why does japan still have a thriving retro arcade scene and american arcades are all just millennial craft beer slop
>>738290716>thrivingThis isnt 2010 anymore, COVID killed arcades in Japan.
I heckin love craft beer!
>>738291121this pic is from today
So thriving that SEGA had to sell their legendary Akihabara arcade to another company that turned it into 50% UFO catchers.
>>738290716Japs are stuck in the past
They have walkable cities, so you can just walk there on your way home and it won't be terribly out of the way.
>>738290716Cash based society combined with walk-able cities.
>>738290716Because white affluent millennial hang out spots are the only situation in the West where the machines won't be vandalized.
>>738290716>why does Japan have a thriving sceneThey don't have constant middle management and executive "finance bros" constantly buying up properties that sit there and go vacant for years so they can be used as tax write-offs. Also what >>738291334 said.
>>738290716Population density is significantly higher, so people pass by arcades constantly and a fair amount of them want to go inside.
>>738290716Cus you're not looking hard enough
>>738290716Look up the population of Tokyo and you understand why when even 0.01% of the nearby population wanting to play arcade games is enough to keep them going
>>738290716They enforce laws to make vending machines a nearly uniform price and you get ripped off less often, so you feel like going out more in general.>go to arcade in akihabara, tourist central>go upstairs to the vending machines>brand soft drinks cost less than or equal to the amount they do in the stores, I can even buy delicious cheap ice creams if I want to (I did many times, they were great)>old games are typically only 50 yen a go, modern games are all 100 yen a go>lots of cool little cards you can use on the machines to store your player info>machines are maintained autistically well to the highest standard possible, cleaned all the timeIt helps that the government subsidize and/or encourage some of it too, though despite this they're still shutting down at a quickening rate which is extremely sad to see.
>>738291597What's with the puke bucket behind the racing cabinet?
>>738291315... and that's a good thing!>>738291663vending machines are the future... unless in the non-japan parts of the world where at best they need to be put in cages not to be vandalized or tipped over (seen a vending machine in the netherlands small city, was basically a bunker)
tiny ass 15 square foot apartment spaces in Tokyo means they got no space for 'puters or xbawxalso walkable cities
>>738290716>hriving retro arcade sceneBut do they also have pinball? Or still stuck in pachinko limbo?
>>738291689Motion sickness
>>738290716Importing the latest cabs, upkeeping cabs, and ensuring american arcades won't tamper with their cabs are the reason American arcades will never have a thriving arcade scene.
>>738291141that is not from an actual arcade shop, that's those obscure arcade specialty areas in Japan
>>738291887seeing how americans can't even handle soda fountains anymore, i doubt arcades would last long in a lot of places in current america.
>>738290716Because they know how to make life fun. Part of it is not being retarded. This is what shitholes lack first and foremost. After that you only have to think about making the experience better.
>>738290716Because American population density is extremely low compared to Japan?
>>738290716because Americans who owned Arcade cabinets in the 80s to 2000s were people such as Joe Calzone the 60 year old pizza joint owner who can't be fucked to repair it once it breaks so they threw em in the trash. This is why Arcades in the west are dead
>>738290716Socioeconomical factors prevent old and expensive machines from working long-term for reasons we've yet to understand, probably climate change.
>>738291597>Mame emulator cabinetssorry this is not the bespoke experience I was looking for
>>738290716Its actually safe to go out in public in japan.Though the chinks and niggers are eroding that too.
>>738291397Japanese arcades are the same as everywhere else, you pay a small fee for freeplay.
>>738290716it's not thrivingit still exists, but it's more like it's barely hanging on, at least when it comes to fighting games
>>738290716I wouldn't say thriving. Arcades like in your pic are becoming rarer and rarer while big chains like Round1 and GiGo are just 90% crane games and medal games, the remaining 10% is rhythm games and racing games
Have any of you visited 8bit guy's arcade yet?
