5 reasons the arcade industry continues to thrive in Japan...

I came to a sad, sad conclusion this weekend. One reached while getting the girlfriend's windshield wiper fixed in the Twin Cities. You see, near the place where we got said wiper fixed was a mall. In that mall was an arcade. Yes, an arcade. An ALADDIN'S CASTLE. A relic, a shining diamond in the rough, a reminder of the golden age, a time when for just a few shiny quarters, you could sample a piece of gaming technology lightyears beyond anything available on the home market. A place of socialization, competition, and exploration. This particular arcade was thriving only a few short months ago in December, and had everything from a Simpsons machine in perfect working order (yes, No Pants Kid, a SIMPSONS machine) to several Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 mini-cabinets. Most of these cabinets had for-sale signs stapled to them, though I didn't have a lot of time to browse. Upon returning this weekend, however, it was a mere shadow of its former glory. It was stripped of all its games except for a Tekken and King of Fighters NeoWave machine (both being played by a group of gothy high schoolers), a run-down DDR SuperNova taken over by tweens, several dozen ticket machines, the Simpsons machine (still in good working order), an Initial D cabinet (with a For Sale sticker attached - asking price of 5 grand), and a gutted In The Groove cabinet.

I hate to say it, but a part of me died with this arcade. It was one of the few last beacons of hope in my heart that perhaps there were a few last surviving outposts of the dying breed of entertainment center once known as the "mall arcade". Instead, it's gasping for its last few breaths, being crowded into obscurity by less desirable Chuck-E-Cheese style Ticket and Pizza centers and slightly more desirable Brunswick Zone and Gameworks psuedo-upscale entertainment centers... so the American arcade isn't QUITE dead - yet. However, distribution of new video games by major distributors has all but ceased, and aside from those damned ticket games (which I affectionately refer to as "kiddie gambling"), the only markets for video arcade machines are large entertainment centers (the above mentioned places like Gameworks). It has gotten so bad, in fact, that Gameworks is now IMPORTING some of their games directly from Japan. How do I know this? I've SEEN Japanese language games at both Chicago and Minneapolis locations, so this can't be an isolated phenomenon.

Sadly, the ticket machines actually make money, and even in Rochester, MN there is not one but TWO self proclaimed "arcades" with ticket machines out the ass. In fact, the only redeeming quality to either of these places is that one of them, a family owned buffet named "Gorilla's Family Amusements", somehow managed to buy a brand new Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova machine. Why they did this when they serve a BUFFET is beyond me... but the fact remains that they are the only place in town with a DDR machine, and a relatively cheap one at that. The other place, Leo's Pizza, is a sad Chuck-E-Cheese rip-off with decent pizza buffet specials for the adult lunch crowd (yes, really), but only one non-ticket machine: a two seat San Francisco Rush 2049 racing game - one side of which has a broken monitor.

In Japan it was a completely different story, as you may have seen from reading my entries. The arcade scene didn't only continue to exist there - it's thriving. The SF2 and MK era we had back in the 90's? It never ended. There are always new fighting games coming out, and new players striving to master them. The newest flavors of the week? Arcana Heart 2 (mentioned in my latest PS2 review), Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5, and Mobile Suit Gundam Vs. Gundam. But there are fighters from as far back as the Neo Geo era in most arcades...some even having original Street Fighter II boards - though there were no MK boards to be found.

Also popular: "card" games that require a player to collect sets of cards and play them on a scanning "board". These games combine luck and skill, and have different themes ranging from Mah-Jongg to Dragon Quest (I tried the Dragon Quest one - it wasn't much fun actually even though I managed to figure it out). Shoot-em-ups, like Gradius, are also popular, and look amazing running on new-gen hardware. I mentioned Otomedius in my blog, but there are others that look just as good, if not better, and there are people in Japan who devote their lives to becoming skilled at these games. Puzzle games such as Puyo Pop, arcade shooters like HotD or Silent Hill, and racing games like Initial D were also common in Japanese arcade. The "ticket" games I ranted about earlier only took up the bottom floor of most Japanese arcades, which on average spanned upwards of 4-5 floors.

So why the differences? I'd like to give 5 of the reasons I think that American arcades are in trouble, while Japanese arcades are thriving...

5.) Game variety. There are more kinds of games, and more of them, available in Japanese arcades as opposed to their North American "remnants". We've got the Neo Geo library (which includes shooters, fighters, and PUZZLE games like Bust a Move, which are great to play with the girlfriend, trust me), classic and modern fighters, shoot-em-ups, co-op beat-em-ups, co-op puzzle games, simulations, card games, beatmania, racers, etc... there's just so much more than the single Tekken and DDR machine in the corner surrounded by "kiddie gambling"...

4.) "Video games are for kids". This is a stigma that is COMPLETELY North American. Japan does not have this issue. There were people of all ages in the game centers overseas, and there were salarymen of all ages kicking all kinds of ass in Tekken. The problem arises from the notion during the Nintendo era that games were kids' toys. This problem permeates into the ratings issues we're having now as well, but that's an entirely different can of worms...

3.) Arcades are expensive. GameWorks and other entertainment centers are charging over $1.00 a pop per play for some of those games. For games like House of the Dead where a couple of lucky shots from a zombie can Game Over you in under a minute, you can't help but feel like that zombie also got a couple of lucky shots on your wallet...

2.) Console technology has caught up. The "wow factor" matters more to us. We can get the same experiences at home as we can in the arcades, and therefore we've stopped going. This phenomenon is beginning to hit Japan too, which is why we're beginning to see more delayed releases (note Tekken 6 still has no home release date despite having been in Japanese arcades since last year and we're not likely to see home release for SFIV until 2009 even though it's scheduled for arcades this August).

1.) Culture of online play. Japanese players have not grasped the full extent of online play. They prefer to gather in person to play games together (see: success of the Wii). Americans prefer anonymity of the internet. We're lazy bastards. (also the little 13-year-old who called you a f*g after you fragged him on Halo 3 probably wouldn't be talking that way if you beat him face-to-face in an arcade...).