Presentation 1: Rise and Fall of the Arcade

Presentation 1: Rise and Fall of the Arcade

Our first presentation was on how the traditional arcade came to be so popular in its peak, and what factors played a role in its eventual demise.

In 1972 Atari was founded, which we considered to be the start of the arcade era, along with the release of Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian, Pacman, Centipede and Donkey Kong from 1978 to 1981.

The golden age of the arcade peaked around 1980 - 1982. Previous successes in arcade games in the late 70's lead to innovation and advancement of the arcade experience. The venues themselves became popular social hotspots for teenagers and young adults and the implementation of high-scores encouraged competitive gameplay amongst gamers. In North America alone there was a peak of 13,000 venues (only 4,000 remain).

However even during the golden age arcades were not seen as being 'family friendly' locations as advertised, as well as the media spreading fears about the 'dangers' of arcades amongst parents. Additionally, there was eventually an over-saturation of the video game market due to clones and low quality games being pushed out too quickly in an attempt to capitalise on the expanding market. These were the early signs for the eventual downfall of the arcade.

In 1985 the NES was released, closely followed in 1986 by the Sega Master System. The release of these consoles marked the true fall of the arcade, since they allowed people to play games in the comfort of their own homes. At this point arcades still had some unique selling points; side scroller fighting games like 'Street Fighter' and 'Double Dragon' were still very popular in arcades, mainly due to the fact that they were multiplayer focused games, so you could go into an arcade and find lots of other people looking to play the game with you. However on a home console you needed someone you knew to be there with you. Additionally, arcade machines were still more technically advanced than consoles so the games were of a higher quality.

However, in 1994 the Playstation was released, along with the Nintendo 64 in 1996. These consoles marked a next generation in console gaming and were far more technically advanced than any arcade machine.