/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7859482
They often didn't bring in enough money to justify the upkeep. So says the free market.
There are some nearby where I live. Mainly stuff like Mrs. Pac-Man and Galaga.

>>7859482
i still see them in smaller, private owned eating establishments like this chain of local hotdog take-out places.

There’s a couple pizza places around here that still have them.

>>7859482
All the nzi fags got triggered because to many straight guys looked at the screen instead of them or something

So they mandated that they get rid of them all

>>7859482
Rarely, but it's never from one of the main chains like McDonald's or Arby's, it's more of a mom and pop thing, but mainstream pizza joints on the other hand usually have a modest arcade.

>>7859482
You can't maintain nice things like that without a nearly 100% white or asian population. No sense in letting pieces of history like that get destroyed

Yeah. Small truckstop diners will often have a Ms Pac-man up front to keep people busy while they wait. A lot of mid-size pizza places still have them back by the bathrooms, too.

>>7859482
I haven't seen any since I left the US long ago. It's never been a thing here and AFAIK not allowed. I'm not sure about that time frame but 10 years earlier businesses rarely owned and operated these so upkeep/maintenance was irrelevant to them. That was done by whoever owned them who would place them there in exchange for a percentage of the take. I owned several cabinets and did this. The main reason to remove one was if it wasn't making any money and had somewhere else to place it or the business wanted to use the space for something else. Maintenance was never a concern for me but I know it was for other people. I'm sure this was due to their poor workmanship and totally not because of "diversity".

This was at a vape shop.

>>7859482
Yup, local burger joint has carnevil2. All furniture/decor is straight out of the 90's in their too. Fucking solid burgers.

>>7860228
Carnevil, excuse me don't know why I put 2.

I remember the Taco Bueno (fast food texmex) near me when I was a kid had a Battletoads and a Galaga. Now the location is a florist. Sadly.

There's a few restaurants with arcade machines over here but I've never actually checked them out since I always assumed they were just cheap copies running android.

>>7860221
>goes into vape shops
>can't figure out out to rotate pictures
Checks out.

Not worth the electricity to run I’m afraid.

>>7860629
An old arcade game is like running a couple of lamps. People that say a room of them (say 40 of them) cost you thousands a month are dirty liars that are covering for their failed business model, i.e., arcade games cannot bring in money strictly on their own anymore.

>>7860640
Pay at the door arcades still do alright. It's generally only the "25 cents per play" ones that don't.

>>7860647
>Pay at the door arcades still do alright
Good point that's often overlooked.

>It's generally only the "25 cents per play" ones that don't.
Right, unless they also have a successful bar which by law must have food, so if they're smart, the food's a draw too.
Even now with a good bar, places are struggling.
When I open an arcade I'll have scantily clad women techs and no one can stop me.

>>7860623
Unsure why those places even have those because they do not want people loitering in there. Yeah technically playing a game isn't loitering, but hey. It's got to be just for looks because it's too distracting to allow someone to get a huge score on or to cause any scene.

>>7860649
>women techs
What if people want to play classic arcade games that still work?

>>7860662
Now you know how I'll keep a rotating crop of games "broken" so that the "techs" can fix them.
;)
(really, me and another guy will do all the work, but they can get all the glory)

>>7859482
Arcades disappeared when consoles became more prevalent and "home gaming" was so much more easier and popular. The problem at the start was that it was expensive to get into gaming at home, with things like the Neo Geo costing up to $500, maybe even more... I forget... but you have to consider inflation and how much money that really was back then. It wasn't cheap to say the least, and you might think that the cost hasn't changed all that much, but then you have to consider how the culture has changed since then too, and gaming being more than just a nerdy thing to do. Fucking everyone does it these days. There's a generational gap there, too, as it was a new thing to boomers (as you may call them) and staying inside to play video games wasn't exactly the ideal during that time.

>>7860690
Also consider the advancements in technology. Arcade games were a lot more flashy and better looking, smoother and generally more fleshed out, where console game equivalents sacrificed a lot to stick them on such a small storage device.

>>7860690
>>7860696
Ah yeah, and then also consider another advancement; the internet. Linking people across the world and development of multiplayer online games turned everyone into a bridge troll. Why go outside when you can connect with anyone you want instantly instead of having to travel and meet up with someone at some place where you can game together?

There's probably studies and documentaries and just general information you can look up that explains the death of the arcade a lot better than I can, but these are the general ideas from what I've experienced.

>>7860690
>Arcades disappeared when consoles became more prevalent and "home gaming" was so much more easier and popular.

