Arcades in the West: Why are they Dying?

While arcades in Japan are as busy as ever, arcades in the West have been dying out despite the influx massive influx of competitive games.

[yugovega]

perhaps because most are just to win tickets to get spider rings? if they actually had true arcades like when i was younger i'msure they would fare much better.

[ltachiUchiha]

I think its because u can play them at home. Back when arcades was huge like when streetfighter 2 first came out, consoles werent up to par with that tech. Now its like consoles have surpassed everything u can do in an arcade game & is why arcade games have faded & is not as big as it use to be.

[ltachiUchiha]

Also the challenge one another is also huge on consoles now because u can play against almost anyone across the globe online which arcade games cant do but i still think their cool to have around. If u ever go to a laundry place to do laundry they have arcade machines. It makes time fly by but now phones are big on games & thats another thing that is killing off arcade games.

[V0LT]

I miss those days... I don't think there is anything that can be done to really bring them back to what we once knew them as. These machines were very expensive back then and still are today. Thankfully whenever I visit the beach there is an arcade there that has been thriving for over 50 years.

[BlaqMagiq24]

Simple. Online gaming.

But it will never beat the interaction you have with others in an arcade.

[caseh]

Agreed but it started way before that.

I think we can thank Sony and Sega for the demise of the arcade, PSX and Saturn had arcade ports of nearly everything Namco and Sega dished out. Buy the game and play the sh*t out of it or feed the arcade with the contents of your wallet.

The only reason they are still about in some areas is because of the beat-em-up scene, if your serious about it online play simply isn't a viable option.

[BlaqMagiq24]

That is also true. Once arcade games hit home consoles it was a small sign of arcades dying though people didn't realize it till much later. Now it's apparent everywhere. I miss those days of walking into an arcade with the crowds of people.

[jc48573]

laundry

[catch]

It became too expensive and inconvenient to compete with the home experience. I would love to go to a decent arcade now and then but they just aren't practical.

[IcicleTrepan]

I am not sure why this is a story. Arcades have been dead since the early 90s in the west. If you'd been around in the 80s you would know what a real arcade looks like and you would know that the little thing they have at the movie theatre to entertain you before the movie starts is not even close to the same thing. Literally every convenience store used to have a small arcade in it. They were nearly as common as pay phones.

[caseh]

I grew up playing games in the 80s into the 90s, here in the UK there was always an arcade out back of pretty much every video store I knew of. Seasides always had hundreds of cabinets, hardly ever the same games when you went back thats how big the industry was back then.

*sob* I'd give anything to go back into one of these places, spend hours in there and realise I had only spent a fraction of my money as I left...but not before I had been blinded by the sunlight as I stepped outside. :)

[Jag-T1000]

Its because you can't play with a quarter anymore. every game cost a dollar. Game companies try to make these fansy and huge cabinets that they have to charge more than a quarter.