It would be interesting to see a comparison of today's possibilities for VR in arcades, with the VR arcade machines of the early 90s [1]. VR didn't save arcades then; are there differences in today's VR games (or in today's home computing market) that make VR arcades a better bet now?
Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
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Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#12Wow Déjà vu. For a second there I thought I was in the 90s when 'Virtual Reality' was the next hot thing which never went anywhere.
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Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#13I'm reminded of a story I heard about some kind of VR experience at Disney or some theme park.
He thought it was cool and got in line to use it. The guy before him was very physical during his sim and sweated up a storm.
He put the goggles on, got immediately grossed out by the hot sweaty mess inside and took it off before it had even started.
Gross.
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#14I thought emulation would bring back the arcade, but that failed to catch on. A dying arcade I visited several years ago had a simple cabinet and a marquee that said something to the effect of "500 Games in One!" After trying it, it was pretty clear that it was running some kind of legal version of MAME. I wouldn't be surprised if the innards themselves were just a PC tower with a MAME-GUI loaded onto it.
The point being, however, it probably cost them less than $200 to put the thing together assuming they had an empty cabinet, and you paid a quarter to be able to pick from 500 games on which you could have a "vintage" experience. It was cheap, it was space effective, and to be honest it was alot more enjoyable than most of the other games they had there.
I kinda figured that would be the sort of thing that would survive in this day and age. I came back six months later and it had been replaced by a "Deal or No Deal" cabinet...
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#15It would be interesting to see a comparison of today's possibilities for VR in arcades, with the VR arcade machines of the early 90s [1]. VR didn't save arcades then; are there differences in today's VR games (or in today's home computing market) that make VR arcades a better bet now? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_(gaming)
The current technology is just loads better. I don't find myself longing to get to an arcade to experience Gouraud-shaded polygons at 10 frames per second.
Likewise, I don't want to throw on a head-mounted display and strap myself into a movement pad just to play another Call of Duty iteration, either. It will be interesting to see what new experiences indie devs can come up with that aren't another rehash of the last ten years of AAA gaming.
(Although the crossbow game looks pretty fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6t69mp0ZhE)
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#16I'm reminded of a story I heard about some kind of VR experience at Disney or some theme park. He thought it was cool and got in line to use it. The guy before him was very physical during his sim and sweated up a storm. He put the goggles on, got immediately grossed out by the hot sweaty mess inside and took it off before it had even started. Gross.
Oculus and the like have developed procedures for wiping down the headset between each use during demos. As long as there is a human operator (which is somewhat necessary for this generation of VR experiences), this shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#17Stuff like this will thrive: https://thevoid.com/
The VR experience has to be enhanced from what people will be able to get at home. Having a bunch of VR headsets in a room and calling that an arcade will quickly become obsolete. But what people won't have as much access to is spaces that mirror the virtual world and allow you to "feel" the space. A 1:1 physical mapping with a virtual world has a very powerful effect on the suspension of disbelief.
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#18The problem is capital investment. A VR arcade will be cutting edge for what, 18 months at the most? After that the hardware is no longer better than what you can achieve at a consumer level. That's not very long to make back your investment.
I do think there is a place for a third party business when it comes to VR though in the realm of 'guided' RPG's and narratives. Imagine paying 25 bucks for you and your friends to join a 3D D&D style adventure with a professional DM and actors in mocap playing the part of the major characters. There's a lot of compelling things that could be done in this arena, and it takes the focus off of the tech and makes it more about interactivity and immersion. There's also quite a lot of relatively cheap untapped talent in local improv/community theater scenes to find some reasonable acting talent. Heck, mocap is getting good enough that your actors could have home studios easily enough withing a few years.
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#19The problem is capital investment. A VR arcade will be cutting edge for what, 18 months at the most ? After that the hardware is no longer better than what you can achieve at a consumer level. That's not very long to make back your investment. I do think there is a place for a third party business when it comes to VR though in the realm of 'guided' RPG's and narratives. Imagine paying 25 bucks for you and your friend…
Would you really need a physical arcade for that though?
If everyone has a black box strapped to their face and can communicate sub-100ms, would people even know that they weren't in the same physical location?
Re: Virtual Reality Will Bring Back the Arcade
#20The problem is capital investment. A VR arcade will be cutting edge for what, 18 months at the most ? After that the hardware is no longer better than what you can achieve at a consumer level. That's not very long to make back your investment. I do think there is a place for a third party business when it comes to VR though in the realm of 'guided' RPG's and narratives. Imagine paying 25 bucks for you and your friend…
That high capital investment is what makes arcades ideal. Even if they're only "cutting edge" for 18 months, even the previous generation of that hardware will still be outside of the range of most consumers.