the rise and fall of the arcade industry

[trayhop123]

i was reading another thread earlier and pmk was talking about the average arcades greed, and that how is it there seemed to be plenty of them surviving back in the 2quid jackpot days, but there all complaining now, i sympathise with you pmk m8, it is a sorry state of affairs,,

im sure there are many reasons for the decline, i can only offer my thoughts and reasoning.

back in the 2quid jacky days arcades were seen more as entertainment centres and not just the gambling dens they are now, lets look at videogames, ok whilst i appreciate they never took the same money as fruits they were still a serious source of income for any operator, where else could you go to play classics like r-type spaceharrier outrun etc, sure you could play piss poor conversions on your cbm 64 , specky etc but they were never the same as there bigger brother down the arcade, and some operators would charge 1pound a pop (back in those days think about it) that was serious revenue .
plus it brought people into arcades and to some extent was more socially acceptable that little johny was going to an arcade to play harmless videogames, unbeknowing to his parents that he would then dabble with the fruits and before you knew it he had done all his pocket money and thus a nation of kid gambling addicts were born, the operators were loving it.

then technology caught up, the consoles and home computers got more power with the advent of the megadrive, snes, amiga and the playstation explosion, suddenly there were less and less reasons to go down the arcades, why would average joe pay 1pound for 5mins play in an arcade when he can pay 30 and play the same game for as long as he likes at home, often with better graphics sound, and extra game modes,
suddenly arcades got desperate, realising that things couldn't be matched at home visually they started to incorporate outlandish gizmos to the games like uzis guitars, punchbags, hydrolics, anything to try to bring back the players, but it was all in vain, the playstation had won, the arcade videogames scene was dead,, no longer would johny come in to put 2quid in his favourite videogames and 8quid in the fruitys,

now when you go to innercity arcades there are no videogames left, look at them nobels agora, horizon, shipleys ,98% fruits ,and maybe bingo in the back to keep your gran alive.
even the seaside arcades have next to nothing if your into videogames, with dance platforms and old fag burned hydrolics such as daytona etc getting less and less floorspace everyday. ..... pitiful

the "glory days " will never return, and despite the stakes/jackys getting higher to lure in the average punter/addict arcades in my mind are just a shadow of their former self.
even the free tea n biscuits dont taste the same.

the arcade is dead,
long live the arcade




your thoughts gentlemen please

[Weyland]

I've heard the argument about home consoles vs arcade hardware many times, and while I can see the logic, it doesn't explain one thing: Why hasn't the arcade scene died (in fact, it's thriving) in Japan?

And there's not superior hardware in the arcades either, much of it is still 2D-based - the last bastion of the vertically-scrolling shmup.

Have a look at this article to see what I mean.

[PMK]

I wasn't really referring to their greed, but more their attitude towards anybody that doesn't fill up an S16 or Bar - X.

I personally am not fussed how much money goes into certain machines whether it be a 2p rat race, a £6 token road hog or a full monty Rainbow Riches, I just want to be able to walk into an arcade, be greeted kindly and warmly and assisted in anyway that the staff can help me while I 'invest/buy entertainment'. Because, I thought thats what they were there for? At least thats what those ridiculous leaflets that they hide in the corners say!! Buy entertainment, give me a break.

Being honest, I would say 90% of punters that walk into an arcade are going in there to try and beat the machines and/or get lucky and come out with a bit of profit. The other 10% I am guessing are the I've got a tenner to spend and I dont care if I win or lose.

My main point was that nowadays, you are under suspicion the second you walk through that door unless either a) You are over 60 or b) start shovelling notes into an S16. A member of staff is nearly always within 4 feet of you making sure you aren't up to something. As I said in one of my other posts, even if you go £60+ into something and get anything like a small profit or your money back, they hate it. But they don't hate you going £60 in, in the first place. Its this attitude that is making me so damn angry.

Just recently I've had SO many bad experiences in Arcades and Bingo Halls(Remember these are places that you are suppose to go in and gamble) that I'm beginning to wonder why I bother? I can now only play in a very small handful of arcades where I am known not be a machine fraudster without getting any heat.

