Will arcade collecting die out?

[Nintendo Arcade]

Well for starters I am certainly not going through a midlife crisis because I've been collecting games since I was 9 years of age, they've just got bigger because I have the space.
The hobby is bigger than ever with more and more events in the Calender year appearing.
The retro scene is massive right now bigger than the modern gaming scene.
And every year I see younger and younger people getting interested in arcades.
Like classic bikes,pinballs.and anything with a classic social history these machines will always hold there price or continue to increase in value .

 

[TonyElyod]

Alex...
Sorry To Burst your Bubble...BUT..

altho The Retro Scene has grown MASSIVELY over the past couple of years, it's NOWHERE near the Modern Gaming Scene...

The Sales for Modern Games are in their multi Millions !!

I think You're being a bit over ethusiastic & been playing DK too long

 

[Paul_in_nottingham]

I can see both sides here. I certainly hope it won't die out.

It could be argued that video games are still an emerging industry, it's not yet fully mainstream despite making more than the movie industry pa in recent years.

To continue the analogy to movies, loads of people are still interested in the history of early film and motion pictures, and indeed, there are many people who collect early prints. none of these people would have been around in the 1890/early 1900's, so there's always people who will want to collect for historic value.

 

[Nintendo Arcade]

Alex...
Sorry To Burst your Bubble...BUT..

altho The Retro Scene has grown MASSIVELY over the past couple of years,  it's NOWHERE near the Modern Gaming Scene...

The Sales for Modern Games are in their multi Millions !!

I think You're being a bit over ethusiastic &  been playing DK too long 

Lol yea maybe
" I am in a bubble "

 

[phillv85]

The next few years will be important for the arcade scene. We're seeing the first generation of collectors who had no or little previous history with classic arcades. If we see more people in their early 20's coming on board then at least the classics will continue to be collected. I think some of the older more niche titles will be in danger in the next 10-20 years as many of them are already rare, and tend to be collected by people who have them for nostalgia reasons, rather than because they are an instant classic. People who have no history with them are unlikely to seek them out. Parts for some games are also becoming much harder to find, and with CRT production pretty much halted around the world, some of the less common monitors are already becoming tough to get hold of.

 

[Big Phil]

This is exactly why I'm introducing the "NERG Juniors" club at NERG this year. I don't want this hobby to die out.

I'm setting out tasks for the under 12's to do during the weekend to win a goody bag.

Get's them into the retro gaming and hopefully, spur them on to keep the hobby going.

 

[ZuPoint]

This is exactly why I'm introducing the "NERG Juniors" club at NERG this year. I don't want this hobby to die out.

I'm setting out tasks for the under 12's to do during the weekend to win a goody bag.

Get's them into the retro gaming and hopefully, spur them on to keep the hobby going.

 

[RaveN]

In this respect, not all arcade games are equal.
I would expect the classics from the early golden era to always be sought after.

In 50 years time, I can still imagine a big demand for star wars, tron, space invaders, pacman etc etc.. But then there's the later games that have no noteworthy place in history, but we collect just because they have personal nostalga, those are the cabs that are in trouble.

For example, I love my Champ Sprint, but it has little historical significance and I doubt anyone would want it in 10,20,30 years time.

Game PCBs we can keep on repairing assuming you have hoarded enough RAM, CPU etc ICs and thankfully there's a lot of clever people about constantly trying to reverse engineer customs.

The one major problematic area (that others have touched on) is the monitor. Obviously med-res monitors are tricky. But LOPTs on classics just aren't available. Those LOPTs seem VERY reliable, but there's only so long they can go for, I'm talking about early Taito cabs and vectors in particular. There's also the issue with B&W Tubes.

Saying that, when an arcade machine is in a private collection and perhaps only turned on once every month or so, who knows how long they will last, maybe 30+ years is possible?

I very much doubt the classics will ever lose their value though, even if demand drops over the years, so will the number of surviving cabs.

I'm not old enough to ever witness early 80s games in my arcade, I missed out on the proper classics. All I remember is double dragon, op wolf, turtles, final fight etc etc.. And yet the majority of my collection is before that, which just goes to show you can collect and appreciate games that you never even played! I also own a couple of pins, even though I never played them as a kid! So there's always hope for the future generation.

Oops, that was far longer than I meant it to be, sorry to send people to sleep!

 

[stryker]

I remember some years ago some russian company realising they could make a niche killing if they started manufacturing brand new valves especially given their use in amps.

I've been kind of hoping something similar would happen for CRTs... my money would be on a russian, chinese or indian firm.... I wonder what the chances are?

 

[muddymusic]

I don't think it will ever die. Parts are in plentiful supply for now and demand for classic cabs just seems to being going up and up. When parts do eventually run out more will be made, look at where we are with 3d printing, impossible to get parts are being remade, custom chips have been reverse engineered and recreated. If there's demand for stuff someone will always find a way to make more.

CRT's might well be available again new soon, these guys are building a factory and have all the kit from the 2 last manufacturers.
http://www.earlytelevision.org/crt_project.html

Not to mention all the tens of thousands still in attics, houses, recycling centres. Undoubtedly warehouses full of old stock too. More stuff is always being discovered, cabs and parts alike. When you think you've seen all the hidden cabs someone goes and finds some crated cabs or pallets full of parts etc., people are on the lookout for these things now, and of course the promotion of the hobby has made people realise that dirty old games machine might be worth a few quid so better stick it on ebay rather than skip it.

Interest is high for a new generation now what with all the retro shows going on, so people who never experienced the arcades as we knew them have been able to experience it for themselves.

