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Do You Still Play In Arcades?

Ashton

Ashton

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We still have some arcades around, but they are mostly not very well maintained and the games in them are pretty old and outdated. There are a chosen few arcade shops that are neat and tidy, but they are expensive and I've found that half of their games are now of the "carnival" type instead of actual video games, so I don't really frequent them anymore. Back then when home consoles weren't as good as they are now, I remember hanging out at arcades just watching people play because I wasn't all that good at them myself but it was very entertaining watching some of the "pros". As for my favorites, the one game I really spent a lot of money on was Time Crisis, both the first and the second.

How about you guys, did you ever play in the arcades and do you still go there now? If so, which games did you play a lot?
 
I can't even remember the last time I was in an arcade, I think I was maybe just a kid? I remember my brothers going there way before we had our first computer, but the game selection was never that great. There's still a couple of them around here, but I wouldn't know what they carry these days. Bunch of kids use their computer science classes to just play games instead of learn anything on the computer, same reason why my younger brother didn't know what Powerpoint was up until a couple months ago (he's 14 now).
 
I remember going as a kid much like Ashton, just to watch people more than play myself.  I never go outside the house except to work now days, I have all my gaming needs at home.
 
I honestly wish I could even find an arcade near me. I've only been to one in my life, but that was when I was a kid and I hardly remember it. The closest thing I can think of to an arcade now is this pizza place that was called Shaky's by me. Of course it closed down a few years ago though.
 
Admittedly I don't actually remember playing on any arcades apart from flipper games. They're not really common to see anymore, and I think I am a bit too young to have experienced the glory of arcades. There are a few places which still has them, but they're not many, and the arcades are not really their main attraction. Rather so are the arcade games just standing there to get them some extra money while people are waiting for what they are actually supposed to do there.
 
There are only two types of arcades in my area, Chuck E Cheese which is geared for children. And Dave N Busters which is geared for adults. I have been to both but I haven't been to any recently. 

P.S. I do miss the old school arcades of the 80's I can remember my aunt taking me as a kid. I would spend all my money on Packman lol.

Greg
 
Honestly, I can't even remember the last time that I saw a proper arcade never mind played in one. We don't really have any round here, aside from small ones at the airport and such. There'll be a few at seaside towns and such, but they're not proper arcades. They're more full of those silly gambling machines than they are proper arcades.

I might have to actually start buying up some arcade machines for our place. Start it up as a proper arcade for the little ones and anyone that wants to use them.
 
I used to be addicted to arcades (almost said grenades) when I was younger and of course they were more plentiful. Nowadays, I can enjoy better games for cheaper (overall) just at home on my PC.
Every time I do walk by a video arcade I'm always tempted to go in just for nostalgia, but I basically never carry coins with me and I'd probably die thinking $2 is worth 5 minutes of gameplay.

Guess it's different when the money comes from your pocket vs your parents, or at least for me.
 
Sadly, Arcades are a dying breed that will eventually get phased out, if things continue as they have so far, at least in the West. The arcade scene is still doing pretty well (relatively speaking) in Japan, despite the country buying less and less consoles and sticking to casual phone games, primarily Puzzles and Dragons (and PC gaming in Japan has always been a doujin-only affair).

Seriously, Japan gets all the cool arcade games. Look at this, from the early 2000's Gundam arcade game called Mobile Suit Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna:

image-thumb27.png


Freaking mecha cockpit, man! Oh, and to make it even freaking better, it was an online arcade game (cause that's a thing in Japan) so you piloted together with other players in your LAN or even with players in other arcades (and saved your data to a magnetic card). The fact no one thought to bring games like this to the West is why the arcades can no longer sustain themselves: they can hardly provide a different experience from the games you can play at home or your PC, which were their main schtick back in the day, like when the Genesis debuted and promised to bring arcade-quality gameplay to your living room.. The closest thing to Senjou no Kizuna in the home console market is Steel Batallion, and that was a very expensive experiment that was produced in limited quantities, and companies no longer take crazy risks like those, probably due to the recession.
 
I love going to the arcades at the mall and galleria. I helped install a lot of arcade games at my place of work, including several prize machines. Since I now know how they work, I'm considering doing all my Christmas electronic shopping with a few quarters.
 
There's always an arcade at almost every mall I go to. I don't go there myself, and I would have thought that consoles and hand-helds would have displaced a lot of frequent arcade-goers, but it does seem to be booming. I guess it's the dance game that's the most popular, but other than that it's not all carnival games either, there's the fighting games and even Silent Hill.
 
I go to Boomers very rarely, they have the games like "House of the Dead" that I like playing. Arcades just aren't as relevant anymore with home consoles.
 
Thinking about it, arcades are scams! They charge you about a dollar per run for a game, which is a complete rip off! But then again, that's what people do to make money. I think that the last time I went to an arcade was about a year ago. But I only played about a game or two, just to not waste money. They're really costly and it does add up.
 
Yes, I still play in the arcades. Every major mall in my place has an arcade section. Most of the time, the arcades here are filled with lots of activity. There are those playing dance games, some play pin ball, some play racing games, some play light gun games...


I exclusively play Tekken, Basketball, and racing with my girl. She loves to play racing games and I love testing my skills against other Tekken players in the arcades. It's very intense.
 
Even if I own many consoles and I can play most arcade games emulated on my PC, I'd still spend money in arcades, if we had any around here :( Why? Because I miss that feeling of being surrounded by people with the same interests as I play. The closest I've done recently, to relive the experience, was go to a web cafe with a few friends and play multiplayer games all night. That was much fun!
 
I don't, but I surely miss it...
Arcades have slowly but surely been dying out in the western world. The Big question is why? When arcades around Asia continue to grow and video games as a whole have become the largest entertainment industry in the world, why have we allowed the very origins of true video gaming to fall through the cracks.
Video Games are huge, its now a multi-billion dollar industry spanning the entire globe and catering to every age/race/gender/interest/genre imaginable. Consumers are willing to pay more and more for the latest blockbuster and sales of consoles continue to roll in thus showing that it is unlikely to be the expenditure that is a turn-off. I have spoken before about the future of video games, increased emphasis on digital media and the like but one area of video gaming and culture in general has been slowly disappearing from our shores. That is of course the plight of the arcade, those havens of nerds, dark rooms filled with spotty individuals hunched over sticky controls with the light from the bright screen being the only illumination. At least that's what my parents believe arcades are, but you go to any arcade over in Japan or Korea or a number of other Asian countries and all you see is rows and rows of people of all shapes and sizes in bright multi-colored rooms playing at well maintained clean machines. Arcades in Asia are as much a social hub as they are a place of gaming, they are essentially western-style coffee shops with games in them (essentially the video gaming equivalent of Starbucks).
Now as a gamer one of my dreams is to own a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet, even to play on one would be heaven because having grown up on a tiny Island (Jersey, Channel Islands) in the 90's i grew up without the original and had instead to settle with NES and SNES versions which while brilliant did not "Feel" the same. No amount of Hi-Def graphics or fancy motion controls can beat the original thrill of playing a real arcade cabinet, whether its guiding a plumber over barrels, guiding a yellow circle away from ghosts, collecting taxi fares or playing Street-fighter the experience of the original arcade cabinets and controls cannot be reproduced. And this is why its so saddening that the popularity and success of video games in general in the west has not lead to a similar rise in the popularity of gaming arcades.
 
I sometimes go to the pier and when i go they normally have arcade games there so i normally play them.
Probably once ever 6 months and i always have fun to be honest.
They are still as fun as consoles.
 
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