. There, at least, is a market (tiny as it is) that consoles can't usurp.

  • I think that the first hint of this evolutionary step was when my father took me to BattleTech, in Chicago. It was one of the first VR 'centers' ever created where ~20 people competed against each other from within their own capsules. (basically BattleMech) If I remember right, the game ran on Amigas and was considered the most advanced technology like it, back in the late 80's. Does anyone here remember that?

    Obviously, it was just a hint of what was to come, and I really think that home systems have overridden this market. Don't forget that 3DFx was one of the top companies making chips in this arena (for Sega), and later abandoned it in favor of the home PC market. hmmmmm, and where are they now?


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