Feb 13, 4:03 pm
I’ve always found arcades to be rather magical places, ever since my numerous family holidays to Blackpool, and the time when my local town (albeit briefly) tolerated an arcade in the highstreet.
I like the darkness, the way the lights from the cabinets and screens make it seem like a futurist Santa’s Grotto. I like listening to the little plink plink plink of the the penny machines, and the calming influence of the electrical hum from the fruit machines and computer games.
However, there’s another side to the neon playground, and that’s the seediness so often associated with the arcade scene. The addicted gamblers. The crime. Cigarettes crushed into beer-stained carpets, and conked-out screen-burned machines long past their glory days. Establishments crumble and settle into nothing but shabby, shadowy dens, frowned upon by society and seen as a bad influence. “The arcade scene is dying,” journalists, previous-visitors and seasoned industry insiders may have you to believe. No more wild button-bashing at Mortal Kombat or cheering furiously at another stage cleared in Puzzle Bobble.
On the 26th of January I went down to London’s Earls Court to check out the ATEI arcade show. Word from Justin Burke, Special Projects Manager at Sega Amusements, is that the future of arcades could be more about evolution rather annihilation. There seems to be a marked move across all manufacturers towards child-friendly card-based amusements, such as Sega’s “Love and Berry” and “Dinosaur King”? What was Justin’s reaction to this new direction - bringing the young and the feminine into what we consider a grown-up world?
“It’s one of our strategies,” he said, “we can’t rely purely on video games forever - we need different streams of income. The kids games, retail, merchandising and branding are other streams of income and allow us to diversify”.
However, don’t fret - the Sega stand was the perfect example of how expansion into new areas did not indiciate the demise of the video games we all hold so dear. In fact the opposite might be so. A strong showing of fresh titles and sequels such as House of the Dead 4, Virtua Striker 4 and Virtua Tennis 3 combined with the reassuring news that Outrun 2 had marked Sega’s best selling driving game since Daytona suggest that rumours of the arcade’s death may be greatly exagerated.
Either way, why not make up your own mind - check out the video here.
Download low quality (30.2mb, WMV format, 5:36)
Download high quality (14.3mb, WMV format, 5:36)
