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The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

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Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#11

Post by jbm »

suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

What arcades are you talking about, if you don't mind me asking? All the Sega ones were about as mainstream as you could get. I would walk out of Sunshine City in Ikebukuro and see it filled with normal-ish people. I even took my kids to play Taiko no Tatsujin in Nakano Broadway.

The tobacco issue was a lot better in Tokyo when I left; most indoor places are non-smoking now. IMO that is the only true benefit Tokyo reaped from the 2020 Olympic preparations.

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#13

Post by [deleted] »

suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

[deleted]

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#14

Post by tkgally »

suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

I agree about the horribleness of Japanese game arcades, but that actually can be an attraction if you’re in the right (or wrong?) frame of mind. I’ve dropped into “game centers” quite a few times over the years—usually just to use the restroom, though occasionally to look around. While arcades in the suburbs can be just annoying with the noise and teenagers, those in the scuzzier areas of big cities—Shimbashi and Kabukicho in Tokyo, Isezakicho in Yokohama, Nishinari in Osaka—can have an atmosphere of life-on-the-skids ennui all their own. I remember, one weekday afternoon, watching several middle-aged guys silently sitting at a horse racing game—something like the ones in [1] and [2]—in the dim basement of a run-down building in Shimbashi. It looked like they had been there all day. What a way to spend one’s life.

I haven’t been in any arcades for several years, but apparently they have been no-smoking since April 2020 [3, in Japanese].

[1] https://lineblog.me/mssp/archives/5037607.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrekv_ttmNQ

[3] http://bayon-game.com/?p=35375

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#15

Post by drzaiusapelord »

suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

The arcades I went to in Akihabara was pretty family friendly, but I did go to a smaller one on the 3rd floor of an anonymous looking business building in a different neighborhood and it was a bit seedy, but it was just nerdy guys playing classic games and classic consoles and not dangerous seeming at all. I wonder if your gf's perceptions are colored by how conformist and competitive Japanese culture is. Of course those men are "losers," they are spending all their time playing children's games. My understanding is that men and women over 25 who aren't married there are seen as "losers" as well, and not being married and being video game obsessed must be a kiss of death in that culture.

As a child of the 80s I'm very familiar with the seedy arcade in the USA. I remember every machine having an ashtray wedged between controller and screen and that awful stink. I doubt the men there were regarded as anything but "losers" by the mainstream of the time as well. Being a capitalist culture, gamers weren't respectable until streaming and tournaments in which they could become wealthy. Money makes right in our culture. So our current perception of gamers is very far from what people thought back then who couldn't get rich playing games.

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#16

Post by Klonoar »

jbm wrote: post #11
suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

What arcades are you talking about, if you don't mind me asking? All the Sega ones were about as mainstream as you could get. I would walk out of Sunshine City in Ikebukuro and see it filled with normal-ish people. I even took my kids to play Taiko no Tatsujin in Nakano Broadway. The tobacco issue was a lot better in Tokyo when I left; most indoor places are non-smoking now. IMO that is the only true benefit Tokyo re…

The non-mainstream ones can indeed feel a bit dodgy - like, night and day difference.

That said I still went to them periodically since you could often find older games there that the bigger ones had moved on from.

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#17

Post by lifthrasiir »

suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

It greatly depends; the notorious slot machine (pachinko) industry is mostly run by organized crime [1] and pachinko lovers are not well received in general, but arcade game centers described in this article are not necessarily pachinko parlors. And if a single arcade does have both pachinkos and other ordinary games, they are typically sectioned so that if you only want to play ordinary games you don't ever need to cross the pachinko area (in the other words, pachinkos are pervasive but also well hidden from the public sight).

[1] Many of them are also run by Korean Japaneses and this is a consequence of the discrimination of Koreans in Japan.

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#18

Post by Cthulhu_ »

suction wrote: post #8

I've visited plenty of arcades in Japan, and they were all horrible. Sure, the games were interesting, but they are sad and sometimes creepy places. Smoking is allowed in there, and with Japan's well known tobacco abuse problem, words fail to describe the stench in there. My Japanese girlfriend told me that "nobody normal would ever go in there" and was actually disappointed in me wanting to enter in that sort of pla…

Sounds a bit like the more sleazy casino's in europe and the US to be honest, or random slot machines in the corners of restaurants and bars.

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#19

Post by Cthulhu_ »

texasbigdata wrote: post #9
boomboomsubban wrote: post #6

How does someone blow that wad of cash on a game and convince some editor to let them write an article about it only to not include a picture of the cabinet in the article? I guess it could be their desire to monopolize they mention, but they don't seem adverse to bragging about it. Also I'm surprised there isn't a somewhat niche pachinko parlor market in the US already. My quick search shows one place in Virginia ad…

Wouldn't they technically be casinos and thus regulated? My experience with pachinko in Japan felt very much like the old strip in Las Vegas emotion and vibe wise.

Pachinko is a slot machine and is gambling, but they use a loophole to not be considered such - it pays out tickets that you can use to get toys and stuff like an arcade, but they will buy the toys back from you for money.

Re: The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

#20

Post by lifthrasiir »

Reverse engineering of Japanese music video games has been a huge issue. I was grown up from the environment where the only way to enjoy those games was an illegal means for a long time, and even at that time the contention was evident. In fact the article missed important details like that Konami moved to online authentication as a direct response to a massive content leak in 2012 among others, and that Programmed World (or later, Programmed Sun) was commonly used by gamers from Japan and other Asian countries where those games are legally available---even after the invitation-only policy and geofencing to prevent them. Made essential due to the COVID-19, the end game for those arcade game publishers seems to be the de-arcade-ization; Konami has been particularly active at mobile and PC ports of their arcade games and that greatly reduced the needs for legally questionable practices.
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