Anyone seriously considering the Atari Asteroids Arcade machine?

[jerseystyle]

This guy engineers:

 

 

[+jeremiahjt]

2 hours ago, 82-T/A said:

 

This is going to be SUPER nerdy... but I started re-reading all my childhood AD&D novels (just got through the Pools of Radiance / Darkness / Twilight books), and I'm now reading the DragonLance / Krynn series. I'm starting with Preludes before I read the Chronicles, and I'm right now reading "Darkness and Light" which introduces a bunch of characters, focused primarily on Sturm and Kitiara right now. They just took off on some little ship that gnomes built, and they're always overengineering stuff, half of the time it breaks, but they're still geniuses. I never recalled this in Dungeons & Dragons, but apparently Gnomes are all engineers.

Dungeons & Dragons Gnomes were almost always described as genius, but maybe a little flighty. I am reading through the Ravenloft books now.

[+thanatos]

On 8/12/2024 at 6:36 PM, thanatos said:

Just walked past this in Vegas.  Seemed appropriate.

 

Ok, off topic to the thread, but I did end up playing this.  It's not a slot machine, you do play an updated graphics version of Asteroids.  You set what your "bet" amount is, and then as you play what happens affects your credits.  Just hitting fire reduces the credits in the machine, and then getting the power-ups and applying those to playing is how it compares your bet to winnings.  Needless to say the power ups are what is random generated, so even a super skilled player will not necessarily be able to play a long time.  

 

There was also an Arkanoid machine, same type of thing.

 

[leech]

On 8/7/2024 at 11:27 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Here's some direct capture footage of gameplay from the latest build. I'm not the best player at it (I'm still getting used to the idea of moving around instead of camping out in the center - you do better in moving around) but it does show how much of this has changed from the console version:

 

 

Wait, there's still an Arcade out in West Valley?  Wait, Valley Fair is still around?  Weird.

[leech]

On 8/14/2024 at 12:05 PM, jeremiahjt said:

Dungeons & Dragons Gnomes were almost always described as genius, but maybe a little flighty. I am reading through the Ravenloft books now.

I loved the Ravenloft books.  It is still my favorite D&D setting.  A lot of great settings were around when I played D&D, back in the 80s.  They screwed up Spelljammer from what I heard... I preordered the book, but still haven't even opened it...

[+CyranoJ]

10 Jaguars and copies of Rebooteroids with change.....

[Shaggy the Atarian]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:32 PM, leech said:

Wait, there's still an Arcade out in West Valley?  Wait, Valley Fair is still around?  Weird.

Yes (this is my place) and yes (VF got a big renovation back in 2012) 

 

Funny enough, most of the malls in Utah have faired well where malls haven't across most of the country. Presently, there are only 2-3 empty stores at VF, then malls like City Creek,  Fashion Place, and South Towne also are doing well. I'm not sure how Trolley Square, the Gateway, and Newgate (Ogden) are still open though.

[waynel]

1 minute ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Funny enough, most of the malls in Utah have faired well where malls haven't across most of the country.

There have been a number of articles in various newspapers over the last couple of years about how the demise of malls has been greatly overstated.  Apparently, poorly managed malls are going under because there were simply too many malls, and all of this while triggered by economic conditions, is a natural consolidation.

 

In addition, the Z's are supposedly discovering that the malls the Millennials shunned because they were too closely identified with Gen-X, turn out to be not so bad after all.  They've rediscovered the instant gratification that comes from going to a place and getting a thing, rather than going online and waiting for something to be delivered hours or days later.

 

(My wife works in retail, so I pay a bit more attention to this sort of thing than the average bear.)

 

A couple of months ago, I went to a mall for the first time in probably seven years.  It was packed.  Far beyond anything I experienced in the 80's.  It was so busy I ate some Taco Bell and left because it felt so claustrophobic.  Guess I've been inside too long. 

 

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

3 minutes ago, waynel said:

There have been a number of articles in various newspapers over the last couple of years about how the demise of malls has been greatly overstated.  Apparently, poorly managed malls are going under because there were simply too many malls, and all of this while triggered by economic conditions, is a natural consolidation.

 

In addition, the Z's are supposedly discovering that the malls the Millennials shunned because they were too closely identified with Gen-X, turn out to be not so bad after all.  They've rediscovered the instant gratification that comes from going to a place and getting a thing, rather than going online and waiting for something to be delivered hours or days later.

 

(My wife works in retail, so I pay a bit more attention to this sort of thing than the average bear.)

 

A couple of months ago, I went to a mall for the first time in probably seven years.  It was packed.  Far beyond anything I experienced in the 80's.  It was so busy I ate some Taco Bell and left because it felt so claustrophobic.  Guess I've been inside too long. 

 

 

Yeah, I see that since I'm there every day. Every time I see someone crow about how dead arcades are, I just wish it was easy to convey that I'm not only open, I've been doing well enough to stay open for 16 years. You don't manage that in a slower mall like mine in a "dead" market.

 

That said, there are some challenges out there in retail still. Things have been abnormal for business flow since last November, but that is not just me or the mall - I've seen some surveys from other arcade/amusement operators (taken nationwide), where 66% of respondents said that their business was down from this same time last year. Costs on pretty much everything has skyrocketed, while my earnings are where they were about 2015 (2019 was my best year; 2021 when people started going back out to do stuff was also pretty good). That's made it tough, but I get by. Here's some stats from an industry consultancy group that was just put out in regards to building new entertainment centers and the stuff they have to deal with: 

 

 

I did operate an arcade in another mall here where things were getting very bad with a lot of closures(I was one of them at the end of 2022 as business was just terrible there, despite having higher quality brands at that mall than the one I still operate in. When I left, I'd counted 12 empty stores with five others than myself closing up shop); that Trolley Square I mentioned also seems to hold on just because of one restaurant. The slow demise of theaters isn't helping at the moment, but I'm hopeful that we can round the corner.