Skip to content
Sep 28 / Ozymandias

10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years

,

Was sent this interesting article highlighting ten businesses that will likely be extinct a decade from now. Interesting, but what really caught my eye was this snippet:

Coin-operated arcades
With Nintendo Wii, casual gaming online and the Xbox 360, the video game arcade industry is thriving, but not the standalone brick-and-mortar arcades. For those of you who thought arcades were already dead, they still exist — at movie theaters, miniature golf courses and other touristy spots — but it seems only a matter of time before they vanish from the landscape. Ten years ago, there were 10,000 arcades in the nation, and now the number is close to 3,000, according to the American Amusement Machine Association. Revenue from arcade game units brought in $866 million last year, which sounds good until you consider that in 1994, the industry was pocketing $2.3 billion and that the profits are only still high because it costs so much to play a game.

Odds of survival in 10 years: Game over.

It’s sad, but true. I grew up in the arcades, and had a paper route specifically so I could go collect bills and get arcade money. Was a wonderful experience, but I have to admit I can see why consoles have devastated the stand-alone arcade market. It used to be that arcade games were the must-play, visually stunning games to beat. As PC and console games upped the ante, it just started making more sense to stay home.

Related posts:

  1. SCEA: PS3 price won’t drop for two years…
  2. Xbox Live Arcade floodgates open
  3. Interview with Cloning Clyde developer on Gamerscoreblog.com
  4. Consolidation begins in Casual Games Sector: MTV acquires Atom

Comments are closed.

Filed under Uncategorized
  • JohnCz

    Unfortunately I think the quality of social interaction we had at a brick-and-mortar arcades have not been replicated with online gaming.  Sure there is a vastness when you consider the online world.  But quantity doesn’t outweigh quality in my opinion.  The presence is not the same and seems more rigid/artificial.  Thats my problem with PS3 Home effort.  It seems impressive enough but in the end, its artificial.  In the future I think brick-and-mortar shops will evolve just as online gaming does.  Hopefully the two will coexist and be able to leverage the best both have to offer.

  • http://www.xlife.nl RDJ134

    In holland Arcades are already dead :( There are a few very small left i bet it arnt more thene 5/10 over all the Netherlands. I am so glad i have beeing around in the golden arcade time. Those where the days.

  • Skip

    I think the reason arcades died had equal parts to do with the arrival of consoles and the predominance of games that cost more than a quarter.

    Most of the time I spent at arcades was at the mall, while my parents would be shopping.  I'd typically have less than $10, sometimes less than $5, and I'd have an hour or more to kill.    So I'd typically play a few new games, some old favorites, and then when I'd be down to my last fifty cents or so, I could always go play asteroids for the remaining time.

    And then games started showing up that cost more.   And they were usually in a much larger cabinet, possibly sit down, taking up the space of 2 or 3 upright cabinets.  And the game developers saw what was a primary feature of the old games, the ability to play for a good amount of time on one credit for a skilled player, as a bug, so they all had fixed durations for their credits.

    So suddently instead of being able to play for the entire time on my $5, I needed $15 or $20, which I'd never get when I was a kid.

    I'm not saying that these factors were the primary cause of the demise of arcades, but I think they were at least equal to the rise of consoles.

  • Xwar

    >Unfortunately I think the quality of social interaction we had at a brick-and-mortar arcades have not been replicated with online gaming.

    Really? I see pretty much the same level of cheaters, whiners, bullies and generally annoying losers as I did in the arcades of yonder. Except now I don't have to fumigate my clothes after coming off an online session because the stench of smoke has permeated every fiber, I can mute/kick/ban the most annoying players, and no one can threaten to beat me up if I don't give them money.

    (Plus, no sharing the machine; no human crows trying to make you lose so they can play; no idiot arcade manager who knows less about videogames than Roger Ebert; no price gouging on the coins.)

    But yeah, maybe someday something like a LAN party or LAN cafes might become bigger if the need for social interaction becomes critical. I'm not worried it will; as I implied in the beginning, most social interaction is so poor and worthless as to be superfluous if not outright harmful. I'd rather have a few good real-life friends than a million losers pestering me.

