Perfectly stated.
The arcades stopped being the leading edge way back when Sony & Microsoft entered & took over the console arena. They turned Sega into a third party developer for God’s sake. The damage is done & the social gaming culture has completely changed. It’s all about home consoles, portable gaming, and cell phones now. And it’s impossible to ever go back. Communication of information is instant and public. Anticipation is diminished by impatience. And instant gratification coupled with rampant piracy eliminates any possibility of elusiveness.
^ This, a billion times.
Just look at the evolution of how gaming changed through time:
First, you needed to get your ass to your local arcade, wait in line for your turn if there are other people playing and then get your quarter in and finally play the game.
Next up, consoles, with limited power which had borked conversions of arcade games (Neo-Geo being, of course, the huge difference): you can play games as much as you like, without waiting for your turn and without dragging your ass outside your house.
Finally consoles caught up with arcade hardware and there were no more good reasons to go to an arcade as arcade exclusives stopped being produced.
Then came emulation and thanks to MAME we could play all the arcade exclusives on our own PC.
Last step, mobile gaming: having the games always with you, wherever and whenever you want it.
The only thing to do to revive arcades is dramatically changing the gaming community's mentality and push arcade exclusive games again, just like EXA is doing.
And I don't see this happening, honestly, though good luck to them.