I've pretty much had this feeling for the past few years.  And honestly, I can totally agree with the reasoning here.  Even when home console systems like the Atari 2600 and Intellivision were out, they still couldn't equal the performance of the actual arcade games (to wit, compare Atari's home version of Pac-Man to the real thing).

But as technology improved and home computers and newer game systems could perfectly mimic those classic computer games, the gap between what home systems and arcade machines could do became narrower and narrower.  Now technology has aught up, and today's current gen systems can deliver games that are every bit as good as or better than arcade quality machines.

Even traditional arcade companies like Nintendo, Midway and Capcom have retooled their efforts to the home console systems.  The most recent Mario and Mortal Kombat games were released for consoles systems only.  And Capcom's Street Fighter IV will be console exclusive.

I do miss the old arcades, as they were a staple of my misspent youth.  I loved going to arcades like Malibu Grand Prix in Mount Laurel, NJ.  And the mall arcades were always a regular stop whenever I went there.  Sure some of them were kind of seedy as the article said, and I remember there was one that always smelled like a men's locker room whenever I went inside, but there were still some fond memories there.  Hell, even I met my longtime girlfriend at the arcade in the student union of my college.

So while I'm not surprised to hear that video arcades are fast becoming the remnant of a bygone era, I still can't help but wax sentimental about it.

I've noticed the lack of decently mantained arcades in the US (or at least in the Rockies), it's sad as pinball was always my favorite (more of the mid-age tables like Star Trek, Judge Dredd, and Funhouse) but a good 80% of the tables I come across are damaged or maintained improperly. Even still, the new games try and bring in so many lights and so on that it is expensive to play (especially with the weakening dollar).

Simply put, I'm not surprised in the US, and I am dissapointed it is going this way.

Where's Flynn when you need him?!

---- There is a limit for both politicians against video games, and video games against politicians. http://www.goteamretard.com

I'll note that the price for coin-ops has also steadily increased and with it, the price to play. Take a guess as to why their fading in popularity.

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Papa Midnight
http://www.otakutimes.com
http://www.thesupersoldiers.com

This is something that's been happening since the rise of the original Playstation and by the time the PS2 came out arcades already had one foot in the grave. I haven't seen a arcade in a mall in six or seven years now, hell I haven't seen an arcade period! IMO the PS1 started it and the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube pretty much finished the job. That and the absurd prices for arcade cabinets and how owners had start charging more and more to be able to make their money back certainly didn't help either, a quarter was one thing but then prices went to fifty cents and eventually some games started to cost a dollar for the same money losing experience which was nuts. Besides, most arcades don't offer a unique experience aside from whatever gimmicks the game's set up is. There's not a lot to make it worth coming back for, the "competitive" feeling of beating someone else's high score certainly wasn't enough and then obviously there's the hassle of actually going to the arcade and the annoyances of actually doing so, such as lines, snotty little kids whom are being "babysat" by the arcade and my "favorite" the guy (or again, little kid) who thinks they're an expert on every game in the arcade and won't shut up. Now that consoles are online (starting with the last generation and expanding this one) the whole competitive thing isn't even there for arcades anymore and you can mute/ignore the annoying people online, plus you don't have to waste a pocket full of quarters.

Unless arcades can once again manage to offer something you can't really get at home, aside from little gimmicks, I doubt they're going to make a comeback outside of being a niche anytime soon.

 Back in the day I fell in love with Virtua Fighter.  I would spend maybe $20 - $50 per week on that game.  When I heard that the Sega Saturn was coming out bundled with Virtua Fighter I was thrilled.  The arcade I played in was in a mall and was filled with crappy crane/claw and ticket machines.  It was mostly filled with little brats running around screaming.  You could win tickest and turn them in for such craptastic prizes as whistles and stuffed animals.  I couldn't wait to get out of that environment and the Sega saturn gave me my way out. 

 The arcades I remember were strictly coin-op and pinball, maybe a single crane machine.  The death of the arcade wasn't completely because of consoles, it was because the arcade transformed into a mini-Chuck E Cheese with their tickets and such.  I understand that businesses have to adapt to changes in the environment, but if you have mostly cranes and tickets in your arcade...it's not an arcade.

As far as I can tell, the same thing is happening in Europe. I think that the problem is not only the high price we have to pay in order to play, but also the high difficulty of the arcade games.

I could beat House of the Dead II with little effort. Nevertheless I went to the arcade a few weeks ago and I found House of the Dead IV. Even if it cost a dollar, I gave it a try... and I was dead in two minutes. Come on, one dollar for two minutes of play??

I remember that in the 80s and early 90s you could "master" an arcade game (captain commando, Knights of the Round, Super Mario Bros, etc) and finish the whole thing with one quarter if you had the proper skills. I don't know of anyone who can finish an arcade game now with only one credit. The time that you get for the money you spend is just not worth it.

From what I most read people do miss the arcades. However I think we have gotten lazy and are not doing anything about. Next time you see a arcade go drop a buck in it and step back to your child hood days.

As others have stated with the advent of the more powerful consoles (PS1\N64\Saturn era onward) arcades have been pretty much dropping like flys in the dead of winter.

What really killed arcades for me was the sky rocketing price to play them (my interest in them pretty much dropped to zero after they started to cost more then 25 cents to play) Heck, I remember when I was a child I could walk into a arcade with 2 bucks and have a total blast. Ah, Golden Axe, TMNT, The Simpsons and X-Men, how I loved thee.

