The Death of the Arcade.

by Alex Beech, COMMUNITY WRITER

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Charitably you could call me fair skinned, or less charitably ginger. So as a child on vacation I was either smearing sun-block over my blubber or hiding in arcades playing ‘Star Wars.’ Its crisp graphics still burn brightly as one of my earliest memories.

Sadly arcades are dieing, victim to what the home experience now offers. Graphics, online play, peripherals - each one a donut to diabetic arcades. In Japan arcades are kept on a balanced diet to prolong their life. One on one fighter fans flock to new releases. Collectable card games, themed from horse racing to D&D, supply distraction for smoking salary-men. The pinnacle of this, Gundam pods, sensory deprivation tanks that supplies the opposite of meditation. 8 people a time, still you have to queue. A solution, a unique and involving experience, breathing new life into arcades, but could it do the same for arcades outside Japan?

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Toby Davis

June 15, 2009

Americans wont ever be a big arcade per say consumer. Still though my dreams of owning an arcade co-op unit of time crisis 4 are not dead.

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Daniel Feit

June 15, 2009

I would argue they are dead rather than dying in the US. The idea of playing a game in public first and then waiting for the "home version" months later is long gone. In Japan they've gotten around that by relying on games that cannot be brought home (such as those pods) coupled with the fact that many of their customers are people looking to get out of the house. I suspect they will die here too, someday, but not today and certainly not tomorrow. PS. Let's go to an arcade soon. Have you played that Rambo game? It's fun as hell.