F-Droid is a fantastic app store. You’ll find a lot of really cool software there, most of which can’t be found on the regular Play Store, such as NewPipe (which allows you to do all the things a YouTube Premium subscription does for free), AuroraStore (an alternative client for the Play Store that doesn’t require a Google account) and AAAAXY (a rather intriguing non-euclidean puzzle platformer). Best part is, every app on F-Droid is free and open source and none contain ads. Side note, consider supporting developers.
I think the greediest ones would’ve been the same as the current gen if done now. Times has changed and so would they:
Traditional revenue from restarts VS revenue from keeping the session going indefinetely (and expose to mtx). The latter is more akin to a casino, and it’s not exactly the same.
Arcades market in public spaces VS home consoles market and a sofa. Gonna keep the tempo of rotation like in fast food joints, you won’t sit there for an hour. Also, the invention of a score chart making it a sequential public competition.
They were sold to businesses, business owners are rare to be gamers (for they are too busy), and arcade games were built around returning investments as they buy an expensive game cabinet as a point-of-interest. Like a karaoke in a bar, it drags people into the mall or other place and exposes them to other services while not wanting them to just game.
Also, yes, they were too fucking expensive in a hardware and a furniture alone. Cooperative games’ cabinets didn’t care much, because they have a stable audience and a need of people to move around freely in agitation, ‘blockbuster’ releases of racing sims for example had driving chairs, even an emulation of a cabin sometimes, all specififcally designed and produced for it. To sell one, you R&D new controllers, new designs, new hardware. As the game’s quality itself was irrelevant up until it caught your eye, and you really sell a whole PC for a game, it could’ve been less of a priority than it’s now. Look at Sega: most you know now they are a software company first, and buying their games from Gabe is like ordering a pizza, there’s literally no hardships of physical marketing they had before, it all became digital.
I may be wrong in some points (like I did ignore panchiko for I haven’t played them), but it’s the specifics of an arcade market what made them like that, and a growing market of home PCs did so too.
P.S. Also kinda fun to find some old cabinets with unique cabinet versions of known games. Like Need for Speed for example. Can’t recall what part it was, but it had it’s UI and gameplay loop completely rearranged specifically to pursue these ideas. I feel like they are lost to history now for no one cared having a better version on another platform.
P.S. Also kinda fun to find some old cabinets with unique cabinet versions of known games. Like Need for Speed for example.
Interesting that you mention because a couple of months ago I do once see a arcade cabinet that run Need for Speed: The Run on it
Now I’m not sure if that thing is official or not (high chance it is fake considering there is little to nonexistent information about it’s official existence online) but it’s is coin operated and complete with the NFS: The Run branding all over it
I wish I had a picture of the machine to describe the machine better to you but sadly the dumb side of me is letting go the opportunity to take it while I was there…
I guess my find was older than Carbon, and The Run was when, in early 2010s? I’m surprised it happened, that they still did these things. Your little memory makes me wonder for how long they actually did them.
And, for just a little, a dream to get one of those to emulate racing games with such a style. Probs it means a full hardware change, but sitting there and playing Burnout, Underground could’ve become a life goal. One another tick in the list for my never-retirement (:
It is Ghosts 'n Goblins and it and it’s sequels (Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts) can be played on the nintendo switch’s various old-school emulators or on various sites like RetroGames
I need to be thankful that those bar games were hard from the beginning and had me killed within seconds whenever I tried them, so I never got addicted to them. If those games had used modern user-retention tactics back then I would’ve spent a ton of coins in my life.
I honestly think that gng is one of the most punishing games ever created. The fact that you complete it (took me till adulthood with cheats) that it turns around and tell you to do it again to actually win, is one of the most evil things that the game could have done.
Finishing Ghost and goblins (along with ghouls and ghosts) without cheats/saves is bragging rights
My ultimate gaming achievement was beating Pulstar on one quarter in the arcade (although it wasn’t really fair, I had a neogeo cabinet at home with Pulstar and I played it for hours everyday for weeks). Still, this is an accomplishment that no one I know has matched
I played it so much that I did a playthrough all on one save. I had to leave the NES plugged in overnight, which is some sort of miracle that the dog didn’t yank out the cord.
I’m not typically good at games, so I will still be babbling about this accomplishment on the day I succumb to advanced dementia.
It’s been a looooong time, but I remember the manual saying that they were a thing that exists, but not telling you where they are.
EDIT: Found the manual online. Turns out it doesn’t even tell you that much. It does tell you how to find the first two dungeons, but you can figure that out yourself without the manual. Also, I forgot one of the dungeons was shaped like a swastika, which, I know that has different connotations in Eastern cultures and Nintendo wasn’t really entirely conversant with Western cultures at this point, but hoo boy.
If you want to have a great time completing the first Zelda, try playing it with Hand Drawn Gameguides.
It’s written like a kind of journal with a lot of artwork and hints that don’t immediately spoil the experience but give you enough guiding to find the rest yourself.
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