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I miss the arcade, but for real...
It died long before that since lots of the games started to act and look the same. Light-gun games, a couple generic sports games, Tekken, Street Fighter and your racing cabs. Racing games have probably been the second biggest draw for diehards and noobs alike since fighting games (especially the two above and soul caliber), since they are easy to get into, controls are pretty much universal and usually the simulation aspect is dead-on, if not tweaked for the easy in and out of arcades. The problem is, the leaders effectively destroyed the competition, and companies started competing with themselves for share of a poorly promoted niche market. (SNK anyone?)
I can remember many summers hitting the boardwalk, even into my late teens, and there being 8 capcom fighters out at once (MvsC2, SFIII 2nd impact and 3rd strike, SSF2, SSF2T, a classic sf2 cabinet, Capcom vs. SNK 1, and X-Men vs. SF) and there being lines in front of the newer machines, naturally. The older machines would get rocked by the experts looking to practice, then get smashed on by little kids who don't grasp the concept of the "game over" screen--adding wear and tear to an older cabinet and driving up maintenance costs while minimizing profit margin. It used to be pretty simple to buy the SNK and Capcom machines, since their boards were relatively easy to maintain and interchange (CPSII to CPSIII issues notwithstanding), but now since everything is using unique proprietary technology and can't be retrofit into an older cab (much like the older sf or KOF games) it drives up the price of the machine itself (tekken 5:DR, Tekken 6, and SFIV INSTANTLY spring to mind) and drives away vendors from wanting to make such a high risk investment.
I think the Dave and Busters model is the KEY to saving whatever is left of the arcade market in North America. You can get your even mix of everything, so far as assortment of newer games go, and you have a dedicated audience that is older and has a bit more disposable income to drop on competition. Competition should be another key feature, seeing the success of online gaming in Xbox Live moreso than any other network (though the PSN isn't a slouch by far in that respect, Xbox Live still has a couple key features that set it apart. I only own a PS3, btw) But it's so simple to use the current model to drive patrons at D&B to frequent gaming: shill liquor. Enter a Tekken tournament for $5, for instance, and the winner gets a drink coupon for X amount of drinks, or gets cash less the profit from everyone entering and a meal or something. It could be worked out so that everyone wins, and these new sets end up paying for themselves in a quicker span of time, quelling concern that maintenance costs will far outpace profits.
I think the biggest problem here is that many companies aren't addressing the situation correctly. They are catering more to a small hardcore audience as opposed to a wider, more diverse, and more open minded crowd. Granted arcades are higher risk, that's no reason to turn off your casual fan who doesn't quite like DDR but can't get with Need for Speed, just wants to kill some time before going to the Gap.
Namco Bandai has no NA distribution in arcades anymore, and I wouldnt be surprised if that division was shut down due to a lack of focus. Video games, especially in the mainstream, are bigger than ever, and alot of vendors are missing a prime opportunity to grasp new technology and improve a marketplace once bustling with business before everyone is stuck in their house for good. This is somewhat akin to what played out after the development of Napster, which didn't kill the music so to speak, but definitely made the RIAA re-brand singles as ringtones...8 years too late.
Namco introduced a sweet feature in its Tekken 5 release: the ability to plug in your Playstation controller and a card-issuing system for player data. it was a great premise, but suffered in two major ways: the controller slots would frequently get gunked up as there was no real "cover" to protect them, and the card system was NOT backward compatible with home systems. As much as they tried to make the arcade more "homey", there was still a great disconnect in between the two realms, and as soon as the home version came out, players felt cheated for having spent 5 bucks on a card to make a custom player they couldn't instantly port to their home system and pick up with. They had to start all over from scratch.
Namco again missed the mark when it released the Tekken 5.1 in the form of Dark Resurrection. The similarities to the first iteration notwithstanding, Namco could've easily, um, resurrected their NA arcade division by planning further integration between the arcade, PSP, and PS3 versions of the game. Say you make a player profile in the arcade, there should've been access for a PS memory card from the jump: you save on making proprietary data cards, allow users to invest in whichever versions of the game they choose, and they can still access and build upon their same save data and thus increase the replay value and overall longevity of their product. Even taking the PS3 hardware into account, they could've planned to allow home users battle arcade users, or have arcade users networked so that massive multiplayer tournaments could've taken place nationwide, without the cost (to the gamer) of all the travel fares and fees associated with the tourney circuit. That money the gamer saves can be used to invest further in the arcade product, and the product efficiently makes money, but more importantly, makes sense.
If Namco had kept Tekken 6 exclusive to PS3, this would've opened SO MANY more doors so far as futureproofing their shit. T6 is allegedly running on new hardware that is based off of the PS3s hardware specs. If this is the case, then the plan above, even if off center for T5:DR, would've worked PERFECTLY for T6. Lower the cost of porting the game to another system, since it's already pretty much optimized for a specific platform; focus group the game IN ARCADES to make the home version that much more impressive, even as droves of kids and adults alike are planning on getting it the day it drops; focus more on system-specific DLC that can be used with your arcade avatar, thus bringing the integration back into play; optimize the high-def Graphics engine for use with blu-ray and HDMI--this does more than just look pretty. In the arcade, you can invest in a cheaper HD display while keeping the core system in-tact, allowing arcade owners more options for maintenance and less of an initial investment in the product itself, keeping costs low while profits will inevitably soar. On the home front, you have a game that looks EXACTLY like it's arcade forbearer, and you can still take your wireless ps3 pad to the arcade ala T5, but now you have a lot less to physically worry about (gum in the controller slot, etc). You can still use the Sony mem card adapter in the arcade or build a reader in the machine and have patrons access data this way, or since ps3 uses USB, allow use of thumb drives for data entry, opening brand new worlds of possibilities and changing the face of the "quarters on the screen" line dynamics that have been a staple of the culture since waaaaaaaay back in the day.
I'm sorry if I'm a bit long winded on the subject, or seem a bit fanboyish for sony (which isn't the case at all) but I feel so passionately about the death of what was largely my childhood, and I'm watching it happen so extravagantly now while there's so many missed opportunities to fix what wasn't really that badly broken to begin with. US vendors just didn't read their audiences as rightly as they should've, IMO, and we all are suffering for their lack of innovation.
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This ain't my first day.
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