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Games Entertainment

The Dave and Buster's Experience 58

Posted by Zonk from the there-are-still-arcades-out-there dept.
The Game Chair has a piece looking at the lackluster experience offered by one of the few remaining American arcade chains, Dave and Buster's. From the article: "Dave & Buster's is perennially in my bad books because they don't have Dance Dance Revolution. Each time, I enter with the hope that they might have seen the error of their ways, and each time I am crushed. Honestly. What kind of arcade does not have DDR? Although Dave & Buster's merely possesses pretensions, rather than aspirations to be an arcade, the lack of dance games except for one lonely Pump it Up: Exceed 2 machine is nigh unforgivable. I know DDR isn't so popular in Japan anymore, but unless I am totally mistaken Dave & Buster's is not Japan."
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The Dave and Buster's Experience More

The Dave and Buster's Experience

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  • Whine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nimey ( 114278 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @11:04PM (#14515684) Homepage Journal
    Why is someone's blog entry whining about a random arcade worthy of /.?

    • Re:Whine (Score:2, Funny)

      by heinousjay ( 683506 )
      That's the most incisive question Slashdot has ever seen.
    • Makes sense to me, since Slashdot is nothing more than CmdrTaco's personal blog.
    • Exactly. Not only that, DDR is what is killing the arcade. If D&B has dropped it, good on them. Crap music + uncoordinated geeks "dancing" = no one wants to come in.

      Seriously, the garbage that the DDR type games spew is way to loud (and it sucks). It ruins the atmosphere of the arcade, and makes the actual GAMES difficult to play. The spectacle of goths and nerds spazing out to techno shit is even more repulsive.

      It's no wonder the American Arcade is dead. Bitching about one of the last chains to remain

      • You may not be so quick to judge the games so harshly once you watch some women bouncing around on those dance pads. Heh. Lovely plumage. Very bouncy, lovely plumage.

        And actually, now that I'm on the subject of DDR anyway, it is not what's killing arcades. The insane prices and lack of good games is what's killing arcades. Where's a good Mortal Kombat-style fighter these days? A sci-fi racer like Stun Runner? How about some good pinball tables? There don't seem to be any good adventure games anymore in th

      • An arcade operator might not see things from your point of view. DDR is one of the few things keeping them in business right now. If you don't like it, then you and anyone else who goes to the arcade need to put your money where your mouth is and pump enough quarters into other machines that the profits made from DDR are marginalized.
    • I don't know, but we've really been getting a lot of that lately.

  • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @11:16PM (#14515752)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • That was my first reaction. This looks like a comment not on the American Arcade scene or on Dave and Busters as a national chain. This is a guy complaining about the corner D&B. It is a LOCAL story.

      If he is interested in finding an arcade DDR machine, he should check this site out [ddrfreak.com].

      Or the way some people play, they might want to invest in a RedOctane metal pad which I can personally vouch for.

      • That was my impression too. That and most arcades that have a dancing game only have one. I think every D&B I've been to (It would take both hands to count them) has Pump it Up. Which I'm fine with because I prefer it to DDR. But they don't take care of the machines and most of them sound like they have a blown speaker.

        That aside, I don't go to D&B anymore, but it's not really their fault. I used to go for the Virtual World [virtualworld.com] games, until Virtual World "upgraded" their mech simulator by making it
    • Clevaland (okay, Avon Lake) D&B has a DDR, at least a few years ago when I went. The impression I got from the place is that they were trying to meld Chucky Cheese mentality with legal gambling randomized incentive methods. (Note: Real gambling is, as yet, illegal on Ohio land.) The Arcade was a small part of the entire place. The one time I went I saw a family cash in some several thousand tickets and get a cheap blender. I can't even imagine how much those games would have had to cost them. Kind
    • I've been to 3 D&B (Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City), and each had a DDR. None of them where smack dab in the middle where they are the focus of the arcade, but off to the side (not in the "ghetto" of the arcade). Fun to watch the occasional swarm of drunks wander over and give it a shot.

      Really, I have no idea what the reviewer was going on about for the most part. This isn't the type of arcade that used to be present in every mall in America, it's a bar that happens to have a restaurant and a

  • Dave & Buster's as an arcade (Score:4, Insightful)

    by muel ( 132794 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @11:17PM (#14515761)
    Odd placement on /. aside, this article is also odd because it doesn't pay any mind to the target D&B audience. This place is specifically targeted as an entertainment destination for adults--kids can't even get in without a guardian. Gambling-style games, poker tables, shuffleboard, etc. populate much of the restaurant's real estate. These are not the kinds of patrons who hop around on dance pads or whip up 40-hit combos in hardcore fighting games; they want to shoot stuff, race in cars and play games that require as little learning curve as possible.
    • It is a big first date place, though, and DDR seems like it would fit in well in that niche. I agree about fighting games, though, and also agree that this is the most bizarrely pointless thing ever posted here by an editor other than Hemos.
      • I don't think I'd want to play DDR on a first date, even if I LIKED the shit music that oozes from those machines. Maybe if I was a meathead jock I would like it, but then I wouldn't be taking my date to an arcade for a first date anyhow.
        • Heh. He said "Meathead." Though yeah. That's who plays DDR, if you ask me.

          You know what really impresses a girl on the first date*? Making some excuse to go to a nearby guitar shop ("I just needed to get some strings") and then asking to play a really awesome looking guitar and amazing her. Then casually buying the strings and heading to the restaurant.

          (*This only works in a foot-traffic-based country like, uh, Japan. If you're living somewhere they have cars, you're shit out of luck.)

      • Clearly you have never been on one of these "first dates" :P

        And this is coming from the guy who goes at least twice a week to play Crazies and Nightmares on the Exceed 2 machine.

