Post by arcadehero on Apr 3, 2012 17:17:17 GMT -5
Ok so there is an article that everyone is tweeting about at Ars Technica:
arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/04/what-ever-happened-to-the-american-arcade.ars
And here's my response to it in a way that I am thinking of running. If I have some holes in my logic or if it's too rambly, let me know. I have written articles like it before and I get to the point where I feel like I'm beating a dead horse:
"I suppose I should make some sort of comment on this article from Ars Technica, "Whatever Happened To the American Arcade?". It's a nice article that while covering that new documentary about Japanese arcades, also questions what it was that happened here in the US with them. When it comes to the question of why has Japan flourished and the US arcades have suffered, they deal with geographical and demographical differences between the two countries as well as efforts by big Japanese gaming companies to combat the negative image arcades got over time.
There is more to it than that and I figure that I have a few answers from my perspective. I'm not saying this to be critical of the article, but to add to the discussion from what I know. I am in the process of writing a book about this subject (that I don't have a title for yet) and so you can consider this part of my treatise on the subject that I will get into more detail there. I have been an arcade operator for four years as of this June and I've been through a lot to keep my mall arcade afloat amongst varying circumstances in the economy, location, game selection, etc. So I think I have a good idea of the situation from a Western Arcade point-of-view and there are many readers here that are likewise in the operation business in the US, many with more experience than I have that can not only back me up on a few things but probably add to it as well.
People on Twitter are saying it was "consoles" that have done arcades in but that doesn't address the fact that home game consoles also exist in Japan and everywhere else you happen to find arcades. It's true that if there were no consoles then you would only get your gaming fix from arcades and it would be different and I also believe that there is a very delicate balance to be had between consoles and arcades. I've seen console releases completely decimate sales on a game that had been arcade exclusive for a time (particularly with Super Street Fighter IV Arcade) but I've also seen console-to-arcade ports do fine, an example I own is Blazing Angels. Unfortunately I can't fit the answer onto a bumper sticker but it boils down to this - its not the mere fact that people can play games at home that has damaged the Western arcade industry is the gaming culture itself has changed.
I see this all of the time as everyday I get to watch people play different games. Not everyone is very good at video games. Some people practice at a game until they get good at it, others give up after they screw up once. There are many more people I have observed in the latter group than the former one. Every week I come across machines that people left before their credit was even up because they gave up quite easily. Happens a lot on pinball.
Arcade games are not always easy and in our culture where punishment is light for dying in a game anymore - if you die in Call of Duty you just go back to the last checkpoint that wasn't far behind and try over and over and over again until you get it right. In the game culture of the 80s, even home console games would only give you so many continues before it pretty much told you to start all the over again. If you wanted to see the ending of a game, you had to get good at it. Now, your hand is held and you are told how great you are at everything, here's a trophy/achievement for finishing level 1. Watering things down to the casual game culture, which does enjoy arcade style games, has hurt things overall because fewer people seek a challenge. Of course this is all my opinion but I'm basing it off what I have observed from a good variety of player behavior over the years.Get rid of the "Everyone's a Winner all of the time" mentality and I think that people will seek out the challenge of the arcade in greater numbers but that is much easier said than done. I remember playing baseball as a kid and we didn't win any championship but for some reason they gave us a trophy. It was completely meaningless to me as I already knew that you wanted trophies for actually achieving something. Last I checked, plenty of people still do that and that seems to cross over into interactive entertainment to a degree. I suppose that the adults didn't want us feeling bad for loosing but in my mind they should have approached it differently. Feeling bad can suck but its part of life and if you're allowed to, you can take that negative experience and use it as fuel to do better next time. Being shielded from it just makes it that much worse when you have to perform in the real world and fail because you were unprepared anyways.