Before everyone writes this guy off and starts telling stories of how lots of arcades survived until very recently or still to this day, you need to realize that arcade owners of the 1980s and 90s fucking hated home consoles because they were eating up their market like popcorn shrimp.
I knew one owner of what was THE largest arcade floor space on the west coast and it was no joke, he positively had a fiery hatred for a SEGA Genesis or a Super Nintendo.
He could never understand that once people got a Genesis/Mega Drive, either they never noticed the difference between it and the arcade version, or stopped caring because finally home gaming looked like the arcade and you could relax with friends at home or with family and not have to deal with sticky floors, punks, broken coin mechanisms and other bullshit that ran its course years before.
Don't get me wrong, arcades full of people of all colors having fun was based as fuck, but even that naturally got phased out and was done by just 1990. Heck, even by '89 things were starting to look bad that way.
Arcades were a fad, still are, but they're never going to be like they were in the 70s and 80s ever again.
Thanks for reading my blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqlG-vf1MkU

>>7860696
That arcade-to-home-arcade tech barrier was decimated by 1989 due to the Genesis/ Mega Drive, but yeah between 1971-1988 arcades had all the best looking stuff with nothing to even approach them until 1985.

>>7859482
Laundromats still occasionally have them which makes sense.

>>7860716
That looks skeezy.
I want to be there so badly.

>>7860716
Yeah, some arcades suffered through it in one way or another. I played at one in Phoenix quite a few times from around 2002 to 2006, still chugging along despite the change in the playing field. These places ended up surviving a lot on the niche games, I think, like DDR, or something else that had a lot of "weight" to it and big peripherals, like some sort of fancy sit-in Star Wars machine with cinematic qualities and such, things that were still relatively rare in the home gaming scene as, even at that time, the technology couldn't necessarily stand up to these massive big screen chairs with fancy doodads and a certain quality to them that was still relatively unique. But then you did still have the occasional kid birthday party at a "fun" place, throw some basketballs for tickets and whatnot to get crappy plastic toy prizes, or something better if you dropped enough money. I almost wanna compare it to a carnival of sorts, just with more flash.

>>7860720
I guess it could be argued, but arcade games still had a tendency to look way better even in to the mid-late 90's and 00's.

>>7859517
>>7859592
>>>/pol/
Anyway yeah a Harry Buffalo near me has SF2 and some other stuff, and that's a chain. Not many other places though

>>7860720
>That arcade-to-home-arcade tech barrier was decimated by 1989
Bitch, arcades were already doing early 3D polygonal games by that point. It would be another decade before consumer hardware could touch arcade games.

>>7860726
Right? Plus it was dark there, as you can see the subdued lighting, the guy who took the pic knew his camera work back them because he knew to douche it with his flash.

>>7860647
There's a good one in NJ call the Morristown Game Vault.

>>7860740
Might be more prudent to say 1995, because that's when Playstation hit, and N64 in 96. That would be the final nail in the coffin for mass arcade, imo.

>>7860747
I think it was closer to the turn of the millennium. That's when mass internet adoption, gen 6 consoles, and affordable PC graphics cards all happened around the same time. And even in the middle of that, arcades still saw a short resurgence thanks to DDR, with that being the last hurrah for classic arcades. (ignoring the recent retro arcade resurgence)

>>7860740
There were still a ton of games that were done well enough at home for lots of potential arcade customers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC8_VaGaCxg

>>7860790
Possibly. I was deep in the PC gaming scene as early as 1990, since my dad worked a lot in the early days of computers, too, so I got a lot of hand-me-downs as a kid. Was also big in to Quake, when multiplayer started becoming a big thing, or at least augmented by that success. Did a few multiplayer games over our modem too back in the early 90's.

>>7860221
what /vr/ does he play?

>>7860221
>lcd screen
soulless

>>7860813
He looks chill enough to withstand Gradius.

>>7860790
Agreed. The Dreamcast was the first mainstream home console that bridged the gap between arcades and home consoles. The DC port of SoulCalibur was superior in every way to the arcade release.

>>7860824
I dunno man... Dreamcast was cool... for the people who had it... but that shit flopped hard and literally killed Sega's console market. Saying it had anything to do with the evolution of the scene, outside of contributing to its own extinction, is a bit of a stretch.

>>7860829
It was still a mainstream console that brought the arcade experience home at an affordable price. This is opposed to the Neo Geo AES which was like $600 at launch and not really mainstream.

>>7860829
Sega dropped the ball with the Dreamcast, I mean, if they just got a decent home port of pic related, they would have at least double their system sales and yes, I would have bought a Dreamcast just to play that at home.

>>7860829
The Dreamcast launch was actually quite successful, at least in North America. Can’t speak for the rest of the world.

>>7860834
>. This is opposed to the Neo Geo AES which was like $600 at launch
It was more like $900 and I don't mean with inflation.

>>7860834
>>7860835
>>7860837
I'd still argue that Sony had much more to do with this. They were absolutely raping the competition when it came to console gaming. Even Nintendo was struggling to keep up with them. Only until the Wii, and Xbox, did Sony get checked.

