- Joined
- Aug 18, 2000
- Posts
- 6,160
Well, in America it is not a pretty sight. Shiny new arcade games getting barely any play, because people download the ROMs of the games, or because a console version that is arcade perfect, or nearly so, comes out six months later. The 'Net and online play has pretty much killed the social aspect of it, so about the only time games get play is at places like movie theatres, college campuses, etc., where people can play them while waiting for a movie to start, or between classes.
"Street corner arcades," as I like to call them, had trouble surviving back in the 90's, and it certainly does not look any better now. They do O.K. in some cases, when combined with Lazer Tag, or whatever they are calling it these days. Things seem to be moving towards the "super store paradigm" with arcades though, as is demonstrated with GameWorks, where you can experience games such as Vertical Reality, which cannot be duplicated on a console or emulator.
I really do not see a future for arcades in America the way things are going.
Japan and Hong Kong they are still doing well, but indicators are that they might be on a slow downward slope there as well, although new game genres are bringing in more casual players that might not normally frequent an arcade.
Then there is Korea. Arcades are doing booming business from the numbers I have seen, despite the popularity of online gameplay and other factors that have helped kill such things in the U.S. Up and coming game design companies seem to be doing well, although they are not quite caught up to Japan when it comes to their arcade technology. They seem to be going for substance over style in their games though, whereas in Japan they seem to be slowly falling victim to the "pretty pictures make a good game" syndrome.
Might we see Korea surpass Japan as the premier country when it comes to arcade games? Might we see the JAMMA standard get left behind, to be supplanted by the KAMMA standard? Only time will tell.
If there were a way to do it though, I would pack up my bosses' business and ship it to South Korea.
"Street corner arcades," as I like to call them, had trouble surviving back in the 90's, and it certainly does not look any better now. They do O.K. in some cases, when combined with Lazer Tag, or whatever they are calling it these days. Things seem to be moving towards the "super store paradigm" with arcades though, as is demonstrated with GameWorks, where you can experience games such as Vertical Reality, which cannot be duplicated on a console or emulator.
I really do not see a future for arcades in America the way things are going.
Japan and Hong Kong they are still doing well, but indicators are that they might be on a slow downward slope there as well, although new game genres are bringing in more casual players that might not normally frequent an arcade.
Then there is Korea. Arcades are doing booming business from the numbers I have seen, despite the popularity of online gameplay and other factors that have helped kill such things in the U.S. Up and coming game design companies seem to be doing well, although they are not quite caught up to Japan when it comes to their arcade technology. They seem to be going for substance over style in their games though, whereas in Japan they seem to be slowly falling victim to the "pretty pictures make a good game" syndrome.
Might we see Korea surpass Japan as the premier country when it comes to arcade games? Might we see the JAMMA standard get left behind, to be supplanted by the KAMMA standard? Only time will tell.
If there were a way to do it though, I would pack up my bosses' business and ship it to South Korea.
the locals closed. Man, I got a shock; do you know what happens when you love something that you have eventually and suddenly disappears with nonsense? (like loosing a girldfriend).