    • Re:Dave & Buster's as an arcade (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Are you kidding? Watching drunk people fall all over themselves trying to play DDR would be GREAT entertainment.
  • It's called Fun and Games - in Wayne New Jersey in the WIllobrook mall. It's open 365 days a year, and has pinbal machines, DDR, multi player racing games, air hockey and practically anything else you could want. It probably has 150-200 machines. It's been there for at least 30 years.

  • My god... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Bin_jammin ( 684517 )
    I hate people like you. Waaaahhhhhhhh they don't have my game, so I'll bitch about it on my blog. Oh, I'm not a hardcore gamer, I'm not an arcade lounger, and I'm not a Dance Dance Revolutionary, but here's a helpful hint you moron, if you want your favorite game there ASK FOR IT. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so they say, and you certainly seem to be one of the new generation of squeaky, mousy losers. Quit using your mouth to whine, use it to speak like a person, and stop wasting everyone else's time
  • Submitter, maybe Chuck E. Cheese's has DDR. Go there!
  • Maybe the D+B arcade machine purchasers are, in fact, well aware that a DDR game would make money, but in the long run money would be lost by the type of clientele the game might attract? ie: people who spend money on the food, bar drinks, pool *simultaneously* being attractive customers versus someone who just pumps money in the DDR machine and sweats?
  • this is in retort to another awful article i read here not long ago about how DDR was killing arcades and everything else holy to some random 'hardcore' gamer.

    the D&B here in DC has at least 2 DDR machines, one of which was taken over by this 35~ year old asian guy who was playing only to impress audiences last time I was there. he was finishing songs with his back to the screen, showing off, etc. i got a kick out of it.

    and just to get my bitch in, i hate D&B here because all they have for fighting
  • Personally, I can't imagine trying to keep my pint from spilling while hopping and jumping.

    And I wouldn't put my drink down where I couldn't see it in a D&B.
    • There's almost always a small gap between the pad and the rest of the machine. This is the ideal place to put small items because it's easily visible and anyone who tries to take stuff from there is very close to your feet, where they could be "accidentally" kicked.
    • I can see it now... DDR: Irish Dancing.

      From a famous comic: "Leave it to the Irish to come up with a dance where you don't spill your beer."
  • Well I don't know if anyone else has posted about this yet but, The D&B in the palisades center in Rockland NY has a dance dance revolution machine. I havn't seen anyone use the one they have but I'm usually spending my time at the bar.

  • ski-ball and b-ball and pachinko (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @02:17AM (#14516830)
    Every D&B I've been to has DDR, but very rarely is it used. Most often, D&B is used as a place for drunken ski-ball, arcade style basketball free throws and overly elaborate pachinko style gambling. Any other game is something to do while waiting for something else. Video games are now HOME entertainment.
  • GameWorks > D&B
  • At least it did for me the one time I went..

    It was the D&B at the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY. I went to go get a beer for a buddy and me and when I went to pay the Asian MALE bartender gave me a sort of wink and said "This one is on me". He smiled and pushed the beers towards me. I got freaked out and ran off.

    "THE BARTENDER IS HITTING ON ME!" I said to my friends.

    And then I thought about it a little more..

    "Oh man! The bartender is hitting on me! This is going to be great"

    I went back up to the

  • The REAL problem with D&B. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 2Flower ( 216318 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @10:43AM (#14518658) Homepage
    The article's pretty content free, so lemme crosspost a comment I left on this guy's blog.

    The problem with D&B is not DDR. It's the entire attitude that they will house NOTHING but 'casual games'. They're not appealing to arcade fans, they want people who come there to drink and eat, and MAYBE play some games... so, the games have to be playable with no instructions whatsoever. Anybody can drive a car or shoot a gun, so, those are the dominant forms.

    Fighting games are more esoteric, since you need combinations of joystick moves and button presses to succeed; unless you read FAQs or are a fan from the console versions you won't do well in them. There is no longer a real fighting game subculture in this country, at least not one that goes to arcades.

    Another category they utterly dump is classic games, things from the 80's and 90's. You'd think they'd at least throw in a Donkey Kong or such for nostalgia value, but the problem is that these games don't pay well, don't have a ton of 'continue?' style profit chances, and are costly to upkeep (unless you buy a re-released game like the Space Invaders Anniversary, or Ms.Pac-Man/Galaga combo).

    The bottom line is money. They don't make enough money off anything that you can't play for 20 seconds with no prior training and then dump more credits into for another 20 seconds. It's a global problem on the arcade scene, and D&B, which is an arcade secondarily, will never be the answer.
  • I mean where else can you drink alcohol and play arcade games.
    • GameWorks, for one. The selection is a little better there, too. I like both though. D&B is better when you want to actually be able to talk to the group you're with while GameWorks is better when you and your group are just there to play some games.
  • I completely agree that most D&B's suck in their game selection. I've only been to 2 or 3, but they seem to lack variety in their shop. This guy's little post neglected to mention the lack of pinball machines, Golden Tees, or depth in classic beyond one pacman/galaga combo and qix/space invaders combo that most have.
  • Personally I could care less about DDR, though I haven't seen a DDR machine at either of the 2 D&Bs I've been to in VA/NY. However, stranger thing I have noticed is that there are NO pinball machines there at all. Also, the only fighting games I saw were old school crap, SF2turbo and then one Tekken 4 machine which is at least several years old now. No soul cal, no MVC, no MK... I'm assuming the reason for both of these is that in both instances you can literally sit there for hours on just one toke
  • I've only been to Dave & Busters *ONCE*, in Maryland.

    They had DDR and I played it.

    (Man, diagonal arrows are hard if you're used to orthogonal ones!)

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