>>7860729
>I guess it could be argued, but arcade games still had a tendency to look way better even in to the mid-late 90's and 00's.
Yeah, I mean look at something like The House of the Dead on arcade vs Saturn. Sure, there were things like the Sega ST-V which was practically the same as the Saturn, but there were still a number of instances where AC was much superior to home, or had games which were never ported. When you reached the Naomi, you pretty much reached the point where AC and home hardware were basically the same, and arcade systems were more often just modified PCs or home console hardware.

>>7860845
You’re right about that but arcades were still popular during the PS1’s primary five year lifespan. Especially fighting games which the 32-bit consoles weren’t quite powerful enough to reproduce on a 1:1 port level like the sixth gen consoles were.

>>7860853
Sure, as I mentioned here;
>>7860729

>>7860743
>MAME ruining the ambiance
Damn shame.

>>7860829
It did prove that the internet was going to be a big thing for consoles, once most people had access to a fast enough connection for it.

>>7859482
I see arcade machines all the time in all the arcades around.

>>7860829
That also factored into the western arcade market dying. Sega was one of the main arcade game suppliers around that time (that's why basically EVERY decent-sized arcade from that era had Crazy Taxi, Lost World, Top Skater, Star Wars Trilogy, HotD, and at least one of their racing games). Sega exiting the console market also lead to them significantly reducing their presence in the arcade market in the west.

It's worth noting that there was one other event that happened around 2005 that really fucked over arcades in the west: Japan moving toward subscription-based internet services for arcades. That made it much harder to localize Japanese games, since big parts of them had to be either removed or re-worked to run int he west. That's why nearly every arcade game available in the west for the past decade and a half have been western-made games (with fairly rare exceptions). We literally just started getting these networks in a west a few years ago.

>>7860872
That would have happened regardless. The internet wasn't going away, and the application of internet and gaming was established long before Dreamcast, something that may have been missed for people that weren't in to the PC gaming scene in the mid 90's.

>>7860729
>but arcade games still had a tendency to look way better even in to the mid-late 90's and 00's.
Sure, but there were a ton already released that people could do almost as well at home, is the thing.
>>7860861
Not sure why arcades have those when they do most games badly almost as if they go the cheapest option available. Arcade owners are weirdos, always have been, always will be.

>>7860892
>Sure, but there were a ton already released that people could do almost as well at home, is the thing.
Not disputing that.

>>7859491
This. There's a burger place in Vancouver that has a cabinet for Raiden. Or at least it did, I haven't been there since 2006.

>>7860896
And I acknowledge what you said; the fact remains that the arcade market was cannibalized by the home consoles, with the SEGA Genesis taking a huge bite.

>>7860905
Uh, yeah. I'm not going to fault you for not being able to follow me in this thread considering we're all anon, but still, you're barking up the wrong tree.
>>7860690
>>7860696
>>7860702

>>7860914
lol I'm not the one who's lost, buddy, but ok.

>>7860918
Nigger, you're literally arguing with me when we're saying the exact same things. Man up and admit you're wrong.

>>7860920
I didn't say anything wrong and neither did, we're both right. Fucking fuck fucking-A.
Not every conversation needs an apology at the end. Fuuuuuuuck.
By 1989 arcade had serious competition-fact.
Arcades also kicked the crap out of home consoles if they wanted to this very day-fact.
Arcades don't do as well as they used to-fact.

:)--smiling not angry

>>7860930

>>7859482
There's a street fighter II cabinet in the burger place close to my house. It's always had people using it anytime I've been in though

>>7859490
Wtf are you talking about? Almost all of the price associated with arcade cabinets is upfront. Just wipe it down at the end of the day and you are good.

I'm guessing they are gone because young people would rather entertain themselves with their phones.

>>7860716
I'd bet my bottom dollar that's a swingers party

>>7861183
Yep, equal ratio of men to women. Definitely a swinger's party.

I barely even see quarter machines anymore with those obnoxious parody stickers or bouncy balls. I think everyone has enough on their phone to keep themselves/their children occupied when they are out. Personally even if I had a brain dead iPad kid I'd probably still toss him some quarters for a soulful arcade cabinet, but I dunno if normies feel the same.

>>7861183
No one wants your butt dollar zoomie faggot

>>7859482
I haven't seen one since the 90s.

>>7861171
>Just wipe it down at the end of the day and you are good.

That's not how it works, dude. There used to be people who repaired arcade machines for a living. They break down A LOT.