>>738292043In a world of short attention span and people playing 2 minute games on their phones, arcade could make a comeback. All you need is a media department making shorts and tiktok trends around new arcades and zoomers would flock over.If Namco shipped 5 thousand Soul Calibur cabinets across North America anywhere, in any random mall, you'd have Zoomers gather up in masses.
Japanese arcades aren't thriving. The bigger normalfag ones like Sega's in Akihabara are dead. The niche arcades hang on in Japan because their zoning and urban development laws are really permissive. You can stick an arcade in your living room and live upstairs and Japanese law doesn't care or demand fifty thousand dollars in permits and taxes.
What's wrong with barcades? Answer with as few buzzwords as youre capable.
The Free-to-play system employed by 'arcades' nowadays, mostly in the west changes the dynamic too much.No money at stake, infinite credits, kids hogging the machine. It's just for casual tourist types whilst pandering to people who actually went to the arcades a lot back in the day.That's why the fighting games are relegated to 'wallpaper' status because they get less attention than racers and other machines. You won't see hardcores there by chance on a random weekday, probably rare on a weekend too, especially when they have to travel and the entry fee is high, just for a 'maybe' that competition will be there. If you can arrange with a group, you'd go to a friends house instead and play on console or emu (cheaper too).
>>738293263no, i don't want to get shot
>>738293383The ones I've dealt with>if you wanna play console, you have to pay the table cost, and you need to constantly be ordering shit, with a time limit>most of the time, the barcade is a lame night club attached to it, which means you get to hear shitty music constantly>the machines will inevitably get fucked, since there's drunks either destroying buttons/sticks or dripping beer everywhere>typically, the costs per play in barcades isn't very good>the selection of vidya tends to be the exact same>part of the appeal of the arcades back in the day was that you'd roll up on another game while waiting your turn, or with friends, you can just change the game ezpz>being in a space with a lot of turnt up people, while trying to concentrate on video games is a pain in the ass>booze + that one salty mfer is a recipe for disaster>typically, they're in either ghetto places, or places that require pay to park, which get sketchy at night
When I went last year, the most popular machines were either rhythm games or certain ones that had meta-progression systems that were either loaded on a card or were physical devices themselves. Didn't really see many "retro" arcades there.
>>738291783The Reborn As A Vending Machine anime got me autistically into them. Shame that America can't have nice things.
>>738290716The only way arcades could possibly work in America is via paid membership, and nothing too cheap either. This is how you keep out undesirable issues and prolong the life of the machines along with the appeal of the space.
>>738290716>thrivinglmao. only rhythm games get any attention in any arcade today.
>>738290716The last time I answered this I got 3 days for racism
>>738290716I visited japan and was severly disappointed with their arcadesmost of them where rows claw machines with a handful of those washing machine rhythm games and the occasional gundam battle game that requires you to have broken as fuck cards to win
>>738290716The upkeep and maintenance of the cabinets isn't worth it thanks to the clientele. Imagine how many times little Timmy spilled his soda or smashed the buttons because he died. And now imagine driving over 30 minutes to an arcade only for half of the machines to be out of order.
>>738295204A while ago I visited HEY and Taito Station in Akiba during Golden Week and they were remarkably empty except for the rhythm games. Maimai was indeed very popular.
Akiba is the only place now were I can go to play USFIV now.Used to be big in Shinjuku and 'buya too.
>>738290716It's not thriving, retro arcades in Japan are still dying.It's only still alive because nu-arcades are thriving, and it can create a narrow pipeline for the retro cabinets, but this isn't going to last long.
>>738290716Logistics is a big part of it. Japan being small matters a lot, and they have far better public transit connecting things compared to similarly sized US states
>>738295209>check out the arcades back when I was into FGs>worker comes by and wipes down the cab even though it's clean>proceed to get my ass kicked even though I was one of the more competitive players in my niche game because the level there is way higher and they punished moves 100% of the time that I was used to getting away with on netplay
>>738291212SEGA and Taito always was ufo catcher slop for the last decade though, SEGA arcades weren't legendary if not they are worse than Taito because Taito at least has some retro cabinets at some places, GIGO didn't do shit aside from change the logo.It's only Hey and local arcades that has good retro cabinets.Pro tip for finding a good local arcade is searching for a place that has a strip mahjong cabinet, corpo slop arcades avoids dated seedy shit like that.
