So arcade news this month has been….slow, to put it nicely. I could perhaps be going back to the old days where I posted about every small bit of news as its own post as there has been a thing or two to talk about, such as Touch Magix has availability of SpaceWarp 66 & Mega Blaster or Sega updating the page for their now shipping VR arcade game, VR Agent. But given those can be told in fairly short order and I hate doing Newsbytes back-to-back, even if days apart. It also should be fitting to end the month with something, so lets get into an article rather than reporting. Just note that next week there will be some news regarding Samurai Shodown V Perfect, so stay tuned there.
Earlier this week I had the idea to discuss some things about the arcade business. It’s been a while since I delved into the subject in a specific way like this and I was surprised to see the reaction on the videos so far. I’ll continue this for a bit, although it’s hard to say how many of these questions I can get into before exhausting all of the various avenues of arcade operations. That said, I’ve been taken aback by how many questions I’m getting asked in the comments, so perhaps those can be “fuel” for additional videos down the road.
The first video covers how us operators decide what to buy. I did miss a couple of things on it though, so if you want to finish that thread up, check the 3rd video below (and hop towards the end). I would like to get into more detail on the earnings side and how machines actually do, but I need more data to work with beyond my own arcade numbers.
The next one blew up a bit more than I had expected although I shouldn’t be surprised – retro games always have that nostalgic allure and even though they don’t make much money individually, they do draw attention.
And that’s the question I ask for this video, which is really just an addendum to the previous two videos – If they don’t make money then why keep them around? I get into that as well as cover some extra points I missed in the first video, here:
So there’s some food for thought – I recorded a video about pinball but still need to edit it; I also am wanting to do a video on arcade game design although I imagine that will have limited interest generally. There are a couple of other subjects I have bouncing around to do in the next couple of weeks – CRT vs. LCD, why did I sell certain games, and anything else that comes to mind. I also am working on another video about Atari, although those haven’t really been getting much traction.
Got something you want to discuss? Let me know!
