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In place we now have very few proper arcades. Search across the country and I am sure you will find it hard to find many large arcades. I think that the reason for this, is that the games are so expensive to play.
£1 a go? A bit steep if you ask me. As I write this (different day to posting it) I am next to a bar i which the arcade games cost 100 pesetas a go. This is roughly 40p. So why is it that us poor people in the UK have to pay over twice as much for exactly the same games?
It could be down to arcade machines being expensive to buy, it could be down to economics. To tell you the turth it could just be people being stingy. Whatever it is, it isn't very fair. For some reason in the UK we have to pay more for everything, cars, clothes, homes and now even arcade machines.
Mind you price is just one of the problems. Another has to be the fact that many of the games in larger arcades are in reality very similar to each other. In the days of Pac-man this wasn't the case. But now, it normally goes something like this: 3d shooters (Time Crisis 2, Crisis Zone, House of the Dead 2, Virtua Cop and Jurrasic Park: Lost World) Sports games (Virtua Tennis, NBA2k1, Virtua Striker, a skateboarding game and a Jet Ski game) Beat 'em ups (Marvel vs Capcom, Streetfighter "whatever" Tekken and Soul Calibur) Racing games (18 wheeler, Crazy Taxi and that good Ferrari game which I can't remember the name of). Now obviously the sports games have variety, the other three most common genres however are very samey.
Each of the 3d shooters are very, very similar, albeit with each having a certain thing the others don't. The pedal to duck on Time Crisis and Crisis Zone (machine gun with Crisis zone), and the car that moves (gives you whiplash) and blows air in your face (on certain machines, which happen to cost £2 a go to play) in Jurrasic Park. But the question you've got to ask yourself is, do these little extras make it worth paying out another pound to play? For me it isn't really and as a result I just tend to have a go on Time Crisis 2 or Crisis Zone. The same type of thing applies to racing games and as a result I don't think that bars and arcades bother paying for a machine just like the one they already have. Because of this arcades tend to be small.
So, after reading what I have just typed, do you think that the arcade is extinct or do you think it is alive and kicking?
In place we now have very few proper arcades. Search across the country and I am sure you will find it hard to find many large arcades. I think that the reason for this, is that the games are so expensive to play.
£1 a go? A bit steep if you ask me. As I write this (different day to posting it) I am next to a bar i which the arcade games cost 100 pesetas a go. This is roughly 40p. So why is it that us poor people in the UK have to pay over twice as much for exactly the same games?
It could be down to arcade machines being expensive to buy, it could be down to economics. To tell you the turth it could just be people being stingy. Whatever it is, it isn't very fair. For some reason in the UK we have to pay more for everything, cars, clothes, homes and now even arcade machines.
Mind you price is just one of the problems. Another has to be the fact that many of the games in larger arcades are in reality very similar to each other. In the days of Pac-man this wasn't the case. But now, it normally goes something like this: 3d shooters (Time Crisis 2, Crisis Zone, House of the Dead 2, Virtua Cop and Jurrasic Park: Lost World) Sports games (Virtua Tennis, NBA2k1, Virtua Striker, a skateboarding game and a Jet Ski game) Beat 'em ups (Marvel vs Capcom, Streetfighter "whatever" Tekken and Soul Calibur) Racing games (18 wheeler, Crazy Taxi and that good Ferrari game which I can't remember the name of). Now obviously the sports games have variety, the other three most common genres however are very samey.
Each of the 3d shooters are very, very similar, albeit with each having a certain thing the others don't. The pedal to duck on Time Crisis and Crisis Zone (machine gun with Crisis zone), and the car that moves (gives you whiplash) and blows air in your face (on certain machines, which happen to cost £2 a go to play) in Jurrasic Park. But the question you've got to ask yourself is, do these little extras make it worth paying out another pound to play? For me it isn't really and as a result I just tend to have a go on Time Crisis 2 or Crisis Zone. The same type of thing applies to racing games and as a result I don't think that bars and arcades bother paying for a machine just like the one they already have. Because of this arcades tend to be small.
So, after reading what I have just typed, do you think that the arcade is extinct or do you think it is alive and kicking?
I just got back from Blackpool, where arcades are everywhere, and there was this MTV Drumscape machine. You stuck your quid in, and then chose a song and played along to it with a real electronic kit, including bass pedal, which was really good. It would be rubbish on a pad though.
Fighting games are better at home, though the arcades are coming up with new ways of drawing out wallets out. Machines where you put on gloves and hit targets that pop out are fun, but they hurt after a while.
The main reason that the home systems are now more popular than the arcades is because home systems are now as powerful as the arcades. In their heyday the arcades were vastly better graphics wise than the home machines, and that drew the punters in.
i'd rather spend a tenner in LanArena than in an arcade
it lasts ten times longer and you get the satisfaction of blowing up upto 30 strangers!
Slaveunit-Although playing the games in the arcade can be fun, due to having a gun, does this make it any better than spending 3.50 and renting it out. Okay, you don't get the peripherals for it which takes away a lot of the fun, but this time can be used to practise and then go back to the arcades and give the game a whooping.
> Although playing the games in the arcade can be fun, due to having
> a gun, does this make it any better than spending 3.50 and renting it out. Okay,
> you don't get the peripherals for it which takes away a lot of the fun, but this
> time can be used to practise and then go back to the arcades and give the game a whooping.
Thats it exactly. Youre paying the obscene prices for the prehiperals. Renting and buying are better VFM, but unless you invest in the hardware, it wont be the true arcade experience.
Id rather buy the game, though I do like trying out new games in the arcades.
> 10 times longer for 10 times the amount of money? Whys that better? Oh sorry, I
> get you know Mystique, what you mean s that 10 pounds on LANarena will last 10
> times as long as 10 pounds would last in an arcade. Point taken. One of the
> reasons I don't think arcades are very popular anymore actually.
>
yes
Indeed, arcades can offer FAR more than console games. Faster games, better peripherals, better cabinets... after all, can anyone play F355 with 3 screens, surround sound lighting, and proper gear levers in their home? No... obviously. So arcades can be great...
But they are becoming extinct. So extinct that Sega, Sony and Namco have actually teamed up in many arcade efforts in Japan as the scene dies away. Whereas people used to play so much space invaders that Japan had to print more coins (no joke!), now the turnout is far, far lower.
It's dead. Or dying at least... and not much will stop that
from the games machines in america that I have seen the cost of playing soul calibre is about 17p
and other games a bit more.
however I have not ventured far enough to find a proper arcade yet.
it's cheaper to play a games console.
in a comfortable chair.
without anyone saying 'you shouldn't have done that' over your shoulder.
without the smells.