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Message: [QUOTE="Gorse, post: 8260, member: 73"] As a young person with disposable income – which I imagine would be this hypothetical venue's target demo – I think you've hit the nail on the head, here. I have precisely zero interest in playing video games IRL with anyone other than my closest friends. The world and the people in it aren't the same as they were in the '80s and '90s when in-person arcades reigned supreme, and physical game centres have even died off in the far-Eastern mecca of social cohesion and cultural trust (or so I've been told). At least online, if you're playing with a kooky rando, you can just leave the server. You're gonna hate me for saying this, but I really love this idea – you'll be able to [I]go into [/I]the game world from the comfort of your temperature-controlled sustenance pod! And then, with AI, you can create anything you want, including living creatures (say, of your worst enemy's mother), and have your sensory receptors directly wired into the Matrix, so the slop you'll be eating IRL tastes like a beautiful homemade dinner prepared by your virtual love-slave (provided on a month-to-month subscription by the Tesla-McDonald's™ Corporation). IT'LL BE JUST LIKE THE FUTURE!!!! OK, OK, I'm joking, but I really do think that, for a lot of people – maybe even for [I]most [/I]people – full-scale virtual immersion has now become preferable to real-world interaction. If you've ever lived somewhere where the people are a little rough (I have), you'll know what I mean. Right now, I don't think society at large is really equipped – culturally, economically, or architecturally – for big, modern video arcades like it was thirty to forty years ago. Maybe in the future, but, honestly, if you're a kid who has the option of A) going to the mall, which requires a ride there and back, a non-insignificant amount of money, you to look presentable on the weekend or after-school, a reasonable degree of good health, and a generally-trustworthy community to make worthwhile, or B) sitting in your room playing Fortnite, which would you choose? Arcades were big (and of course they still exist, but not to the level they used to) when there wasn't an alternative. Now there is, soooooooo... ? [/QUOTE]

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