Arcade Games: A Thing Of The Past? Teshale

In 1990, SNK released NAM-1975 for the Neo Geo console. Initially avaliable as an arcade game, SNK developed a version for the Neo Geo in the hopes that video gamers would find the title enjoyable enough to continue playing it at home. (I assume that the release of this particular title is directly related to the release of my book The Things They Carried [1990].)

SNK's business model was ultimately unviable for two reasons. These reasons concern the entire purpose of arcade consoles, which is to take your money. To do so, they must 1) be intriguing or entertaining enough to draw you in. This is usually simple to do, as the glut of fighter games on the market indicate. 2) they must trick you into believing it is possible to beat the game; doing so must be a drawn out, long process. With NAM-1975, only half of this seems to be true. While the story, an unusual mishmash of Apocalypse Now-meets-GoldenEye (but written, oddly enough, before GoldenEye), is serviceable enough for a shooter, the actual work of eliminating enemies is tedious and unrewarding. The final boss is extremely difficult to beat, according to reviews on http://www.neo-geo.com, and the game does not allow you to continue while battling. One or the other is understandable; but creating an impossible-to-beat final boss, and then forcing the gamer to begin the game all over again if killed in-game, is...why? Why would you do that? Why would you make a game so unutterably difficult and then reward the player, who suffers ruined eyesight and sore thumbs in the hopes that their efforts will come to fruition, with a gigantic pixellated middle finger? Why, SNK?! COME ON!!!

As a young woman, I wasted many hours at the local arcade playing entertaining, but ultimately pointless rounds of Gauntlet Legends, Fist of the North Star, and even Aerosmith's Revolution X-- but how many are doing the same today, ten years later, when they could waste their lives in the comfort of their own homes? The extreme popularity of home consoles such as the Wii, XBox and others suggest that the arcade era is on its last legs. More and more consumers are investing in consoles for the home, where, despite the relatively high price, games themselves are fairly inexpensive, and payment is one-time-only. Young gamers have large amounts of disposable income to spend, and the general trend suggests their pocketbooks are signalling the death knoll for arcades. Online multiplayer options present all of the original perks of the arcade game without the two drawbacks-- having to see other people, and having to keep a large collection of quarters in one's pockets. Thus, a previously lucrative business is unable to draw in the crowds of the 1980s, and is now struggling to stay relevant.