It's gonna be here for a long time, I have no doubt

 

[Bods]

It's like Classic Cars

There are always children of the parents that had the cars and like to collect the old ones that were around, always nice to see a younger person with an old 80's car thats only about 20 years old

Just need to raise your kids the right way

 

[TonyElyod]

So long as "Blokes" have a Games Room or Cave or whatever..

...It will NEVER die out..

GAME ON !!

 

[JohnnyChaos]

I just think the focus will shift as collectors are less driven by nostalgia.

I think that's happening already as older dedicateds are seeming to take longer to sell but demand for more modern cabs are growing.

 

[Alpha1]

The way I look at it is some games will hold their value, some will go down, and some will go up.

The same it has always been really.

Human nature loves to collect things - nearly everyone collects *something*

The fact fairground mutoscopes and other machines from the 1850-1910 go for seriously crazy money and the fact no one from back then is alive to have the nostalgia to collect them tells me this scene will always be alive.

Just don't collect the crap games

 

[Milky]

The fact fairground mutoscopes and other machines from the 1850-1910 go for seriously crazy money and the fact no one from back then is alive to have the nostalgia to collect them tells me this scene will always be alive.

^^This. Also, look at how many kids were at the Slam - as long as we keep sharing what we've got with the younger generation, they'll get involved and want to take on our cabs once we shuffle off this mortal coil.

 

[Jaycee72]

Not many.

Here's my grim prediction for the future.

In 10-15 years, many - but not all - of us will get over our mid-life crises and move our cab collections on.

In 30-40 years, most of the remaining collectors will pop their clogs. Some will have kids who hang on to cabs for sentimental reasons - 'that was dad's favourite game' - but not because the game itself is particularly special to them. Most of these cabs will subsequently be banished to damp and dingy sheds / garages by unsympathetic partners / spouses.

In 50-60 years, most of the remaining cabs which have been languishing unloved in kids / grandkids garages will be skipped.

The good news - a few cabs will survive for ever, but with all electronic circuitry fooked by the inevitable solar flares 

I'm not so sure.....
(My maybe I'm kidding myself take on it)
Most collectors have a nostalgic connection playing as a kid. That would makes us 40ish. Some of the folk we spent time with as a kid having the time of our lives in these arcades haven't yet cottoned on to the fact (or have the disposable yet) that you can now relive all those memory's at home. I reckon there's 30 years left. Cabs will get scarcer. Prices will go up as long as we don't bail.
The most important thing though pleasure you get from them and anything else is a bonus I suppose.

 

[CharlieFar]

Depressing read, but not sure I agree that it will die. It's just that the sub-set of classic cabs will shrink a bit, then remain largely stable. I think we're already seeing evidence of that. We talk enthusiastically about Donkey Kong, Galaxian, Starwars, Pacman, etc - the top tier games. We all want to play and own them. But how many of you are keen to collect and play Gold Bug, Markham or Stone Ball? Or even heard of them? A lot of these PCB's/cabs probably barely exist today let alone in the future.
Luckily, projects like MAME will preserve the ROMS as boards start to die, or lay rusting in non-gamers collections. Sometimes, I'll try a game I've not heard of in MAME and occasionally be pleasantly surprised. Other times it's more like "Jebus Taito, you should be ashamed of yourselves, this was 1983!". Sorry for picking on Taito, but they did release some sh*te post Space Invaders.

Like others have said, it mirrors other collectables and media. I'm not a classic car collector but I know that there's a lot of interest for MG's, Mini's, Rolls Royce and so on. I'm sure that there are dedicated groups that enthuse about lesser cars but I've not heard of them. Same for classical music - Beethoven, Wagner and Chopin are widely known, but not many listen/play Dohnányi or Arensky (both great btw).

I don't think the futures bleak for retro-game collecting. As long as we're around (there's quite a lot of us and we're not that old...yet), the scene is going nowhere.

Maybe MAME in the future will support Oculus Rift V5.0 with haptic feedback.

My old-style 10p's worth.

 

[Rich]

It's funny whatever forum i'm a member of this type of discussion comes up - be it with game and watches - "what will happen when the LCD's eventually leak", LED watch forum (70's Pulsars etc) - "what are we going to do when the circuits break down", Film camera forums - "what happens when kodak finally stop producing film", retro games forum - "all our Dreamcast games are going to suffer from disc rot in the future" etc etc...

I just don't worry too far into the future, Anyway the more sparse and rare things become the more interesting they will become and the last remaining specimens will be treasured and looked after above all, imagine a museum in the future displaying the only Donkey Kong cab left in existense, "you mean you use your hands to play it?, thats like a baby's toy" (5p if you recognise the quote)

Cheers, Rich

Edit - rereading the topic I realise the original question wasn't as foreboding as I first interpreted it Rich2014-09-10 00:31:23

 

[Rich]

Double postRich2014-09-10 00:31:05

 

[silverfox0786]

It's funny whatever forum i'm a member of this type of discussion comes up - be it with game and watches - "what will happen when the LCD's eventually leak", LED watch forum (70's Pulsars etc) - "what are we going to do when the circuits break down", Film camera forums - "what happens when kodak finally stop producing film", retro games forum - "all our Dreamcast games are going to suffer from disc rot in the future" etc etc...

I just don't worry too far into the future, Anyway the more sparse and rare things become the more interesting they will become and the last remaining specimens will be treasured and looked after above all, imagine a museum in the future displaying the only Donkey Kong cab left in existense, "you mean you use your hands to play it?, thats like a baby's toy" (5p if you recognise the quote)

Cheers, Rich

Edit - rereading the topic I realise the original question wasn't as foreboding as I first interpreted it

back to the future Part II

TBH I don't care what happens in the future, what happens now is what I care about and now I love my retro gear, and it doesn't matter what its worth in the future.

everything dies, that main thing is was before it died worth it

My answer is YES