No
>>738290716Americans simply don't appreciate arcade designTo them it's a nostalgic novelty at best not something to take seriously
Can i get an otaku japanese gf by going to these arcades?
>>738296495nah you'll get scrawny 45 year old japanese neets smelling like cigarettes
>>738296495No, use social media.
>>738296495there's only old men in retro arcades, if it's in Akiba there are only tourists
>>738290716honestly it felt awful having to spend more than a quarter. inflation killed it for me.
>>738293263I go 5 days a week. I have for about a year now.Haven't made a single friend.
Because Japanese don't go ape and smash up a cabinet if they lose.
>>738295204>>738295727>>738291121It didn't even exist much outside a few speciality places that were limited or some ancient place in the sticks where you have to actually turn the power on to play the game, then turn it off, and this was pre covid. You arent going to find a Tron machine or Star Wars there, Galga maybe but nothing like Galoping Ghosts or Pinball Museum (before the owner moved it to the strip and became a prick)>>738291831Pinball is pretty much nonexistent though there is a decent collection (for Japan) at The Silver Ball Planet at Amerikamura Osaka
>>738293853>>the machines will inevitably get fucked, since there's drunks either destroying buttons/sticks or dripping beer everywhereBingo. One I went to the light guns didn't work, and the levers/buttons on stuff like Tekken 4 were broken.
>>738296628Believe it or not, I did recall spotting a Tron machine at Silver Ball Planet.
The actual barcade experience in my area:>Pay money for monthly membership. All games are free. Otherwise pay flat fee for one day. >They serve the shittiest hotdogs you can imagine, and one serves a small sized snack pizza that's overpriced as fuck.>I don't drink alcohol so that entire "scene" is beyond me. All they have otherwise is bottled Coca-Cola products. No fountain drinks. >99% of the games are old slop or pointless waste of space machines, almost nothing modern at all. >Most rhythm games are hacked offline versions with no updates. >Stupid bullshit fighting scene (Third Strike) and weirdo college normies infest the arcades as regulars. >Owners keep getting scammed by Chinese "indie" arcades for all their earnings that no one will make a drive just to play, but some drunk dickhead will play in passing.>Pinball. Only Gen X and Boomers like fucking pinball. >If places have consoles, it's just played by children during the non-adult hours, and all they play is Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft.>If the arcade has any modern rhythm games at all there's zero scene for it since everyone who played DDR grew the fuck up and has a family now, and zoomers don't give a shit. >Nothing new or interesting in the arcade scene at all so no real reason to go other than a cardio workout on a dance machine at best.>Shit hours where the arcade doesn't open till late or doesn't stay open late enough, and is closed 2 days out of the week.>The only people that roam these places are drunkards and college normies. Literal impossible to fight right winged American straight men. Only old Gen X normies and trans/furry/weirdos.Shit sucks.
>>738290716more arcades have opened in america than japan in the past few years, japan has seen over 3,000 arcades closed since 2020
>>738300062>arcadesbarcades
>>738290716arcades are too fucking expensive. no one's gonna drive down to an arcade for the "luxury" of spending $10 or $20 to play for an hour or 2 when you can just get something like terraria for less than $5
>>738298429>>Most rhythm games are hacked offline versions with no updates.I'd complain more about online jewry from publishers. old rhythm games used to pack the entire catalog into the unit without planned obsolescence attached
>>738290716>thrivinglolI watched GCCX, dozens of seasons of it.Every single time Arino went to an arcade, i looked it up on google. Every single one of them is "Permanently closed".And this was 10 years ago - it's way worse today.
>>738293383The one near me doesn't have CRT's in any of their machines.The people who go there don't play games, they just go to drink shitty craft beer and show off their tattoos.I'm sure there are some good ones somewhere but the one in my city isn't one...t. australian.
