Oooh, I Did Like To Be Beside The Seaside - Your Thoughts

[charlesr]

Post your thoughts about the Oooh, I Did Like To Be Beside The Seaside Feature here.

If wish to send in feedback please PM Sean Smith (seany1979) or email [email protected]

[Largo]

Used to goto a holiday park down here in Cornwall, just to play on that simpsons machine (3rd picture down) with a friend. Reading the article sure bought it all back hehe. Good times.

*edit* Infact thinking about it im sure theres still an active arcade complete with 1 lane bowling ally only 1 town away. Ill have to go check it out ASAP

[Concept]

Sean's first feature for NTSC-uk, and a very nice read too (I'd read it before now). Look forward to more of your stuff and good to see another decent addition to the team.

[capcom_suicide]

Great article. Does give food for thought on arcade collectors.

Personally I never go to arcades any more. It was something I did as a kid, but really for me it changed when the balance went from "Small corner for fruit machines" to "Small corner for Arcade machines"

I went to the Arcade show in london, 2002, with a mate from work and his dad (Who owns 5 seaside arcades.) They were after:

1.) Arcade game, preferably a sitdown driver with amazing graphcis

2.) As many fruit machines, or even 4 fruitmachines joined as one, as they could possibly buy.

The money is not in games, he told me, and then he pointed out the "Paper money" slot on the new gamblers.

See that, he said. That's shaped as a smile. And that's right, because we smile when the punters put there hard earned into there.

Guess what we do with lots of the notes? We put it into one of those (Points to a stall showing off "Independant" cash machines) Then when they take the money out, we even make money from that!

He went on to say how much a square foot made of arcade space made, and how very expensive games got with the 3d era. He said he would always have a bunch of standup cabs (I think they were called Astros) but 95% of his business was for fruities. Arcade games were "Loss Leaders" to get the punters parents in, and get them playing the gamblers.

Arcades are dead. Long live "Amusements"

So, I never go to arcades anymore. The closest I get, is airports, which If I'm lucky have Street Fighter II. But more often that not, with a broken button.

[cutmymilk]

Reminds me of the time me and a mate went to Barry Island upon hearing information that they had a JAP Outrun 2 cab. The info was correct and we spent tens of pounds in fifty pences. Thats righ, it wasnt even a quid a credit. They had other cool cabs, like the deluxe Star Wars cab, too.

Barry is good for that and ice cream. The crapness of the 'resort' is obvious when you consider there are no less than 3 Hyper Values on the sea front. But yeah, its traditional britishness.

[Street Turk]

Good article...brings a tear to my eye.

I grew up in Southend which had an amazing selection of arcades back in the day. One of my fondest memories is my (now dead) Grandad giving me 20p to play Rampage as a reward for doing well in a spelling test. The lights..the sounds...amazing.

These feelings and memories will never be expereienced again. Like Sean said, they will always live on inside me.

[SUMIRE]

Yeah, when arcades were miles better than home consoles and computers, I used to go on regular trips up the East coast, Bridlington, Scarborough to check out all the latest titles, and sink those 10p into the slots.

There is something about these places, tacky junk shops, fish and chips and the arcades! ..oh, and "joke" shops.

[Molloy]

With the music industry you have a healthy CD market and live gig market. Yeah, you may get better sound quality from the CD but you miss out on the atmosphere, the performance and just the pleasure of sharing your passion with like minded people.

That's something the arcade will always have that console games won't. Gimmicky cabinets and advanced graphics really don't matter all that much. Plus, if you're punter is waiting 5 minutes for a bag of chips then you're hardly competing with the console industry for the gamers attention span then are you?

The real problem with arcade games is the budgets. FZero AC had an engineering budget that went into the millions. Which means the cabinet ended up costing 20k. Which meant no operators were going to make money off it in the first 6 months, even if they charged ?2 a pop.

Arcade machines need to cost less than a grand. The industry is waay too small to support such crazy budgets and a complete lack of interchangeable JAMMA cabinets. JAMMA got the industry out of its first crash, it's a wonder that Sega and Namco don't see more worth in it now when they're struggling.

If Sega & Namco could stop acting like idiots and making cabinets that cost a fortune the operators could bring the price of a credit back down to 30 or 40p and still make their money back in a month or two. Then you'd see arcade cabinets in malls, takeaways, cinema's again.

