I agree that the convenience of home consoles poses the greatest threat to the arcade. Nobody wants to spend an evening getting jostled by greasy pre-teens when they can get the same gaming experience at home on the couch in their underwear. Especially when they can simply download the greatest arcade game ever designed, Geometry Wars. It is nearly perfect: stunning visuals, no unnecessary distractions like plots or sanitized geopolitical backdrops, and absolutely no illusion that beating the game is possible (that's right, it packs in important life lessons).
Of course there are certain advantages to gaming in an arcade. Using the dinky joystick on a controller does not compare to mowing down alien foes with a bolted-down plastic Uzi. And if you are not playing Cruisin' USA (or the equivalent) with a steering wheel and a gas pedal, then you are undeniably doing it wrong. Arcades also offer the opportunity to cream opponents face-to-face. On the other hand, the rise of online multiplayer gaming makes it easy to pwn dozens of n00bs per hour without leaving the...basement. But I digress; what will it take to keep arcades relevant?
A successful arcade for the twenty-first century will need to incorporate three crucial elements:
1)Eliminate the need for change. It jangles, it falls and rolls under the machine, and only one denomination has FDR on it. And any place that uses tokens in lieu of quarters should be razed to the ground.
2)Use a bouncer. Keeps out the riff-raff. As in, children.
3)Have a full-service bar. And a place where I can grab a steak. Saving the galaxy (or perhaps playing some sort of virtual golf) can be stressful and something to take the edge off is essential.
Luckily, such an arcade exists: Dave and Buster's , where buzzed adults outnumber snot-nosed kids. After getting past the bouncer, you load your money onto Power Cards instead of fumbling for change. For the mildly anti-social, the annoyance of other people being there can easily be dulled by the beer. On top of that, they have some fairly incredible games. I cannot simulate the cockpit of a 747 in my living room, but D&B can provide me with the experience of crashing one onto a runway. If arcades want to stay alive, that is what they will have to do: give people opportunities to maim and destroy in a realistic setting they cannot replicate at home. Most of them have already been desensitized by the rest of the visual media; just give them an outlet.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
ah yes, keeping out runny nose, sticky fingered kids is key. but i'm not sold on the power card thingy. i'd much rather enjoy the quirkiness of using dimes to fund the games. oh and keeping in the theme of destruction, it'll need a virtual reality GTA. but not the kind with the stupid helmets. more like a room with the GTA environment projected all around you, i'm leaning towards a star-trek holodeck type thing here.
I use dimes (and nickels!) to get Gatorades out of the machines in the Shoreland. I almost always lose at least one when they drop down and roll off.
ya im gonna go ahead and disagree with the use of coins. it is inevitable that one will drop at least three at any given time, possibly only recovering a fraction of the number dropped. though the quirkiness is undeniable, i would sacrifice it to save the dignity and self-respect after crawling around on the floor for five minutes looking for that damn quarter that will let u start ur game.
power cards are annoying at times, but i still hold them far superior to the coinage. but this begs the question, what will become of all the dimes and nickels in our lives?
We can melt them down to make musket balls.
Maybe we can replace power cards with some kind of retinal scan. That's futuristic.
Post a Comment