DragoManiac

freespeech

Planet Zero isn't closed. They just had the Tekken 6 American debut Feb 28th. The hours are:

SUN & MON: 6PM-12AM
TUE-THURS: 3PM-12AM
FRI & SAT: 3PM-1AM

If you went recently and the doors were locked it is because they are prepping for Matsuri. I was at last years and it was decent at best, but this year is more focused on the culture and less on just anime. That's why they are having a car show and a drift contest. They are also trying to expand the gaming aspect on a whole.

ese

ratba

Just wanted to throw in there that the anime and gaming event "Anime Matsuri" that is sponsored by Planet Zero will be on the 21st,22nd, and 23rd of this month at the waterway marriott in The Woodlands Texas. There will be a huge gaming room with Japanese sit-down arcade cabinets and other assorted games. They will be holding a tourny for pretty much all the standard fighting games, including Tekken 6. Anyone in the Houston area should definately stop by. Check out www.animematsuri.com for more info. Plus Masuimi Max is going to be there too. For those of you who know who she is, then you already know.

ese

1. It helps to have a thriving economy, where the country of residence has a monetary value that is worth a damn.

2. It helps to have an upper management staff that emphasizes to a mid and lower management staff to diversify their arcade settings, and to have a more appropriate size of location. Most arcades that I have visited in the past decade were small in comparison to what the 80s had, and since the 90s, the North American arcades were mostly the oft regurgitated mess that were Street Fighter clones, and ho-hum-a-dime-a-dozen-tired-and-never-true games that most people NEVER gave a damn about.

3. Ticket games are nice, but they are too repetitive and operators need remember that with a more diverse setting, you can cater to "ticket chasers", "claw dogs", casual and hardcore gamers of the many genres that would be available. Unfortunately, there are alot of games that are never released in the United States (sans importing) because most operators are not as willing to take a chance on a new genre, which resulted in part for the arcade scene's current depression. I think alot about some of the games I have played World-wide, and thought "Ya know, it's a shame that my friends back home will never get a chance to try this game out!" Then as I live in the United States, I think "Man, I kinda want to play a game, but damn if the games I wanna play aren't in this country!"

The problem that I see with the arcade scene is that the manufacturers haven't figured out a viable way to make the cabinets more affordable (at least come out with a rent to operator strategy that would work.), the operators need to figure out enough games that would intensify the arcade experience (HINT: One of the things that Arcades did well in the past were the ability to have gamers show off their skills in a public setting. Early days of Pac-Man, anyone?), and more often than not, the arcades could find more employees that don't drool on themselves. I walked into a mom and pop last night, and that's exactly what I saw. Sad, I know.

The smaller block arcades need a place back in the scene, so that more competition would take place. A more appropriate pricing structure is needed to attract the gamers of all ages, and the owners need to figure out that "Channel M" does NOT help their cause, especially when you have the customers (and workers) making fun of the music and graphics on the loops mailed to shops monthly.

While there are good arcade shops still out there, the fact that many of the remaining shops are lackluster-at-best concerns enthusiasts of the arcade hobby.

There was a recovery from the first Arcade crash. It will take the industry's end of rehashing boring genres to bring them out of this one. (1.50 for Podracer? ARE YOU SERIOUS?)

Soldier_CLE

It was very sad because not only was it a great arcade, it was also the test ground for Namco USA's arcade division. Wonderpark saw test versions of Tekken 3, Tekken Tag, Soul Calibur, Mr. Driller, and even games that never got released in the US such as Aqua Rush and Dancing Eyes, which was a 3D Qix-like game where the goal was to remove the clothing of a young lady.

To correct you, Wonderpark actually held the Tekken Tag Nationals tournament, not the Tekken 4 tournament. They even flew in players from Japan and Korea, which was unheard of at the time. They ran tournament regularly for other games, too. I remember for Soul Calibur, with the help of "WCMaxi," a Namco USA employee, they ran an entire month of SC tournaments, with about 20 tournaments in total, and all with great prizes.

I guess I took a bit of a nostalgia detour there. I just have a lot of great memories of arcades and the people that would gather there. It's really sad that the days of the arcade are numbered.

Srayer

hamsterjohn

Jest

reptile168

icarusprime

ThisCharmingMan

Consoles are cheap enough now to merit owning one of those before you spend twenty bucks a day in an arcade. American arcades would be better if we got the sit down cabinets like the Japanese do, that way you're more prone to sticking around and dropping in quarters my back starts to kill me after awhile.

Kounji

Sylar

Fierfaerie

But I wouldn't bother making the trip unless you are truly hardcore about the game. I haven't played it yet, but visually, it looks like a slight update from Tekken 5 (Wasn't even on an HD screen), and the fighting looks, to me eyes at least to be very similar to Tekken 5.