Let's keep in mind that this culture change has affected arcades on a deep level. No I don't completely care for the fact that the modern arcade industry is primarily dominated by racing/light-gun/dancing games but the reality is that people haven't wanted to dump their money into other kinds of concepts for the most part. There are some exceptions here and there and that doesn't mean that the right concept can't come along and change the dynamic of what people prefer but in a tight economy safe concepts do well. Of course I will champion what we do get as there still can be great ideas that come to light even when in the safe category. But if we want to see a greater variety of video games on the arcade market, they have to make money otherwise they are very expensive and risky paperweights.
Another part of the gaming culture is to blame and that would be the media that pushes what's hot in games. Take a good look at some of the top gaming sites on the net: IGN or Gamespot are easy examples. They happily list all of the gaming categories they cover, it's a hold over from the game magazine days that would list on the cover which consoles they review to attract buyers. Notice that they do not have an Arcade section on those websites (which speaking of classic 90s game magazines was not always the case, many did have sections dedicated to arcade games that were eventually dropped). That doesn't mean that there is no development in arcades to speak of - this blog is a testament to that - but they choose not to cover that side of the industry unless it has some sort of console connection to it. What their reasons are for that, I do not know, I can only surmise that it has to do with no arcade companies advertise with those sites, and they can't give away free copies of arcade cabinets for reviewers to have. I have written arcade articles for Hardcore Gamer Magazine when that was around and they were open to it but I got the sense that it was because they just liked games no matter what platform they are. Kevin Williams who contributes to this site all of the time has recently been creating content for EDGE Magazine but it sounds like it was not without some trouble. But anything else I have seen, such as GameInformer remains detached and un-informed about what goes on in the arcade industry. There is no media hype for any arcade game unless some really big movie or console license is attached to it. There are dozens of arcade games being worked on right now but this industry does not reveal what they are working on months in advance usually. They keep it under wraps until it's pretty much ready to go, and that doesn't work for the modern hype model.
Recently it was unveiled that there was a new Big Buck Hunter game. That is arguably one of the highest profile arcade games out there in terms of units sold but how many mainstream game sites even acknowledged the existence of the game? If a high-profile modern game has a hard time catching some attention, how much more something that hasn't made a name for itself yet? Lack of coverage = lack of interest in the general public. The most recent arcade opening most people probably heard about judging from what was covered in the mainstream was the re-opening of Chinatown Fair. I don't mean to knock CTF but that is not the only place in the US that has opened up recently, there have been numerous others that have done so this past year but you wouldn't know it from a game magazine or or mainstream game site as they choose to ignore it.
Of course this can be laid at the feet of our own industry to a degree, don't get me wrong. Manufacturers are responsible for marketing their own products, operators responsible for marketing their own stores. But marketing takes money and there are certain realities to be dealt with there. I haven't been able to spend a ton of money marketing my location as I have bills to pay that have to come first. Manufacturers generally are accustomed to marketing to operators and not so much the end player, which is something that has been "just the way it is" since the Golden Age. There have been improvements on both sides with the internet but we still have a way to go. Trade shows as put on by the AMOA or AAMA are nice but for the most part only arcade industry professionals bother with those. This is why I have stated in the past that more should be done to promote arcades at E3 when the gaming world is paying close attention to what is going on. There are E3 events here and there and I would gladly setup an Arcade Heroes booth there but that's another thing that takes money.
The point on this part is that what marketing there is for Western Arcades has been minimal and this has lead to the notion that they are dead. "No one ever reports about new arcade locations or new games so it must not be happening". We live in a society where there is news coming out 24/7. If you don't hear about something new in a category for a while, then you can easily slide into believing that nothing is happening there.
I do what I can through this site but our reach is much more limited unfortunately. If you have followed us for a while then you know that we do what we can to share new game news as well as new location news. But the minds we can change is pretty limited. We're not going to give up on that, even if all major game sites suddenly saw the light and started giving arcades their proper dues.
