tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8167179463808604240.post7170113886483246074..comments2024-03-29T04:12:33.214-05:00Comments on The Golden Age Arcade Historian: The Ultimate (So Far) History of Cinematronics/Vectorbeam - Pt. 8Keith Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08421308095592306594noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8167179463808604240.post-49414681415495024292016-01-25T09:25:24.259-06:002016-01-25T09:25:24.259-06:00I remember seeing Dragons Lair the first time in I...I remember seeing Dragons Lair the first time in Italy in an Sala Giochi (Arcade). There was also a second screen on top of the cabinet as mentioned before. I couldn't believe that an arcade game has such an advanced graphic. As a youngster i didn't realize that this was animated graphics and i thought it was "computer graphics" instead. They tricked me ;) I think this is one of the things that made Dragons Lair such a big hit.Mike Arcade (Austria)noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8167179463808604240.post-864255432163529532014-03-07T19:31:17.361-06:002014-03-07T19:31:17.361-06:00I remember Dragon's lair being a very popular ...I remember Dragon's lair being a very popular game at Time Out, that they installed a color tv set on top of the cabinet for everyone to see it. The game itself was pure brilliance and fun to play. At 50 cents per play, most people figured it was just trial and error and learned on what Dirk should've done. It was a big breakthrough of using animation for gameplay considering at the time videogames were going to crash.<br />Space ace was futuristic and the flashes gave a better clue on what Ace should do. But the better one was Dragon's Lair 2, as I remember getting into the action of the game and somehow understating what to do, although the action sometimes confused me, and getting the treasures was difficult. I remember first seeing a clip of this new game on a tv game show The videogame. Although the game itself wasn't released into arcades until the 1990's due the crash of videogames. It's all great animation and very realistic and fantasy and all fun. Even since Dirk is a bumbling knight, he still manages to rescue the princess.J.M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14776230377794486016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8167179463808604240.post-81509651556726452532013-01-15T01:35:12.004-06:002013-01-15T01:35:12.004-06:00I think that there will always be a place for coin...I think that there will always be a place for coin-op games, even with smartphones and whatnot. The real social aspect of them can never be duplicated anywhere else. It seems to me arcades primarily died off just due to a lack of compelling content. They need to be fresh and innovative in order to keep drawing in players. In the 90's there was some of that, but the 2000's has basically been relegated to being nothing but Buck Hunter and Golden Tee. <br /><br />I'm always interested in the financial information. All I've seen from that period is Atari's sales numbers since AtariScott was able to get and release those documents.Adam Coatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10173118527796266162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8167179463808604240.post-65641678304230703812013-01-14T22:15:49.700-06:002013-01-14T22:15:49.700-06:00I don't know about the 50 cent price helping t...I don't know about the 50 cent price helping to kill the arcades. There was actually some discussion about this in the Tilt documentary in regards to pinball (some of the industry people thought that the 50 cent and dollar play really killed pinball and others think it wasn't much of a factor). I know that for me $1 is just too much for a pinball game, other than occastionally. Arcades today seem to be dominated by redemption games and aimed at youger kids.<br /><br />The most common theories on what killed the arcades seem to be that it was either a side effect of the home video game crash or that when home games and computer games got to be "just as good" as coin-op, there was no reason to go to the arcade anymore.<br /><br />That may have been true to some extent but I'm not sure it's the whole story. The arcade industry crashed pretty hard in 1983 and (especially) 1984. I, however, personally still played arcade games pretty heavily from 1985-1987 and it seems that the industry bounced back decently. I stopped playing around 1988-1990 but that was probably more because of my age than price or competition from home games (I had stopped playing console games even earlier. I was playing a lot of computer games but I'd always done that, even in the 1970s and early 80s and didn't see them as competition with arcade games. Not to mention the whole social aspect of arcades).<br /><br />The late 80s arcade scene wasn't nearly like it was in the golden age but it wasn't bad.<br /><br />I actually have financial information (revenue and net income) from the publicly traded companies (Bally/Midway, Atari, Gulf&Western/Sega, Allied Leisure/Centuri, Game Plan, Williams, Columbia/Coke/Gottlieb etc. - taken from annual reports) and it shows a dramatic decline in 1984. I plan on publishing this as an appendix in the book and may do a post on it if there's any interest.Keith Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08421308095592306594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8167179463808604240.post-79578207418587923932013-01-14T02:24:29.827-06:002013-01-14T02:24:29.827-06:00Great article. It's amazing that Dyer was able...Great article. It's amazing that Dyer was able to pull this off. He got Bluth and Cinematronics when both were desperate, perfect timing on his part. I liked that you had all the financial information for this as well.<br /><br />What you said about the 50 cent price point got me thinking... do you think the move away from the quarter is part of what killed off arcades? These days places like Dave and Buster's exist, but it's not somewhere you go regularly because it's so pricey. You go there once in a blue moon, and so they just try and make as much money off of you as they can in that rare instance you go. I've seen some places try to charge $1 to play the new X-men pinball game, and that's just astronomical to me. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that. Adam Coatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10173118527796266162noreply@blogger.com