Just a few questions about arcade games and arcades in general.
1. What was the first arcade game you played?
2. What was the first arcade game you beat?
3. When and why did arcades 'die off'?
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Just a few questions about arcade games and arcades in general.
1. What was the first arcade game you played?
2. What was the first arcade game you beat?
3. When and why did arcades 'die off'?
1# God knows, maybe Rastan
2# Probably the Simpsons game
3# Depends on region (I think the US arcade scene died off earliest). Reasons would be home consoles growing in strength and capabilities (Arcade games lost their impressive "wow" factor), and things like internet cafe's taking off which were much cheaper.
1. Bally/Midway's TronQuote:
Originally Posted by Josh
2. Gyruss (Well, didn't 'beat' it but reached Earth. The game keeps going after that, just harder.)
3. http://bit.ly/rPMs82 lol :)
1: After Burner in an actual Arcade, probably Double Dragon or Asteroids in general, I can't remember.
2: Definitely Golden Axe.
3: Sometime from 1998-2000 almost all Arcades I knew of in Texas died off. It was Sony and Namco's fault predominantly for using nearly identical hardware from the PS1 in their (unfortunately) popular Arcade titles. Consumers stopped going to Arcades because they could play essentially the same game on their PS1 without being able to tell the difference.
Supposedly Arcades more often failed because the Industry as a whole encouraged Arcade owners to practice bad business. But I blame Sony and Namco more than that.
1# Pac-Man, in 1992.
2# I've never beaten an arcade game.
3# Same as what Thenewguy said. By 1992, there were absolutely no arcades in my area at all, I've only played a few machines in my life, mostly in our local bowling alley, and a couple other places. I've never been to a real arcade before.
asteroids
rolling thunder / outrun
locally: arcades died due to malls wanting to get rid of all the "kids". they got rid of the arcades, the kids stopped going to the malls, the malls died. (LOL!)
Arcades always had better graphics than the consoles which game them a big advantage but once the graphics in consoles caught up (32 bit era) it was all over. I also think people wanted more complex/longer games and arcade games were too simplistic/one dimentional for some people. Wrestlemania the Arcade game came out in 1995 and I remember a lot of people crowded around that machine when it came out so even by 95 arcades were still doing decent business but that had to be the last year it was going strong. Once PSX and N64 were out for a while and started to sell more and more the arcades were less populated.
1: Dunno, probably Pac Man, though the game I most remember is Rampage.
2. Ummm...probably Double Dragon. Actually, despite seeing the ending many times, I don't know if I actually beat it more than twice in an actual arcade. Never had enough money.
3. Everything everyone else mentioned. I also argue it might have died off even earlier had it not been for Street Fighter 2 and the competitive fighting scene. That gave arcades about an extra 6-7 years of life.
I remember Pong arcades and Space Invaders looking new and advanced, but I can't say for sure what arcade I actually got to play first.
I don't remember which game I beat first.
There are still arcades around here with new and old games. Many dropped off between 2000 - 2005.
1. Wow, I couldn't even begin to remember. Ms. Pac-Man maybe? Who knows.
2. Again, I have no idea.
3. Between inflation and people not wanting to pay more than 25/50 cents an arcade game, high electricity costs, and just as impressive and playable console games, it's no wonder arcades took a huge dive after the era of Street Fighter 2. The crash of 84 also helped close quite a few arcades as well when the market got oversaturated.
Though there's still a few left, even a few for people like us who love classic arcade games. There's a place not too far from me in Burlington, NJ called High Scores Arcade, as well as a place called Richie Knucklez's Arcade in Flemington, NJ. Shame most arcades today hold redemption junk. I can just about locate one Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet in my entire city! :(
1. Not totally sure. Maybe Galaxian.
2. Depends how you define beat, I guess. I think I played through all the courses in Moon Patrol but it loops instead of ending.
3. Various reasons, some already mentioned:
- Rise of home gaming. Arcade game makers stopped trying to even make arcades a high end experience technology-wise.
- Prices make people less likely to just give a random game a shot. The human brain isn't likely to factor in inflation. A quarter seems cheap, anything more seems expensive.
- The culture of playing for high scores against strangers got replaced by wanting to play for endings instead. It has sort of come back in recent times with online multiplayer but that's more suited to home gaming than the arcades anyway.
1. No idea, probably Pacman or some Knickerboxers clone game in the mid 80's.
2. Probably Final Fight with emulation, were never many arcades around here, would have had to catch a train to Amsterdam but I was never the traveling type.
3. When consoles became more powerful and offered the same kinda games for home use, around the PS1 era I'd say.
1. Popeye
2. I'm holding fast to Star Wars Trilogy arcade, but I have forgotten how that ended. So I'm going with Afterburner Climax.
3. GameWorks, Game Time, D&B, Chucky Cheese... They still exist. Although ya'll should stick with the first three.
1) Some pinball machine
2) Metal Slug X a couple hours ago
3) When the Saturn & PS came out
1. Not 100% sure but I think it might have been Pole Position
2. Double Dragon
3. Around the late 90's here