Where Have All the Arcades Gone?

When I was young, I did my best to organize my family's plans around going to places that had arcade games, so that I could (hopefully) beg a quarter (later 2) out of my mother so that I could enjoy a few moments of gaming bliss. And you used to find arcade games in the oddest places. The local video store had a small arcade in the back. Pizza places were always a good bet for arcades. In fairness, some still are. Strangest of all, 7-11s almost always had an arcade or two in them.

Of course, there were also those gaming meccas with large arcades in them. Most kid hangouts, such as miniature golfing, had a fairly large area crammed full of arcade games. And most areas with population had meccas dedicated to nothing but arcade games. I remember new games causing mass hysteria. Mortal Kombat 2 was a great example. Midway made a mint selling what were basically over-hyped beta games, then selling a more complete version to the same place a few months later. And it worked. I remember seeing a banner that read, "We have Mortal Kombat 2 3.0!!!!" The kids at school would be buzzing about it the next day.

Now, most of the places that had only one or two game machines are gone. Many of the places that had many now have a few, poorly maintained gaming cabinets spaced few and far between. And genuine arcades are becoming harder and harder to find. Golden Tee stands by itself, a lone sentry making a last stand in the cold.

But why must it be so? Well, first, let's explore what made arcades so successful in the first place. Perhaps the most important thing was cost. An arcade game back then cost a quarter to play. The NES cost a whopping $200 (yes, as much as a Wii), unless you splurged on the version with R.O.B., in which case you paid $250, and were probably mocked. And, as much as we complain about the cost of a game now, $50 was still a common price for games. So, while you might eventually pay more with the arcade, it would take a long time, and you could play whichever game you wanted, without having to save up big money. Also, the arcade's joystick and button combinations frequently felt better than a home system's controller, the joystick in particular. In fact, many early controllers, such as the NES Advantage, were attempts to make your home console feel more like an arcade. Of course, many games also used a large trackball, which gave a freedom that was impossible to replicate with a control pad. Remember Marble Madness? Yeah, much better with the ball. Another often overlooked detail was that arcades were one of the bast ways to make video games a social event. You could hang out with more friends than could fit in your living room, and everyone could play different games, all at once. Replicating that feat at home would be unbelievably expensive, not to mention terrible feng shui. Finally, the arcade games were just better games. The arcade games had better graphics and gameplay. If a home port existed, it was almost definitely an inferior product in almost every way.

Now, of course, things are different. Many arcades now cost at least a dollar to play, while the home games are still (roughly) the same price, the Playstation 3 aside. And the controllers? Now much, much better at home. Seriously, go look at your console controller. How many control pads and sticks are there? How many different buttons? How hard would it be to play on the damage-resistant flat surface of the arcade? Odds are, very. And now, Online gaming allows us to play and socialize not just with our friends, but with the world. And as technology has gotten better (and smaller), the home games are now at least as good as the arcade, better if you have a cool TV to match. And this is just talking about console games. If you factor in all the power and versatility that PC gaming has to offer, arcades just can't compete, can they?

So what then? Will arcades vanish from our nation, like parachute pants before them? Maybe, maybe not. There are still some successful arcade games out there. Pinball, for example, takes up too much space for the average home. Also, shooting games are still successful at the arcade, as home ports are somehow lacking, not to mention notoriously "twitchy" regarding function. And as motion sensing/capture technology has improved, more games are being made that require the player to actually become physically involved. In the past few years, I have had a lot of fun in arcades sword fighting as a ninja, shooting bad guys while actually having to physically duck and cover, and boxing. Games like this are difficult to set up and play properly at home, making them good candidates for the arcade. But will this be enough? Can these small sub genres keep an industry alive? Maybe the industry should branch out a little bit.

The other day, I was talking about this with fellow arcade aficionado Acidburn, and he had a good idea. Why couldn't first person shooters be fun on an arcade? Now, we had two different ideas on how this could be done. The simplest solution would be to switch the positions of the joystick and the buttons, and play two-dimensional fps games similar to Wolfenstein 3-d or Doom. This could be done quickly and economically, and arcades could be linked for multiplayer arena-style combat. Conversely, they could bring back the trackball, put a fire button next to it, and a joystick on the other side, and play more current-styled shooters. Really, I'm not sure if this, or indeed, anything will save the arcade industry, much less return it to its former glory. Time will tell. But I'm saving up my quarters and hoping.