When it comes to the economy, you can’t base the performance of one game to demonstrate how it must be for all arcade games. Especially if said game is two years old and has a better earning sequel out there. But that is essentially what is done in the article that I will link to below. The writer saw some guys pulling a Big Buck Hunter Pro out of some establishment in New York City so he proceeded to check out what was going on. Apparently the machine wasn’t doing very well so the owner was getting rid of it but considering that the machine was not an online 
version of BBH and it wasn’t a Safari, one can understand why it isn’t pulling in $300 a week anymore. For the writer of this article to headline his piece with “The Hard Economics of Arcade Games” shows that he really didn’t look into the subject properly however. It is obvious that the writer is not an avid game fan but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to look up information related to this subject, in particular with games like Guitar Hero Arcade which is earning gobs of money everywhere right now. As a local example, I know of at least one arcade down the street from where I am where they have already paid their GHA machine off, even in this down economy. All you need is the right location and the right games and suddenly the economics of arcades are quite easy to get a handle on.
[Via WNYC News Blog] [Discuss on the Forums]
