[Via Argus Leader, Sioux Fall SD]
Here is another news article that discusses the current state of arcades as well as the culture of arcades. While it misses the target on a few points(such as Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga sitting unplayed – those still make a steady although not overwhelming amount of income today), it is overall positive and makes a good point that one reason why people go out to the arcade is because of the social aspect it brings along with it. The article also doesn’t state that ‘arcades are dead’ so I give it a thumbs up for not spreading FUD.
It does focus a bit on game LAN cafés making it appear that those have replaced arcade entirely although locally I know of one arcade that boasts more than 10x the amount of income per week than a local computer game center. But the sense of competition is generally greater at the PC game centers as it is a bit easier to organize a competition over PCs than it is in an arcade (although it’s not impossible for arcades to do it – any arcade that doesn’t hold regular competitions is shooting itself in the foot). The article also talks about arcade collecting, which is becoming more popular than ever (and more expensive on some fronts as well). The only other thing it lacks is that it could point out that arcades are becoming more popular with a plethora of great games headed their way to the arcade now and throughout next year.
