New job. Managing an arcade.

[Moto42]

I'm manager of the Cyber Zone arcade, located in the Broadway Square Mall, Tyler Texas. (In case anyone is ever in the neighborhood.)

I've had the job for about 2 days now actualy.
Essentialy I got the job because I came very well recommended by one of the employees.
Previous management has run profits down to about half what they were a year ago. For the past month or so it's been remotely managed by the District manager, who drives around half of Texas in a week, and thus isn't in much of a position to really help the situation directly.
I get to do all the ussual managerial tasks of depositing cash and writing the work schedual, in addition to the more interesting tasks of fishing small children out of the basket-ball goal game, deciphering error messages like "Dongle not present" and I'm sure that other forms of wierdness will crop up quikly enough.

If anyone would tell me what they like to see in an arcade, what they don't like to see in arcades, or anything they think would just be cool to have in their local arcade. I would be greatly appreciative.

[Ancient History]

Cheap prizes (if you give out tickets) signs clearly marking machines take tokens only (for idiots) general cleanliness and low lighting.

I'd advise against adding videopoker machines that dispense tokens. I believe that's what put our local arcade under (it's now an indoor glow-in-the-dark minigolf).

All true arcades should have one pinball machine, minimum.

[Nightsky]

I don't go to arcades much anymore. Now it's mostly strip clubs and casinos.

Anyway! I always liked to go to an arcade that had Soul Calibur series game in it. I kicked ass at that game before it went to console stations. I also liked the big vid shooter game. I think it was called house of the dead. I always hated the racing games, but then again i prefer blood and violence in my games.

It's kind of nice to have at least one token machine near the middle of the arcade, so I don't have to walk all the way to the door to get more tokens. And going near the door reminds me that "Hey...there are things I could be doing"

[Paul]

Bring in the little kids, the more the better. They bring their parents, and their parents money. Divide the place so that the big kids are generally on the one side, and stuff designed for smaller kids are on the other.

Ticket dispensing games are a childs favorite, and they will spend ten dollars worth of tokens for a ten cent prize. Well their parents will anyways.

This site sells retro games. These are for kids. If you already have them, make use of them.

What kind of advertisement do you do? You may want to look at that, maybe hang up flyers on bulletin boards at grocery stores when you go to them, just keep a stack in your car.

[Anguirel]

The only games I play in arcades these days are those with some sort of gimmick that's hard to take home. Silent Scope, for example, with the really cool sniper rifle controller. DDR (until the home mats came out) probably kept the arcades near my college afloat for a few years.

To help you out, I'll try to compile a short list of your basics:

Latest Fighter - people who frequent arcades love getting good at the latest and greatest fighting game and showing off for a crowd. If you ever get crowds, I highly recommend keeping at least two of the most recent fighter games around (Soul Calibur, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, whatever is hot...).

Gimmick Games - shooters where you hold a light gun are good... but those where you can physically duck, or give you a zoomed in view, or otherwise incorporate more than just the usual shooting are better. These are the experiences people are afte rin arcades.

Racing Games - I hate to say it, but this is the other big one for most arcades. People love having a stick shift next to them instead of pushing a button to shift. Jamming on pedals and spinning the wheel is much better than tweaking a couple analog sticks on a dinky controller. You need a bank of at least 4 so groups can race together.

Retro - If you have extra room after that, I'd suggest one or two retro machines (multi-game systems if you can get a good one -- I've seen Capcom anthology sets which include all of the classic Capcom games on them, at the least including all of the Street Fighters and derivative fighters from that series -- see basic #1). If you serve food or are near a food court, a table-set Pac-man and a few chairs can bring in a little extra cash and a few extra people who might not otherwise have come in.

[ak404]

Make sure you get the game with card slots/dispensers - like those racing games (ala Initial D and that other racing game by Midway that escapes my mind at the moment) that use cards to save a player's progress. The same applies to games that use password systems. IIRC, those cards and passwords are exclusive to that machine only, which means that if someone wants to resume progress or access their old accomplishments, they'll have to come back to your arcade.

And for fuck's sake, make sure the joysticks on your fighting games are well-calibrated.

For us old-schoolers, you'll need one up-to-date twitch shooter, like the Raiden Fighter series. I only see these in one out of ten arcades, which is unfortunate. Make them a quarter, no matter what: nobody plays twitch shooters anymore because they're so hard to find, but they would if they played them.