>>738290716>thrivinghehby 2030, it'll be 95% ufo and metal gamest. japan liver
>>738295880That's how I met my best friend back when Tekken 3 was in arcades.>playing against this smug little shit who is beating the hell out of everyone >get my ass whooped hard and try again since nobody else put a quarter up>pick King again, guy comments on it, tell him I think all the grapples and wrestling shit is cool>dude nods, says they're pretty sweet but hard to do>I get beat again, he gives up his spot to go grab some food>he comes back later, gives me a shit eating grin and selects King>fucker is playing piano with the buttons, hits me with the Rolling Death Cradle like it's the easiest shit to doI went to that arcade every fucking weekend over the summer to play against him. Ended up becoming friends over it. Guy is a legit savant when it comes to FGs, we used to get some people together and play emulated JP-Onry FGs that none of us had even heard of and he'd have shit solved in no time.
Arcade cabinets are the only thing I "Thing, Japan" overThey are so much more attractive than the American ones that I can't understand how America adopted those balsa wood boxes
>>738301614Love the tasteful thickness of an astro city cab.
>>738290716it's dead, Jim.
>>738291315You say that as if it's a bad thing. Sometimes, if something isn't broke, you don't fix it. The Japs understand that well. Westerners would do well to follow that line of wisdom too.
>>738291141>3 machines >Thriving
>tokyo arcadehome
japanese companies kept developing new technology and gimmicks even after the arcade trend died down. american developers died and were all bought out by bigger companies.
>>738291689thats a shitbucket
>>738291315I wish I was.
>>738302408That Starblade Alpha machine is fucking pretty
>>738290716People say arcades are dead, but I recently tried a Godzilla VR shooter for 15 minutes last months and it genuinely made me love video games again. Shit like that and the 4D flight cabinets have so much potential
>>738291315Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Are you looking forward to your future of a world ID, facial scans, and providing government ID to access all sites that mich?
>>738290716Japanese houses are too small for anything larger than a handheld system.
>>738291315This is a bad thing?>You must stop living in the past we have to le make progressThe progress >>738302762
>>738291663I miss Akihabara and just Japanese arcades in general.
>In the US, the craft beer movement was revived in 1965, subsequent to an earlier American era, when Fritz Maytag acquired the Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco, thereby saving it from closure.[96] American craft beer drinkers tend to have higher average incomes and demographically skew white, male, and Generation XWhy do Zoomers blame everything boomer/Gen X on millennials?
I miss when I can play time crisis 2, and some rando just join in mid game
American gen z nerds don't go outside, they sit at home posting on basedjak party, making troonjak and chudjak edits, trolling, smoking weed and plapping their balls with a black dildotabletop playing millennials are the last generation of American nerds that go outside
>>738290716monoculture
>>738291663>so you feel like going out more in general.despite Hikikomori and modern day neets and such japan simply has "going outside and socialising" as a pretty core part of their culture>work 12 hours a day>go out with the boss and drink for 4 hours or risk getting socially shunned and have life and career ruined>play arcades>go to soapland to unwind(wife you see 1 hour a week endorses it)
>>738295204Yeah same, even the more niche ones like newton and big2nd are usually dead if it's not a tournament day. Personally i blame zoomers and no frontal lobe chimps.Today i will remind everyone that one of the main reasons why arcade died was because niggers turned them into drug selling spots.
Hitler explained in Mein Kampf that there are 3 groups of humans:>The creators of culture>The bearers of culture>The destroyers of cultureThe White Aryan race are the sole creators of culture. We invented computers and video games.Hitler then explained how the various subraces are the bearers of culture. He compared it to an astrological model, where the creator of culture is like the Sun, and culture, is analogous to the light from the sun which illuminates and vivifies (makes everything live). The Sun's gravity causes the various planets (analogy for the subraces) to orbit it due to the force of its existence.It's simply a fact that japanese people did not invent computers, nor did they invent video games, nor did they invent arcade games. All of these things were invented by Aryans. And once this culture was created, it was released. The creator moved on to creating other things. It's not the job of the creator of light to be the bearer of light, it simply emits light outwardly and radiantly.For anyone wondering, the third group, the "destroyers of culture", is explicitly the jewish race. They don't create nor do they bear light, but are pure darkness, like a black hole, and only wish to destroy everything.