A point I should get to is that Western Arcades have not disappeared to the level that they are accused of doing. Here's one of my favorite links to use Aurcade Locations List. That is an incomplete list of locations in the US that is currently up to 1131 locations. Yes, not every location is stocked with every game you want and there are some places that don't take care of their machines. Those places will eventually go out of business and perhaps will be replaced by someone else who wants to offer a service where the games work. That's how the market works - some do it better than others. Those that do typically thrive."
arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/04/what-ever-happened-to-the-american-arcade.ars
And here's my response to it in a way that I am thinking of running. If I have some holes in my logic or if it's too rambly, let me know. I have written articles like it before and I get to the point where I feel like I'm beating a dead horse:
"I suppose I should make some sort of comment on this article from Ars Technica, "Whatever Happened To the American Arcade?". It's a nice article that while covering that new documentary about Japanese arcades, also questions what it was that happened here in the US with them. When it comes to the question of why has Japan flourished and the US arcades have suffered, they deal with geographical and demographical differences between the two countries as well as efforts by big Japanese gaming companies to combat the negative image arcades got over time.
There is more to it than that and I figure that I have a few answers from my perspective. I'm not saying this to be critical of the article, but to add to the discussion from what I know. I am in the process of writing a book about this subject (that I don't have a title for yet) and so you can consider this part of my treatise on the subject that I will get into more detail there. I have been an arcade operator for four years as of this June and I've been through a lot to keep my mall arcade afloat amongst varying circumstances in the economy, location, game selection, etc. So I think I have a good idea of the situation from a Western Arcade point-of-view and there are many readers here that are likewise in the operation business in the US, many with more experience than I have that can not only back me up on a few things but probably add to it as well.
People on Twitter are saying it was "consoles" that have done arcades in but that doesn't address the fact that home game consoles also exist in Japan and everywhere else you happen to find arcades. It's true that if there were no consoles then you would only get your gaming fix from arcades and it would be different and I also believe that there is a very delicate balance to be had between consoles and arcades. I've seen console releases completely decimate sales on a game that had been arcade exclusive for a time (particularly with Super Street Fighter IV Arcade) but I've also seen console-to-arcade ports do fine, an example I own is Blazing Angels. Unfortunately I can't fit the answer onto a bumper sticker but it boils down to this - its not the mere fact that people can play games at home that has damaged the Western arcade industry is the gaming culture itself has changed.
I see this all of the time as everyday I get to watch people play different games. Not everyone is very good at video games. Some people practice at a game until they get good at it, others give up after they screw up once. There are many more people I have observed in the latter group than the former one. Every week I come across machines that people left before their credit was even up because they gave up quite easily. Happens a lot on pinball.
Arcade games are not always easy and in our culture where punishment is light for dying in a game anymore - if you die in Call of Duty you just go back to the last checkpoint that wasn't far behind and try over and over and over again until you get it right. In the game culture of the 80s, even home console games would only give you so many continues before it pretty much told you to start all the over again. If you wanted to see the ending of a game, you had to get good at it. Now, your hand is held and you are told how great you are at everything, here's a trophy/achievement for finishing level 1. Watering things down to the casual game culture, which does enjoy arcade style games, has hurt things overall because fewer people seek a challenge. Of course this is all my opinion but I'm basing it off what I have observed from a good variety of player behavior over the years.Get rid of the "Everyone's a Winner all of the time" mentality and I think that people will seek out the challenge of the arcade in greater numbers but that is much easier said than done. I remember playing baseball as a kid and we didn't win any championship but for some reason they gave us a trophy. It was completely meaningless to me as I already knew that you wanted trophies for actually achieving something. Last I checked, plenty of people still do that and that seems to cross over into interactive entertainment to a degree. I suppose that the adults didn't want us feeling bad for loosing but in my mind they should have approached it differently. Feeling bad can suck but its part of life and if you're allowed to, you can take that negative experience and use it as fuel to do better next time. Being shielded from it just makes it that much worse when you have to perform in the real world and fail because you were unprepared anyways.
Let's keep in mind that this culture change has affected arcades on a deep level. No I don't completely care for the fact that the modern arcade industry is primarily dominated by racing/light-gun/dancing games but the reality is that people haven't wanted to dump their money into other kinds of concepts for the most part. There are some exceptions here and there and that doesn't mean that the right concept can't come along and change the dynamic of what people prefer but in a tight economy safe concepts do well. Of course I will champion what we do get as there still can be great ideas that come to light even when in the safe category. But if we want to see a greater variety of video games on the arcade market, they have to make money otherwise they are very expensive and risky paperweights.
