Gamasutra has an interview with GameWorks vice-president of sales and marketing Clint Manny, about Sega's plans for the arcade chain. Sega acquired GameWorks last November.

The attitude of the interview can be encapsulated neatly in the following excerpt, in which Clint manages to use the corporate buzzword "synergy" twice in a single sentence:

The Arena Sports Bar & Grill has so much synergy between the gaming and the action and the environment that's created on the arcade side - taking that to a bar and grill environment where you've still got that energy and excitement - there's so much synergy between those two.

Finally, a video gaming experience that embraces the energy and excitement of the sports bar and grill environment. Cancel my WoW account.

Jump to your doom, o readers.

GameWorks can be considered a dot-com bust collateral victim, and finally filed chapter 11 in 2004 after many years of decline. The one in Seattle is still limping along downtown, a strangely barren cabinet-crypt that does nothing better than make you want to go home and cleanse yourself in your 360's cauterizing glow.

Over the past few years GameWorks seems to have realized they lost us, the actual Gamers, because if given a choice we will play Crazy Taxi from the comfort of our hammock and feeding tubes, thankyouverymuch.

Instead, it seems they have started courting rednecks, birthday parties, and corporate morale-building exercises. The interview makes much of Derby Owners Club, the "Racehorse Breeding and Training Simulation Game" (aka Derby Horse Adventures), and Extreme Hunting Tournament Edition, which is apparently coming out this month and will allow players to compare dead make-believe ungulates on a nationwide network. eliza gauger

Full article here [Gamasutra]

Previously: The Arcade is Dead, Long Live the Cyber Caf

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