I have lost track of the times I have brought up costs in the arcade sector since it is an on-going issue. Since I joined Arcade Heroes, some manufacturers have certainly improved in bringing the price down to levels that are more reasonable for smaller operators so that we can own the games ourselves. Of course one option that any operator can look at is revenue sharing on a game that is put on location by a distributor and then ypu split the profits from there. There also is financing options that can be made available, assuming you have good credit and a good track record of earnings.Everyone has to decide on what options will work out for the best in their situation but in Japan, Cave, the developers of many bullet hell shmups including the recently released Deathsmiles II are offering something that is sort of new – they will place a machine on location for free and then the revenue is split between them and the operator from there. This actually has been practiced off and on in Japan before although the free cab is a departure from what we have seen before.
The one question to ask now is if this is successful would we ever see a similar model used in the US? I would see some resistance from it as it would cut out distributors completely although that debate is not new.
[Via BeefJack.com via Versus City] [Discuss on the Forums]