    And in case someone was wondering, check out the specs for the current state-of-the-art Sega arcade board:

    en.wikipedia.org/…/Sega_Lindbergh

    Hmmm. Remind you of anything? :-)

  • imaginedbug

    The only thing close to an arcade I’ve ever seen (also in Holland, like RDJ134) was at the fair that comes to town once a year for 5 days.

    Instead of going to an arcade, we just play a dumb card game on an arcade like machine with a touch screen while we wait for out fries, or gamble a bit (slot machine) at the chinese as we wait for our take-out.

  • http://trustedworlds.net guyal

    That sure brings back memories. Paper route => $20 => ALL DAY SATURDAY AT PUTT-PUTT, playing Zookeeper and Xevious and Tempest and Donkey Kong.

    Its dead. It probably died around 1985, and we’re on the tail end of the decline, except for some nostalgia places like at the Beach Boardwalk on Santa Cruz in California. I can’t count Dave and Busters (though I should), since the games aren’t remotely as good IMHO (compared to either the old school, or what I have access to staying at home). The feel is like that Simpsons joke "insert 2 dollars for 3 more seconds of play", and there isn’t that youthful intensity at D&B. Well, its a different sort of youthful intensity, as its more of a date place…

    Back in the day, the ultimate video game experience was at the arcade, so gamers went there repeatedly. Not so novel or ultimate anymore. Watching a Halo 3 throwdown at Penny Arcade on a giant screen (or Starcraft, for my tastes) is really cool and something you can’t get at home, except, oh wait, 50" TVs are the new black, and 70" TVs aren’t far behind, so any impetus to drag Americans out of their personal fortresses of solitude is crushed.

    I take my young-ins to the CA Extreme classic games show every year (which is $20 for free play on everything, so the absolute cost is still at 1985). I can get my nostalgia boost, and they can get the joy of beep-induced adrenalin rush, but we’re not going back to the 80s, or, as you young-ins call it, the 90s.

  • John-Paul

    Poor arcades, this is so sad.  Nothing matches that experience.  And yes, home consoles pretty much own in a lot of aspects but the arcade was best for being able to take a few dollars in and play a bunch of different games… this is entirely different than dropping 60 bucks for one game.

    I think games like Zelda being created, and tastes changing from quick fix to deeper games you couldn't play in one setting like Metroid… eventually role playing games or long first person shooters were part of the reason.  None of these games types are suited for pay per play.  That had to have something to do with it.

    Another factor was probably the bad element, by the early to mid 90's you basically get drug dealers and gang members hanging out all over the arcades.  That's why they shut them down in my town at least.

  • http://tripp.fenderson.net Tripp Fenderson

    JohnCz said: "quality of social interaction we had at a brick-and-mortar arcades"

    What???

    I don't know where you played arcade games but that wasn't my experience – and as background, I spent most of my free time playing video games as a kid.

    The arcades around here dark, smoky and populated by socially enept teenagers and greasy young men. Further, they were run by socially enept, greasy, old men. At times, it was downright scary going in there to play.

    Sure, it was fun to ride your bike up to the arcade, blow $20 in quarters and eat pizza all day with your friend – but the arcade was never a place of quality social stimulation.

    If anything, I'd say that's where Xbox Live shines.

    Not only can I enjoy the company of family and friends in my (clean) house but we can hook up online to play together, 1000s of miles apart, 24 hours a day.

  • Scott

    The only place I see arcade games anymore are at movie theaters, Chuck E Cheese, and Dave & Buster’s.  Even then, the arcade games are oldish more often than not and don’t compare graphically to what you find on the Wii much less the 360 or PS3.

  • Porktree

    I will still have an arcade in my basement, so you can come over anytime and play some Donkey Kong or Pac Man, and curse the Billy Mitchell and his evil 1980′s haircut.

  • John in S.Florida

    GameWorks.com seems like they have been a fairly successful brick and mortar type of operation.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpmarth/ jpmarth

    Interesting article.  The topic on newspapers and film are the most intriguing.  We can already see the fall of newspapers on the horizon, and camera film sales has been declining for some time as digital camera prices go down and quality up.  

    Makes me wonder how far behind the magazine industry is.  Will many of us be converting our subscriptions from getting the next issue in the mail to a notification in the inbox saying a new issue is ready for viewing?