Social Gaming: Arcades to Online

[Kalyx triaD]

I have a chat with some bloke over at SRK (yes, the one I vow weekly to never post at) about how arcades and online gaming replacing them.
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Originally Posted by machinablack Console/Online isn't the new Arcade simply because it can never emulate the Arcade experience. Even with such a small arcade community in the U.S., the interaction at an arcade is leaps and bounds better than the online experience of rage quitting plug pullers, lag abusers, scrubs that never learn and input delay. It's okay to be excited about having a new fighting game to play in Ohio while you wait for the next FPS to come out, but stop trying to compare the experience you have at home with the experience that people associate with arcades. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Kalyx triaD Flawed logic aplenty. First, online match making does in fact simulate the process of meeting players of similar tastes in competitive and/or cooperative fashion. If not in a better system may I add, due to the process of match making and segmenting not only what games players want to meet up for, but even what mode of interaction they chose. Secondly, your definition of the arcade experience is largely 'rose tinted' and I do share your feelings, but discrediting the online arena purely based on the superficial aspects of arcade gaming does not warrant labeling it a failure in it's chief priority - that is to connect gamers. Third, don't even pretend the arcade was some safe haven from disrespectful gamers who ruined the experience. Although the arcade's inherent physical aspects prevent most bad apples from acting out in a group as they do in an online game, it was hardly a beacon of light. There were scrubs, and elitist who couldn't care less that you were using a broken button or joystick for instance. Keep in mind we had no alternatives in regard to playing with like-minded gamers. Had the online arena existed in some uniform fashion anywhere near as elaborate as XBLive back then, arcades would have died even before they became financial liabilities to malls and managers. Lastly, it's not that people like me (rational people, TBH) are trying to compare the two eras of community gaming, we just are. There is no attempt, and it has - as I've stated - been supported by the very developers of those old arcades. We don't have to try to explain anything when we're seeing the evolution of the medium before our very eyes. My 13yo nephew could care less about whether or not we used to stand next to our opponents/partners when he's matched with friends thousands of miles away from him in his favorite games; by the way, an advantage the classic arcade circuit couldn't come close to providing without some roadtrip the likes seen in The Wizard. Sorry.

Originally Posted by machinablack Hahah, I went into no detail and you formulated that entire post around what you assumed I meant. Congratulations, you fail.

Originally Posted by Kalyx triaD Correct me. I'm not some closed minded elitist smuck who wouldn't admit going off the deep end, so I'm open to any and all correction measures. I'm all ears.

Originally Posted by machinablack If I wanted to go into that much detail, I would have on the first post I made. Also, there is nothing to correct. Some qualities have more weight than others and you missed part of what defines the arcade experience in my opinion. If what you listed is all you consider important than it won't matter if I go into detail on what I consider important and it certainly won't matter if those things are, in fact, missing online. By the way, you are closed minded.

Originally Posted by Kalyx triaD If a door's open and you walk right by it and then say it was actually closed, you fail. You made a statement, I responded, you made clear that I misread your statement, I requested clarification in accordance to your observation, you do not clarify - and instead call me 'close minded' in face of me asking you to elaborate. A simple "I don't want to" would have been far more civil without dropping a negative title and calling it a day. Oh, and I really acknowledged that arcades possessed elements simply not found in online gaming - I merely presented it as things that wasn't enough to sustain arcades as we know them.

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His response pending. So what say you guys on the fall of arcades and rise of online network gaming?