[DarkMage]

(...) deciphering error messages like "Dongle not present" and I'm sure that other forms of wierdness will crop up quikly enough.
(....)

So what is a Dongle?

[Anguirel]

(...) deciphering error messages like "Dongle not present" and I'm sure that other forms of wierdness will crop up quikly enough.
(....)

So what is a Dongle?

dongle



<hardware> /dong'gl/ (From "dangle" - because it dangles off
the computer?)

1. <security> A security or copy protection device for
commercial microcomputer programs that must be connected to
an I/O port of the computer while the program is run.
Programs that use a dongle query the port at start-up and at
programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not
respond with the expected validation code.

One common form consisted of a serialised EPROM and some
drivers in a D-25 connector shell.

Dongles attempt to combat software theft by ensuring that,
while users can still make copies of the program (e.g. for
backup), they must buy one dongle for each simultaneous use
of the program.

The idea was clever, but initially unpopular with users who
disliked tying up a port this way. By 1993 almost all dongles
passed data through transparently while monitoring for their
particular magic codes (and combinations of status lines)
with minimal if any interference with devices further down the
line. This innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained
dongles for multiple pieces of software.

In 1998, dongles and other copy protection systems are fairly
uncommon for Microsoft Windows software but one engineer in
a print and CADD bureau reports that their Macintosh
computers typically run seven dongles: After Effects, Electric
Image, two for Media 100, Ultimatte, Elastic Reality and CADD.
These dongles are made for the Mac's daisy-chainable ADB
port.

The term is used, by extension, for any physical electronic
key or transferable ID required for a program to function.
Common variations on this theme have used the parallel port
or even the joystick port or a dongle-disk.

An early 1992 advertisment from Rainbow Technologies (a
manufacturer of dongles) claimed that the word derived from
"Don Gall", the alleged inventor of the device. The company's
receptionist however said that the story was a myth invented
for the ad.

[Jargon File]

(1998-12-13)

2. A small adaptor cable that connects, e.g. a PCMCIA
modem to a telephone socket or a PCMCIA network card to an
RJ45 network cable.

(2002-09-29)

[Brineshrimp]

Sheesh, that was a long explanation. I'm sorry he asked. :o

I'd suggest putting in games multiple people can play. Especially if you can link them together. Silver Strike Bolwing is a good game. Up to 8 players per game, and it costs $1 for 10 frames.

I don't know how large or established your place is, but sekk food/snakcs if you can. Refreshments are where the money is at.

[Moto42]

Wow. Thankyou Ang. For the record, our dongle's are USB.

Food and drink are supposedly in the works, but a ways off.
In the meantime I'm thinking of buying a couple coolers and stocking them with cokes and snacks purchased from the nearby Wal-Mart, and selling them from my own pocket.
One of my employees already did this with Power Aid today and I've tried it with Pizza. (Almost broke even, but I got lunch on the cheap.)

We ran a DDR tournament today. The rules were worked out with the input of local players, and posted for 2 weeks. Then the district manager highjacked the whole show; changing 90% of the rules in the process. It still went over well but the players (and staff) were annoyed to say the least.

[Brineshrimp]

Wow, there were some major misspellings/typos in my last post. I'm glad you were able to understand that.

The DDR tourney was a good idea. You might want to have more things like that for your most popular games.

Perhaps run some promos....

1. Double Token Night: Get double the tokens for your money. Run it on a slow night to help pick-up business.

2. Ladies' Night: Girls get 4 free tokens. (Guys go where the girls are.)

3. Find someone who is REAL good at a game. Have him/her come in and play for free for an hour or so. People like to watch others do well. Plus, if it's a semi-popular game and you have more than one, it could help to pick-up more interest in said game.

[Salvation122]

(...) deciphering error messages like "Dongle not present" and I'm sure that other forms of wierdness will crop up quikly enough.
(....)

So what is a Dongle?

dongle

<hardware> /dong'gl/ (From "dangle" - because it dangles off
the computer?)

[snip]

For the record, perhaps the most prevalent modern dongle (and a simple example) is the Xbox DVD playback kit.

[WillyGilligan]

I love the word dongle. Makes me feel dirty.