Another part of the gaming culture is to blame and that would be the media that pushes what's hot in games. Take a good look at some of the top gaming sites on the net: IGN or Gamespot are easy examples. They happily list all of the gaming categories they cover, it's a hold over from the game magazine days that would list on the cover which consoles they review to attract buyers. Notice that they do not have an Arcade section on those websites (which speaking of classic 90s game magazines was not always the case, many did have sections dedicated to arcade games that were eventually dropped). That doesn't mean that there is no development in arcades to speak of - this blog is a testament to that - but they choose not to cover that side of the industry unless it has some sort of console connection to it. What their reasons are for that, I do not know, I can only surmise that it has to do with no arcade companies advertise with those sites, and they can't give away free copies of arcade cabinets for reviewers to have. I have written arcade articles for Hardcore Gamer Magazine when that was around and they were open to it but I got the sense that it was because they just liked games no matter what platform they are. Kevin Williams who contributes to this site all of the time has recently been creating content for EDGE Magazine but it sounds like it was not without some trouble. But anything else I have seen, such as GameInformer remains detached and un-informed about what goes on in the arcade industry. There is no media hype for any arcade game unless some really big movie or console license is attached to it. There are dozens of arcade games being worked on right now but this industry does not reveal what they are working on months in advance usually. They keep it under wraps until it's pretty much ready to go, and that doesn't work for the modern hype model.
Recently it was unveiled that there was a new Big Buck Hunter game. That is arguably one of the highest profile arcade games out there in terms of units sold but how many mainstream game sites even acknowledged the existence of the game? If a high-profile modern game has a hard time catching some attention, how much more something that hasn't made a name for itself yet? Lack of coverage = lack of interest in the general public. The most recent arcade opening most people probably heard about judging from what was covered in the mainstream was the re-opening of Chinatown Fair. I don't mean to knock CTF but that is not the only place in the US that has opened up recently, there have been numerous others that have done so this past year but you wouldn't know it from a game magazine or or mainstream game site as they choose to ignore it.
Of course this can be laid at the feet of our own industry to a degree, don't get me wrong. Manufacturers are responsible for marketing their own products, operators responsible for marketing their own stores. But marketing takes money and there are certain realities to be dealt with there. I haven't been able to spend a ton of money marketing my location as I have bills to pay that have to come first. Manufacturers generally are accustomed to marketing to operators and not so much the end player, which is something that has been "just the way it is" since the Golden Age. There have been improvements on both sides with the internet but we still have a way to go. Trade shows as put on by the AMOA or AAMA are nice but for the most part only arcade industry professionals bother with those. This is why I have stated in the past that more should be done to promote arcades at E3 when the gaming world is paying close attention to what is going on. There are E3 events here and there and I would gladly setup an Arcade Heroes booth there but that's another thing that takes money.
The point on this part is that what marketing there is for Western Arcades has been minimal and this has lead to the notion that they are dead. "No one ever reports about new arcade locations or new games so it must not be happening". We live in a society where there is news coming out 24/7. If you don't hear about something new in a category for a while, then you can easily slide into believing that nothing is happening there.
I do what I can through this site but our reach is much more limited unfortunately. If you have followed us for a while then you know that we do what we can to share new game news as well as new location news. But the minds we can change is pretty limited. We're not going to give up on that, even if all major game sites suddenly saw the light and started giving arcades their proper dues.
A point I should get to is that Western Arcades have not disappeared to the level that they are accused of doing. Here's one of my favorite links to use Aurcade Locations List. That is an incomplete list of locations in the US that is currently up to 1131 locations. Yes, not every location is stocked with every game you want and there are some places that don't take care of their machines. Those places will eventually go out of business and perhaps will be replaced by someone else who wants to offer a service where the games work. That's how the market works - some do it better than others. Those that do typically thrive."
