Ian - Arcade Fire (Not the band)
While at Five Ways Bowlplex for my Bi-Weekly session of DDR, it occured to me that Arcade gaming is nowhere near in the state it was in when I started DDR (I mention this because I didn’t really hang around in Arcades until that point).
When I lived in Sheffield, being economically dependant on my parents rather put a dampener on going out sometimes, and Monday to Friday would be school, with Saturday containing the occasional trip to the cinema, or just town generally. Whenever my mother was going to Meadowhall, I would tag along with her and my brother to get to the arcade (something I didn’t get to do very often). Things were going swimmingly, with a DDR scene that had been pushed underground by a lack of machines, being rebirthed with the purchase of an EM2, followed by the purchase of a Supernova (which also nearly resulted in a DDR:UK qualifying tournament happening, if it wasn’t for my selfish act of entering the Birmingham tournament).
When I moved to Birmingham, however, the space that was used for the arcade was turned into a resteraunt. Just for reference, Meadowhall did not and has never had a shortage of resteraunts, so why they felt it necessary to turn a perfectly pleasant gaming arena into another cookie cut resteraunt template. The back wall even had loads of old school fighting games which I hear got quite good usage, and I’m fairly certain that had I been a fighting game player at the arcade I’d have been absolutely mortified.
Arcades now seem to cower to accompany bowling alleys, except for in London, where you do get arcades that are Just arcades, and the Seaside, where you get loads of arcade that are just arcades. Bowling Alley staff (and even most Seaside Resort staff) have no idea how to keep arcade gamers happy (by being able to identify broken steering wheels and DDR pad failures or a gun not being calibrated properly).
I propose to you that arcade gaming is dying in the UK. Funland in London’s Trocadero centre is has the right idea in that it contains many floors of utter, epic win in the form of many DDR, Pump it Up and In the Groove machines, as well as conventional games such as House of the Dead 4, Virtua Tennis 2, too many racing games to mention, and an area which houses no less than 20 arcade fighting cabinets, paired up on different old school fighters, which the aforementioned fighting game players would cream themselves at the sight of. I know of no other place that is similar, in the entire UK. I personally think this is a shame.
Sure, going to the bowlplex once a week for a bit of DDR, the occasional Time Crisis credit, maybe some 2spicy, and another attempt at the first rival in Usui in Initial D 3 might be ok, but what happened to dedicated arcades?
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