>>738306192Hiding all /pol/ posts lmaoYou're on /v/ retardShove your Heil right up your Hitler
>>738290716>thrivingArcades are dying left and right in japan nowadays, covid + youth moving towards gachaslop killed it
>>738290716salarymen can go into the arcade after work instead of taking the 1 hour commute back home. boomers wait in traffic and play mobileshit instead.
>>738290716morrigan tits
>>738290716Even when arcades were thriving in America you still had to go out of your way to get to them. That's not the case in Japan
There's no culture in gaming anymore. Go check out streamers of people who play fighting games. Would you REALLY want to play against these fuckers IRL?
>>738290716Is it a thriving arcade scene or is it really just like 3 retro arcades and it's just foreigner bias? Like acho had to close down. There is actually an arcade with those cabinets (relatively) near me, Next Level arcade. That big western vsav tournament on Halloween used to be streamed from there I think. But like Japan, there's only a few locations where you can do this and if you don't good luck.
>>738290716>and american arcades are allThis isn't true around me. There's actually a really good traditional arcade at a mall near me, even has Guilty Gear X2 Accent Core. Then there's another one down the road that is a pay for the night kind of place, has a Capcom D&D cabinet which was really fun to play through with a bro.
>>738291121This is false from my experience.Came back from Sapporo three weeks ago. All Round1 floors were fully stocked with people, on weekdays. It wasn't even a holiday.
OP is a baiting retard, I watch people like jiyuna and obama and they said the arcade scene is pretty much dead compared to its glory days
>>738291597>Looks out the windowSo how many miles did you drive just to find one?
>>738315090Every train station has at least one or two arcades nearby. Heck, it's still a trope in manga.
>>738316147I'm referring to retro arcades specifically. Next Level is more or less the successor to Chinatown arcade. There are obviously still a lot of arcades at the jersey board walk, and a slew of Dave and Busters and "adult playgrounds" everywhere, but that's different from OPs pic.
>>738315541The fuck does the president know about arcades?
>>738316596>Is it a thriving arcade scene or is it really just like 3 retro arcades
>>738316891>3 retro arcadesThere's a big difference between kouhatsu and hey, and like a collection of crane games and photo booths.
>>738305802>niggers turned them into drug selling spots.You could pick up smack at an arcade even during the golden age. Niggers being niggers is not the reason arcades died, it was the advancement of home consoles
Japanese live in real cities what Amerimutts call "downtown".Also Amerifarts are fat and use cars to get anywhere and they don't have third spaces.Amerimutts would rather stay at home and his jewish handlers would fill the arcades with useless garbage normalfag and roastie games while charging a lot just to play once.
>>738290716>>738291139So Americans are banned from arcades if they sell beer? Isn’t everyone on this site over 21? What’s the issue? My town has plenty of arcades, but they’re for adults and I’m guessing 4chan is banned from going since they sell alcoholic beverages.
>>738290716The world's largest arcade is in Chicago thoughbeit
>>738317634It's always funny to see eurodogs talk about something they know literally nothing about. He'll do it again too.
>>738317953No that's not what those anons are referring to at all. They are making jokes about craft beer because in the last decade or so "barcades" have popped up in a lot of cities. Basically they are pretentious bars first that just happen to have a handful of obligatory cabinets. So you're literally supposed to drink beer around arcades there.
>>738290716I have a bunch of arcade games on my Steam Deck. Pretty fun.
>>738293383Foods bad and expensive, beers bad and expensive, and somehow youre the only guy playing the wall of arcade games half the time while everyone else just sits at the bar and drimks and eats.And heres the thing I know 2 different bars in the same part of town that are great if all you want to do is sit down eat and drimk so I dont know why you would come to a barcade with overpriced food and drink and never touch the games, when theres several cheaper better options close by whose only "disadvantage" are they dont have the games you dont even touch.