[Mad Gear]

Disapointingly these's no pics of Seans' ugly mug or him perving at seaside slags, other than that good work son.

[mid]

If Sega & Namco could stop acting like idiots and making cabinets that cost a fortune the operators could bring the price of a credit back down to 30 or 40p and still make their money back in a month or two.

The problem is that these cabinets are already essentially console hardware - Atomiswave vs. Dreamcast, Chihiro vs. XBox etc. When I was a kid I pumped 10p pieces into the arcade machines because they offered me an experience that my Spectrum, and then Amiga and Megadrive, couldn't offer me at home.

I don't seem to have been the only one, either, which is why the arcade games market descended into a combination of silly and expensive cabinets that you really couldn't have at home (though even expensive driving cabs don't do much over a DFP other than the rock-solid build required for public use now) or fighting games that live or die by whether or not they can get a crowd built around multiplayer. And in the UK, that's almost entirely 'die'.

[eastyy]

Used to go to hunstanton in norfolk when i was kid loved the arcades there.

When i was at college i used to go to the arcades in great yarmouth playing killer instinct 2 a lot

[Super Monkey Balls]

Many gaming fans who were kids when these games were released are now able to afford the original hardware themselves, with places like eBay making it easy to obtain PCBs and cabinets at the click of a mouse.

Indeed the good news is most of those old Jamma games we remember so fondly can be played at home. For anyone into shmups and fighters, a Supergun is as big an omission from a gaming collection as a Japanese Saturn is in my opinion. Arcade/Jamma stuff is where my gaming heart lies these days. I barely touch consoles any more.
Just bought a Lost World machine actually (no, not the deluxe )

[112]

jus read the article, and bloody hell! i never thought that big......... i mean sean dude could write! Goes to prove that judging peeps from their looks dont pay off! It was so nostalgic.

What really suprised me was how accurate he was in describing the feeling and emotion of being an over 25 game player, and how harrowing arcade places are now compared to the golden age of arcade gaming!

nice lil trip down memory lane.............. thanks bud!

112

[Molloy]

The problem is that these cabinets are already essentially console hardware - Atomiswave vs. Dreamcast, Chihiro vs. XBox etc. When I was a kid I pumped 10p pieces into the arcade machines because they offered me an experience that my Spectrum, and then Amiga and Megadrive, couldn't offer me at home.

I don't seem to have been the only one, either, which is why the arcade games market descended into a combination of silly and expensive cabinets that you really couldn't have at home (though even expensive driving cabs don't do much over a DFP other than the rock-solid build required for public use now) or fighting games that live or die by whether or not they can get a crowd built around multiplayer. And in the UK, that's almost entirely 'die'.

I just don't understand the either/or mentality. Live music and CD's can cooexist. The two compliment each other.

When I used to go to the arcade I owned quite a few of the games on my Mega Drive: Aero Blasters, Street Fighter 2, Ghouls N' Ghosts, Wonderboy III: Monster Lair, Golden Axe and Strider. With SF2 it's obvious to see the appeal of the arcade version: you played against good players instead of the dull AI. With the rest there was just the satisfaction of practicing at home, getting really good, and gathering a huge audience of kids looking over your shoulder watching you rinse it. Showboating is the most fun you can have in an arcade.

Yes, the graphics were a little better, but the home conversions were really good as well. I just enjoyed the social aspect.

And when you're in town waiting for mum to finish the shopping the arcade isn't in competition with your consoles. It's in competition with texting on your mobile phone, reading a magazine etc. If they could bring back the dominance of the JAMMA cabinet and get operators new games for 500 quid a pop, then we could have cheap, replayable games that regulars would be interested in coming back to. The gimmick cabinets cost too much to play to have regular people. It's just random tourists and shoppers.

[Super Monkey Balls]

If they could bring back the dominance of the JAMMA cabinet and get operators new games for 500 quid a pop, then we could have cheap, replayable games that regulars would be interested in coming back to. The gimmick cabinets cost too much to play to have regular people. It's just random tourists and shoppers.

JAMMA is still very much alive and Naomi, Atomiswave and Type X are just three examples of budget hardware like you mention. They're doing OK in Japan where some gamers still appreciate the arcade environment, but there's simply not a demand for it here now consoles have equalled and surpassed arcade games in terms of visual wow factor, hence why big dedicated gimmick cabs are all that get played.