If you come, come to play the Sega games as well, prepare for slight disappointment, or just not worry about it and appreciate the wealth of beautiful women and scenery up here :)

theALLseeingEYE

Fierfaerie

darthmole12

PHILOSOPHER541

Tenth

YUYU

NoBullet

MURDERFACE

kingme

Liopleurodon

baked ham

Derigor

SolidOni_ds

I used to work at Cyberstation a while ago. The lower management has no clue but I don't think the company can be held accountable for retarded street crews - not entirely anyway.

In my experience, as much as it sucked, the ticket games paid the bills while Tekken, Soul Callibur, DDR, and King of Fighters would be on display for the real gamers. Also, a lot of racing games would make a good ammount of money.

Even so, you could tell arcades were done when the ticket games started to outsell racing games and when even the hardest of hardcore fighting fans would bitch about a game costing 3 tokens. Over in Japan, games average ~$2/play and people pay it, knowing that it's just the price of admission. I guess they foresaw the demise and accepted higher fees whereas in the US, we just saw higher prices and walked away.

Bloodspoor

DarkMan08

Part of the failures can probably be attributed to the drive for a more casual market withn the arcade inustry. Around the late 90s-early 00s, most stables were filled with 10k dollar units with light gun shooters and driving games that appealed mostly to the occasional visitors. Thereby, neglecting the diehards and merely appeasing the casuals, which equals bad investments.

The hope right now is that a few Mom & Pop shops are doing ok, and quite a few are springing up every so often and cater to their patrons. As for kids not growing up with arcades, some still although not quite as money, but how many of us can say we grew up with 10cent cokes and quarter hamburgers.

doctorwily

Wulfgang

Wulfgang

Having worked in a reasonably distant past as an Arcade Attendant for Aladdin's Castle, I remembered working around a crazy manager that had one eye looking one way, while another looking towards another, and "fixing" machines by banging a monkey wrench on the PCBs(!). Other attendants would prey on some of the girls that were on average five years younger, and the District and General Managers would have absolutely no clue as to what gamers wanted. (e.g; Pinballs suck... Dance Dance Revolution would never catch on, gamers don't want to move around too much on an arcade machine... Put in a bunch of 16 bit and ticket redemption games, the kids don't care!)

The Namco Cybertainment execs that would visit the location I used to work at a decade ago (Parmatown -- Parma, Ohio) would refuse to take feedback, and would walk around with a pompous attitude, thinking that because they were in their positions that they were the "know all" source of what gamers want.

What they forgot, however, is what made arcades fun. Instead of remembering that games should either be tried and true or cutting-edge, they went with bulk games that were mediocre at best, and often not worth a token, let alone the three or four that they practically demanded.

Add the stale atmosphere (Anyone who remembers the 80s knew that some arcades showed MTV and NOT "Channel M"), the lack of events (Arcade tournaments weren't the only things done in the late 80s, in comparison to today's occasional tournament here and there.), numerous broken machines that seemingly never had ordered parts or proper repair, the failure to come up with a fair and reasonable pricing structure for the games offered, and the failure to innovate the arcade experience to adapt with the times would result in an often undesirable taste in the arcade affectionado's mouth. The arcade experience in most places as of late just doesn't provide the bang for the buck, even if our dollar is worth yesterday's quarter these days.

Sure there are other arcades here and there, but I choose to target Namco Cybertainment not just from my experiences from working there in the past, but also from noting that they were one of the larger arcade companies out there that muscled alot of "mom and pop" out of business. After they drove them out, the lack of competition made the arcade scene stagnant.

Hopefully, places like GameWorks and Dave and Busters will help keep the scene alive in some way, shape or form, but the outlook is not promising, when you have some games costing roughly two-plus dollars a pop.

Too bad most kids will never know the magic that some of us knew when we entered an arcade with four quarters, and a seemingly endless supply of cutting edge and innovative arcade and pinball games that would keep you mesmerized for a couple of hours with original gameplay and then-intricate strategy.

Soldier_CLE

JNYCE

jeffx

What about these imported arcade machines? Do you think Namco will get wind of them and start Tekken them away from whichever arcades they're already in?

...aaaaand, end scene.

aelfin

nxp3

pandafresh

I feel like there's something missing here.

bigman88zz

So sad, but true. There is a rather poor arcade about a half mile from work. I used to go there a lot but lately it's just stunk. Once they got rid of their Marvel vs. Capcom 2 machine, well I lost interest.

The best arcade I ever went to was back in the Saratoga Mall in Wilton NY which closed around 10 years ago. It was there I first played Super Pac-Man, Defender and my only experience with a real original Space Invaders machine. I miss that place.

The death of the arcade is sad. Time for us to learn woodworking and build our own cabinets, I suppose.

battra92

awesomerobot

ChrisLionheart

I think there should be more Rival Schools, though.

Channing

aphexacid

aphexacid

aphexacid

Yeah, my parents live there.

FP mind in rewind

Shijirou

cheesecake000

Maverick_fox

AnthraxJunkie

Putter5

Grave

dexterr

Slashlen

dexterr