Hmm, arcades... When was the last time I was in one....

Oh I remember, it was when I spent a $1.00 on Virtua Fighter 3(it even had a dollar bill feeder, which was still rare & unheard of at the time), and lasted probably 30 seconds.

I know they need to make a profit off these machines, but I say all that just drove more people to consoles.  For a few bucks more you could just rent a game and play it for all you like, and around the late 90s the consoles started overtaking such arcade machines in terms of power & being true to the arcade version.

Back in the 80s to mid 90s arcades were the place to go to see amazing graphics, hang out with other game fans, and the number of machines & games to chose from was amazing.  Now when you go back to such amusement centers at something like a mini-golf, they are pretty much bare, and the games are usually old 80s to late 90s stuff that they still have because it hasn't been broken yet... Not to mention it is stuff you already played and can get on consoles, emulators, etc.

At least stuff like DDR has kept a few around, but there isn't much new stuff to bring people back into them.

Coin-op is not quite as dead as people tend to think, though it has changed form.  While there are fewer and fewer dedicated archades the coin-op industry is still pretty strong.

Check out AMOA or ASI sometime, those trade shows are going pretty strong.

I work for a company that produces coin-op games... we usually manage to sell around 40,000 machines per year (not including software updates for existing machines) and several billion $ in quarters pass through our machines.

Things have shifted to more of a tournament model over the years though.

I never really participated in the arcade scene, only watched from the sidelines. Then again, I was born in '88, so I suppose by the time I was old enough, it was past its prime.

So it goes...

The local arcade places closed 11 years ago in my city. They only exist in places like fun centers, and very few of them have anything modern. I still recall when people said arcades were the death of pinball machines... I just think arcades only continue to get money from kids usually that have pizza servings.

From all the arcades I've seen the problems are as followed.

Badly maintained games, extremly expensive to play, lack of any decent games, lack of any popular games, and a few other things that persist.

I never liked going to the arcade to pay almost a dollar for a 1 minute game of AIR HOCKEY. I never was a fan of fighting games, and all the arcades I've been in are populated with things like Air hockey, Fighters, Shooters with dated graphics.

Tokens are a nice scam too. How many quarter does 1 token actually cost in some places?

As for home consoles. I can play with friends, play on my own, play online if I have enough cash sometimes. I have a wider variety of games that aren't pay to play, sometimes on a bigger screen (presuming I wasn't poor as hell which I am lol), I can let my family play it, I don't have to wait in line to play it. It's not near as noisy at my house either.

There's a pretty active arcade next to the movie megaplex at the mall here. I think arcade machines are far from extinct, but the concept of a dedicated games arcade is indeed getting outdated.

Although I think the industry is partially to blame too- so many games are deliberately made hard and frustrating, almost as if we couldn't go home and play equally fun and more forgiving games often made by the same damn company... well, used to be anyway, how come all Sega's best games are arcade ones? The prices are high (a dollar to two dollars per play session here in Australia) and there's a steep learning curve.

But they do work in addition to other venues. Arcade games are great for entertaining kids while they wait to see a movie, and to cool down afterwards. You can leave 'em there while you go shopping. Theme parks and entertainment centres are often filled with arcade machines. And Dance Dance Revolution by itself has given the industry a new lease on life.

I never really got to experience the old style arcades, thanks to a rural upbringing and being born in 1990. Guess I never will.

I'm all for freedom of ttnet vitamin speech and allowing rent a car game makers to put whatever they want in games, but there's one thing about this app that has me scratching my head.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but from araç kiralama the previous article araba kiralama on this I gathered that players can use Google maps in-game to find the other (real-life?) dealers in their area.  If this is the case, has travesti anyone considered what's stopping someone from using this app to actually move drugs between hands for reals?

But majority araba kiralama of their outrage araç kiralama stems from what it could DO TO children, not the content itself.  Talk to one of these people and you'll find they don't think any books kiralık araba should be banned from children.  Mention American Psycho and they talk about kiralık araç the redeeming value of using imagination to construct a story.  Reading, no matter what the content, is largely viewed as a consequenceless activity for people of any age.  The reason why I mention American Psycho is because of the content itself.  Gaming never has and likely never will have any scenes where someone has sex with a severed head.  Not gonna happen.  Yet despite this, they'll fight tooth and nail to protect their children from two boys kissing in Bully but whatever they read is harmless... yeah.

The entire arguement is kiralık oto based upon a social normality inflicted by luddites who can't figure out the controls for Halo so it's frightening and terrifying and obviously the cause of youth violence on the rise even though, in reality, it's in decline (which is actually a HUGE suprise given minibüs kiralama the economies status).  In  a perfect world, we would have parents that actually parent.  The idea of sales restrictions on media on oto kiralama any form to accomidate parental unwillingness to get involved with their child's life is the real problem to me.  Here I am, 32 years old, and being held up at a self-scan rent a car needing to show ID before I can buy a $10 M rated game all because Soccer Momthra can't be bothered to look at the crap Billy Genericallystupidson does in his free time.  It's too hard for her, so I have to suffer?

Thanks good job;

Btw, I think Atari and Midway will drop out too, but mostly travesti because  these guys have done nothing travesti or little and need to start saving costs. and dizi izle