Death of the arcade?

dannyjo22

dannyjo22

dannyjo22

Caporegime
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Had a few days off so the Mrs and I took our godsons away to Yarmouth for a few days. I used to go there 15 or so years ago and the arcades where huge.

When my mate and I finally managed to ditch the kids we went in search of some arcade fun.

Most of the arcades have had 3/4's of their property flogged off to fund housing. Those that are still there have about 5 arcade machines and 99% slots or gambling machines?

The arcade machines were £1 a go for about 60 seconds play time. The newest machine I found was need for speed and that was a quid and extra credits to buy upgrades.

We ended up playing daytona :)

When I was a teenager the arcade was the pinacle the consoles tried to match, what the hell has happened.

Does anyone even have a decent arcade anymore rammed with great games?

For the first time in my life I struggled to find anything to spend money on :(
 
Oxy said:
I live in lowestoft, why on earth would you go to yarmouth? its the worlds biggest hole and needs nuking.
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A few days out spending quality time with primary school age Godsons. It is a hole, actually degenerated a lot since going there in my teens. That said my Godsons come from middlesborough so anywhere is like florida to them ;)
 
Not been to sea side in ages but i remember having loads of fun on Turtles/Simpson/House Of The Dead etc...
 
Gone are the days when I used to participate in Street Fighter 2 (The original not this turbo crap) for 20p a go, that and Captain Commando!

The first game I ever payed a pound for was Time Crisis and that was worth it as there was no other game like it.

Now however there is nothing out there worth spending a pound on! there are still a few good arcade games out there, Mario Kart Arcade, Time Crisis 4 etc.. But definately not worth £1 a go. not even 50p really when you consider what home console offer now a days!
 
Wiggis said:
Now however there is nothing out there worth spending a pound on! there are still a few good arcade games out there, Mario Kart Arcade, Time Crisis 4 etc.. But definately not worth £1 a go. not even 50p really when you consider what home console offer now a days!
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We had a dabble on time crisis 4 it was a quid each. 3 bars of energy. After about 30 seconds you was into scenarios where there wasn't a way in hell you wasn't going to lose atleast 1 bit of life. We reckon we got about 90 seconds for a quid.

Compare that to how long you could get on operation wolf.

I dont mind spending a quid but not for 90 seconds.

They have the machines on anyway using electricity if they made them 20p a go they might start filling the places again.
 
The only arcades im really interested in are the ones full of really old games like Daytona, Mortal Kombat and a lot of the Capcom side scrolling beat em ups - Final Fight, Captain Command, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs etc. At 20p a go i'll be on the Ghosts n Goblins machine for hours :).
 
I reckon there would be a good market for a good pristinely maintained retro arcade with everything working and gleaming like new.

Not unlike the arcades in the movie The King of Kong, which is just filled with retro stuff.
 
I believe you can buy an arcade machine for a couple of hundred quid then the game boards are like £20 each

you could quite easily have your own retro arcade in your bedroom!
 
We were talking about this other other day. I think it was about 10 years ago that "home" gaming overtook arcades. Maybe the problem was the virtual reality machines never really worked.
 
clv101 said:
We were talking about this other other day. I think it was about 10 years ago that "home" gaming overtook arcades. Maybe the problem was the virtual reality machines never really worked.
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Yeah the full motion ones like the aircraft one that flipped you 360, I cant understand why they cost a quid but mario kart etc should be no more than 30p a play on link machines. That way you would probably have a great laugh with mates. I'd still rather do that than play split screen at home.

I dont think the problem is Virtual reality machines because it was just the arcade graphics that blew you away. The consoles would then release say Ghosts and goblins and the magazines would say it wasn't quite arcade perfect or you would get slow down ala R-Type.

I was always looking to the arcades to see what was coming next for home consoles. Sega where always a big player and I used to anticipate what they would bring next.

Maybe there is just no money in selling the machines anymore compared to mass producing a dvd game and the arcades just want a quick buck having you put £1 in for 5 spins of a fruity. :(
 
Played a couple of virtual reality games at a long since closed arcade in town. The first was an odd FPS with platforms on different levels, it was pretty awkward and didnt really work. The other game they had was an arcadey WW1 flight sim which was really great.

The main problems with the arcades in Brum was the scum who'd frequent them. The amount of times people attempted to mug os was ridiculous and we finally stopped going altogether when one gang of spanners used a Gat gun to split a mates head wide open.
 
I still remember Sega world in Tamworth in the mid 90s

Every Monday it was 5pm till 11pm 'Free play'.

You basically paid £6 and all the machines were on free play, great fun. You could complete all those games like time crisis that would have otherwise took about £40 to do lol. Daytona was awesome, could get some proper fast laps if you had a slow start - slow car catch up effect was massive on that game :D
 
Arcades were expensive buggers to setup and build back then. Not the hardware but the actual cabinets. With the arrival of the Playstation gen of consoles kids began gaming at home and arcades started to get less and less popular. I do recall one of the consoles getting an almost perfect arcade conversion of Daytona and Rally....I think it was the Saturn or the Dreamcast?

I remember piling my 20p's into Enduro Racer, Bubble Bobble, Dragon Ninja, Hellfire, R-Type and of course the legend that is Golden Axe for 2player 1v1 malarky :) Daytona being £1 a shot kinda put me off.
 
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