Arcade Heroes

HeavyElectricity May 18, 2008 at 8:10 am

In a way, it’s easy to understand why private shows exist – the environment is right for business, and the distributors and operators present don’t have to compete with players for time on the machines. Of course, in Japan the situation is a bit different – location tests are announced ahead of time, so dedicated players are often able to attend them. The problem is that in the Western market, there are no public showings to accompany new games, leading to players seeking (and often gaining) entry to private events. Because of this, we end up with issues such as the Tekken 6 fiasco at ATEI this year, where players packed the stand and ultimately led Namco to switch the machine off of freeplay.

Of course, the market is always going to be geared towards operators and distributors, simply because they are the direct customers of the manufacturers. However, it is disheartening to see the general lack of support offered to the dedicated players, as with the general lack of player-targeted advertising it is often they who spread the word and drive wider interest in the games. While big expo events such as the consumer sector Playstation Experience and Gamestars Live shows might not be the way forward, it would be nice to see manufacturers courting players a little more in a variety of small-scale ways.

Molloy May 18, 2008 at 12:54 pm

If something like Arcadia can still be published on a monthly basis in Japan how come the arcade industry can’t release that same information over here? There are a ton of dedicated arcade websites out there like this one that would treat any news in a very positive light. There are more cheerleaders for the arcade industry on the internet than there are negative people. If they had high resolution screenshots, videos and an opportunity to play the games a week before release then they’d spread the info in a grassroots fashion among all the blogs and forums.

At the moment even after a games been out for a year you often can’t find screenshots, decent videos or any information about the title whatsoever. What’s 2Spicy about? I’m going to go have a google now because I haven’t a clue. I was looking at those Sega card games in an arcade in Singapore last year. Hadn’t a clue what was going on. If I’d read something about them I might have been more tempted to have a go.

Even if you went with one of the big online websites like 1up, Gamespot or Eurogamer i’m sure if you gave one of them some sort of exclusivity on information they’d be prepared to deliver that information a positive spin. Why wouldn’t they? I want to see what the new Cave shooters look like outside of Youtube! Let gametrailers show a direct video capture in HD! Show off those amazing sprites.

Molloy May 18, 2008 at 10:30 pm

That’s interesting. I didn’t realise consumer hated amusement. I would have thought that so much stuff gets ported over the console and many of the publishers have their feet in both areas so they’d be quite interested in cross promotion.

A dedicated magazine would never work. I’m amazed Arcadia is still going.

I just find it unusual that the amusement sector doesn’t feed media and information to the consumers or attempt to engage with their target market in any way. Of course they should have trade magazines and closed door shows with the distributers and operators, but they should engage with the public on some level too. At the moment most consumers first experience of any new game release is blurry photos, shakey videos shot over the shoulder of players and snippets of vague gibberish posted on forums.

This sort of carry on needs to stop. It’s crazy to ignore your customers like this.