>>7861171
18+ Back to le tiktok

>>7859482
A local watering hole has a pin that gets changed out every few months. Last time I was there they had WWF. A lot of fun.
>>7860815
>soulless
I was helping a friend purchase a buck hunter and this other guy also there was looking at some multi game the person had for sale. He legit complained that it had a CRT and will probably switch it out for a LCD. This was right before he tried poaching the buck hunter right in front of us. Huge douche.
>>7861243
>probably still toss him some quarters for a soulful arcade cabinet,
Definitely something special about having a dollar worth of quarters and trying to wisely choose what games to play and how to not suck since once you are out of money you are fucked.

>>7859482
>Do you still see arcade units in fast food places or anywhere?
Your local bowling alley probably still has one.
>Why did they disappear?
They were designed to hack your brain to cynically extract quarters in exactly the same way slot machines were. Loud sounds, flashing colors, same old same old. By gen 4, you were able to get most of the arcade experience at home, so arcades innovated with peripherals and 3d. Gen 5 comes along, nearly matches the 3d, and provides a lot of long-form experiences, rather than short, disposable arcade games. But they also have the same arcade games, and peripherals too. Uh oh, not looking good.

Then gen 6 comes along, and now consoles visually have everything an arcade can offer, tons of complex, long-form games, and so arcades double down on peripherals, except prices go up and now we're seeing a lot of $1/credit cabs, which, for a kid, is highway fucking robbery. We hit gen 7 with the Wii, and arcades are well and truly dead in the west at this point.

Today, in the era of phone games getting brain hacking down to a science, maintaining a cab isn't profitable. You're more likely to run into someone with a hobbyist custom cab on freeplay in a small business than you are a genuine for-profit cab.

>>7861598
>which, for a kid, is highway fucking robbery
I think that's a big reason DDR took off like it did. You get around 5 minutes of play for a dollar, then need to rest before playing again. So you could stretch out 10 bucks to a few hours. More so if it was a token arcade where you could often get tokens at a discount.

>>7860720
Not even remotely true. Arcade versions of games still looked and played vastly better than their 16-bit counterparts.

>>7861630
DDR is an interesting one with the social appeal. I always saw couples or groups playing.

>>7861654
I mostly saw kids putting me to shame.

>>7859482
Any pizza joint worth a shit will have at least 2 cabinets

>>7860813
super nintendo, sega genesis

>>7860829
It's still basically where consoles reached parity in terms of visuals. Arcade hardware stopped being largely custom boards and started being largely home console-derived, like the Naomi/Atomiswave, Chihiro, TriForce, System 246/256, and then by the late 00s it all became off-the-shelf PC parts.
>>7860878
>It's worth noting that there was one other event that happened around 2005 that really fucked over arcades in the west: Japan moving toward subscription-based internet services for arcades. That made it much harder to localize Japanese games, since big parts of them had to be either removed or re-worked to run int he west. That's why nearly every arcade game available in the west for the past decade and a half have been western-made games (with fairly rare exceptions). We literally just started getting these networks in a west a few years ago.
It's a double-edged sword. NESiCAxLive has homogenized the fuck out of a lot of arcades over there. On one hand, each cab can house 15-20 games or more. On the other hand, each cab now houses those same 15-20 games in just about every arcade

>>7863643
Fighting games are kind of a difficult thing for arcades. If there's no community surrounding a title, then nobody's going to play it. But at the same time, if a community is small, the machine will be unoccupied 95% of the time and largely just be wasting space. The NESiCAxLive system is a great solution for keeping games like Nitro+ Blasterz and Psychic Force 2020 available for the groups who want to play it without having to dedicate floor space to it.

The Neogeo MVS worked for largely the same reason. Fighting games aren't much of a single-player experience and most people choose to specialize in one fighting game. Keeping multiple fighting games on the same machine is a great solution to that problem.

>>7863723
>multiple fighting games that are all the same is a great solution

>>7864784
Yes. Fighting games are almost completely worthless for anything besides multiplayer, so dedicating arcade machines to novelty titles nobody plays is just an outright waste of space. NESiCAxLive allows arcades to house games people actually play and weird B-list titles people only play once for the novelty, without having to waste space on a dedicated machine for each. (and even then, the games on a NESiCAxLive machine do vary from arcade to arcade. They don't all have all 50+ games available for the thing)

>>7859482
Goddammit, I want a foldable slice of greasy pizza at a cold counter now.

>>7860720
>That arcade-to-home-arcade tech barrier was decimated by 1989 due to the Genesis/ Mega Drive

>>7859482
Pretty sure it's upkeep costs, tax laws on arcades are archaic and haven't been changed since the 80's.
The only way arcades have managed to survive here, is because they fill more than one niche: meaning, they're either a bar, restaurant, or both.

>>7867370
They also manage to shirk tax laws by charging an admission fee, rather than charge per game.

>>7859482
They're still very prevalent in laundromats for some reason

>>7867435
>place where you are likely to need to waste an hour