The reason why barcades are popular is because bars make MASSIVE margins from beer sells. You're talking like $150 for a keg, get 124 pints from the keg, then if you're in a city you can charge like $8 a pint.
>>738318249Which bit is wrong?
>>738319641quite literally all of it
>>738316147>it's just like my heckin mangaStay in your schizo thread avatartranny.
>>738290716because they live in cereal-box sized apartments where setting up a proper home entertainment system is likely out of their space and also budget, coupled with the fact that their apartment is only a place to sleep in and the arcade is something you can stop by on your way home from work/school. japs have no problem with owning nothing and being happy
>>738319794They're either minimalists or hoarders, no in between.
>>738300325>>738300325Yeah, rhythm arcades, especially from Konami, are so insanely greedy I'm not surprised they ended up hacking them. I've read many horror stories about the shit they pull in their modern arcades on the rhythm games general in /jp/.
>>738298429>normies>normies>normies>bitches about normalfags
>>738291429>Find MvC2 cab in random movie theater>Stick doesnt work>Only one button worksTh-thanks
>>738301614Japan also had lots plywood shit. It's just compared to the metal/fibreglass stuff they were seen as more disposable thus not many have survived.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Izw5u0MIHIhttps://forums.arcade-museum.com/media/albums/japanese-mini-arcade-candy-dagashiya-cabinet.1908/
>>738321924He only said the word like two times anon
>>738298429>complains about pinball and no modern machinesJust curious what you consider modern? There's some bowling alleys and places around me that have a "modern" arcade in them, and they're pretty garbage. Like none of the modern light gun games even have a gun--they are always an inplace turret that just pivots. Google the Halo Arcade to get an idea of what I'm talking about. It's completely shallow and boring compared classics like Time Crisis or House of the Dead. Then there's a Mario Kart arcade that is unsurprisingly even more RNG based than the console games to where it felt like I was more just watching a video than racing. All the while these were priced like 5 times more than old cabinets because they are the new shiny arcades. Felt like every other modern machine those arcades were about getting tokens and tickets which are fine if you're on a date and want to get something for your girl at the end, but sometimes I just want to go to an arcade and play some games.
>>738290716Can't say on the Burger and Moonrunelands but in the Britbonglands:>broken social contract>low trust society>cost of lifeAnd you get the complete dissolution of third spaces. I'd half a mind to think a (retro) video arcade would do my city a world of good but it'd probably get wrecked by feral mongs in a minute.
>>738290716because in the west people have no respect for recreational public spaces, that's mostly the reasonarcades in the west are places timmy goes with 2 buddies for half an hour to fuck around and there's a whole lot of timmies out there
>>738321924>Gachaslop
STOMPCLAPHEYY!!!!
>>738323842I tried out the Fast and Furious arcade game, it didn't even have a break pedal.
>>738323842>>738327303Brake. But yes, modern American arcade games, i.e. Raw Thrills, are irredeemable slop. The driving games upsell you on faster cars for more money on the car select screen, but there's no actual control anyway, you just hold down the one pedal and win. My 5 year old nephew got first place on the superbikes game. Compare that to something like Super Hang On which could take years to master. I've STILL never finished Expert mode and have been trying since the 90s.
>>738290716arcades closing all over japan. only the tourist areas still have them
>>738301614The monitor being so much bigger is great too. I used to go to a local mom and pop arcade with a lot of imported machines and then when I later went to a shitty barcade with 24" monitor wooden standup cabs I was blown away by the shit we used to put up with here in the same exact timeframe Japan had these things
>>738327870It seems the only American arcade industry that has its head on right is pinball, hilariously enough.
>>738323842We need to kill Raw Thrills somehow
>>738301614That style of cabs came much later. The US did not change the cabs of japanese games that's how they came from japanese factories.
>>738329340Pinball is one thing that still makes sense for non-normies to go to an arcade to play, since it's physical, can't really be emulated and prohibitively expensive to play at home. It makes sense that the scene is healthier than video arcade games in the current age.