I was banned from my local Showboats for which I was well known and had a good relationship with the staff, because somebody else had already emptied a 4 wheeler in another showboats in Loughborough, then along came I tried a board(fairly) and it went IOU because said previous person had left nothing in it(again) after a refil. I pleaded my innocence, lo and behold a few days later my photo(along with others) was distributed and I was banned for life. I mean come on........

Now getting back to your original thread......

I am fortunate or unfortunate enough to live near many seaside resorts, and no matter how busy the resort/area is, the least busy area in arcades these days is the over 18 areas. Why? Because take a look at what is around you. How many of us can walk through an over 18 area and play a machine with say £10 for more than 5 minutes. 90% of lo-tecs wouldn't even give you a win for that money 9 times out of 10. This is the reason why its all gonna go horribly wrong.

When I was on good terms with the staff in my local haunts, I was once told that a single S16 on numerous occasions over the same time period took more than the rest of the standard lo/hi tecs put together!! Most of it was about 5 different peoples money the poor bastards!

The arcades need to realise that the average man/woman can't afford to come in and get stuck into a lo-tec on 50p play which is capable of going £200+ before you start to see any kind of action. All the addicts of two years ago have gone bankrupt from the S16's and that doesn't leave many left.

I dont think you'll ever start to see a reduction in price per play and jackpots, just a slow slow painful death.

PMK

[trayhop123]

pmk m8, i couldn't agree more, iff things dont change soon, give it 5 years there will be few arcades left

[Mystery_Plum]

The situation now is that the Industry is asking for £2 stake on B3’s and to be allowed to have 1 of these machines per 4 Category C machines. So if they have 50 machines in their over-18’s area, 10 of them can be B3’s.

I can't see the £2 stake being allowed again - the new Gaming Act was brought in to put an end to stuff like that. What they should have done was not even allowed B3's, and just made arcades go back to Cat C/S34/AWP or whatever you want to call them.

Now you've got every arcade moaning that their takings are 30% down on last year, because people don't want to play Elvis and so on, on £1 max stake, so they're going to the bookies or casino instead. Unfortunately arcades don't think they are amusement arcades any more, and that they have to compete with Ladbrokes and so on ever since FOBTs came out. This is where it all went horribly wrong. Suddenly the demand was made for higher jackpots and the philosophy shifted to grabbing money off players as quickly as possible rather than giving entertainment. Along came harder profiles, shorter game times and a quicker throughput of money - and in turn disappeared 50% of players straight away. In my opinion the beginning of the end came when Magic Games came along, and Bar X machines with £10 - £25 award structures and the like.

S16 machines should never have been let into arcades - it was good for a couple of years but now the after effects are being felt - skint players and a customer base that has shrunk tenfold because they have lost their money too quickly. This equals empty arcades. As usual the solution is to increase the stakes and prizes, alienating more players and skinning the few that there are left. Even sick, die-hard degenerate addicts are giving up playing - they haven't had to wean themselves off the habit, today's dire machine offerings are doing it for them. You can shear a sheep every week, but skin them only once...

Pub/arcade Cat C jackpots going up to £50? This should have happened a year or two ago (if at all) instead of the ridiculous £35 prize the industry was given. Whoever the fuck came up with a figure as ridiculous as that can never have played a machine in their life.

But what they should be doing is putting the stakes and prizes DOWN to bring the amusement factor BACK into arcades and pubs, and the players in turn. But this will never happen because the big decisions like this are made by the suits upstairs who look at pages of numbers all day and wouldn't know a fruit machine from a fridge freezer.

Go into any arcade today and they are empty of players compared to just 4 or 5 years back, and most of the few that are left are soulless zombies who have lost the will to live and just plough coins through in a trance-like state; their credit-cards maxed out, their savings long gone, their houses repossessed. The manufacturers are designing new games and most are producing poor test figures. Poor games? Not necessarily, just half of the players to play them that there once was, so the cashboxes are 50% down. Then the operator, concerned about heating his swimming pool for the week, drops the percentage by a couple to try to stay on a par with last year. This is all a very temporary solution to a much bigger problem, and in the end drives more players away and perpetuates or even speeds up the problem in any case. There are seaside arcades open today with 150 machines in, yet only 10 take any decent money (B3's and top Cat C stuff) and the rest might as well be turned off to save electricity.

