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Message: [QUOTE="hazys, post: 43428, member: 33042"] I think one of the less-noted contributors to the death of the arcade is simply urban planning. Japan has very pedestrian-friendly cities with robust public transit systems. And it's still fairly cash-based. This creates an ideal environment for arcades, which are basically third places where you pass the time between work or school and home. Places like the US have never had this type of urban planning, so arcades were only popular insofar as you couldn't play the same games at home, with others. But now that you can, it's irrelevant. One could also go on about rising rent prices, fraying social cohesion, the increasing atomization caused by the Internet, etc... A lot of "third places" have disappeared all over the world. People have less reasons to "go out" than ever before. I also note that the average young (sub-25) person has a strong disinterest in the idea of interacting with strangers. It used to be fairly normal to have friendly chats with people you met while out-and-about. Then again, even in Japan "traditional" arcades are dying and being replaced with gachas or luck-based catchment games. When you think about it the whole concept of arcade games as "stuff that's very challenging until you practice extensively and/or compare notes with others" is very unique. People don't really look for that kind of game design anymore. [/QUOTE]

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