What makes me laugh with pity is people's thinking in times such as this. You've got B3's with takings that are way down. Why? Because they are not being played. People don't like them. The answer? Turn the percentages down...

Ah! Genius! That'll solve the problem for sure. Reminds me of those NatWest adverts (Yeah Wiiiilllllllll....)

Might solve the problem for about a week, and then the problem will come back again, but much worse. Dropping the percentage won't work when you have ZERO players left...

There's a very 'live-for-today' attitude about it all. Also people need to stop expecting every machine to take a grand every week and get back to what was reality before S16 - namely a £250-300 cashbox at the end of the week and be happy.

But most of all the players need to come back. And upping the jackpots or stakes is not the answer in the long run.

[ob]

back to the topic, the thing is, there are PLENTY of addicts to these £500's, I mean nearly every services I go to I see people pumping these £500's for fun... doesn't matter whether they are £1 or £2 or whatever a go it wouldn't make a difference, the lure of the £500jp gets all their money... bingo halls are the same, often all 4 are being played at once, grannies adore them

On the topic of pmk's "heat" in bingo and arcades I can totally level with you on that one, an arcade I used to go in all the time and pump money into the £5 a go hiroller £500jp, and empty all the time, I NEVER got any heat over this atall... one day I emptied it 3 times (a few 250's and 500's), was WELL WELL up on the machine in there ( no exageration as I hope you've come to expect from me :P ). The one time I IOU a £25 red hot x with a £125 hopper, head office must be called etc. a load of heat etc. just sick...

[Matt Vinyl]

Hi guys, just to let you know I've moved the off topic discussion to here!

[Spyder]

im scared of playing the £2 a go machines!

[Mr Bubbles]

I don't think most arcades can ever come back now to be honest, for them to do so would mean they need something else in there which is not available elsewhere.

For example an addicted slotto player that lives on the outside of a town center is probably not going to be able to spend 30 mins walking/comuting into town to go to the arcade to play it now that there is probably a bookies 5 mins down the road with most of the same games he wants to play? Why spend the extra 25 mins on the travel?

Not saying there still won't be some that do, but the pool of potential customers is definatly on the decline.

[Guest]

surely u go to arcades to meet handsome bbw's with mild perspiration problems.....and a haunting past

[redlinesman]

Arcades are for losers, move with the times gentlemen.

[sharkboii]

there is no money in arcades nowadays i agree i often walk in2 arcades play the worth machines try all 3 goldengames 4 a setup get 1 holdin but u break even from the 20pound u lost trying the other 2,feature machines are fastly evaporating from arcades and will soon be all s16s and what have ya goin in2 an arcade will be like walkin in2 a bookies i say start tooling!

[Cardinal Sin]

surely u go to arcades to meet handsome bbw's with mild perspiration problems.....and a haunting past

what's a bbw? they sound damned saucy anyway.

i agree with everything that's been said here, although i would argue that your normal puggie addict will fling their money into anything. Because these 500 pound machines are so prevalent they lose their money a lot quicker. Hence the lack of folk in fruit machine parlours!

[blackmogu]

service is shocking in most arcades nowadays too. After hitting a 500 on a rainbow riches a couple of days ago, I asked the quicksilver manager to change it up for me. The response was "We have no notes. Leave the money here and come back tomorrow". No chance in hell am I leaving £500 with minimum wage employees with no way to prove they owe me the money.

Another arcade I went in yesterday kept trying to rob us £1 out of changing up a £20 note by swapping bags after they counted them out with one pre-doctored. Shocking ! Then they get funny when you ask for the extra quid, accusing you of palming it off !

What happened to all the free stuff ? Ask them for a coffee and they look at you like you just said you are some sort of pervert on day-release.

I certainly miss the old days of arcades... plenty of playable stuff, friendly staff and bacon and sausage sandwiches.. free monthly raffles for £250..

[trayhop123]

the only arcades i know that are constantly packed with customers are the one on oxford st and the one at leicester square ,, the service in these isnt too bad being honest , but there wages are better , and lets not forget that they are tourest traps , so the turnover is much more profitable.