Recent... 5 years ago? ddrinfinity? Darren and Pete playing DDR together? Ah, good times.

I just noticed the purse on the side of the machine. major lolz there.

Kinda looks like Tilt!  Can anyone confirm?

Too bad the scene's dying.  I don't see what people fail to see in DDR.

The picture was taken at Lazer Zone in Vancouver.  The scene isn't dying, as it's been dead for almost 2 years. It would've happened even longer ago though if ITG didn't exist. I think DDR peaked in popularity in Oregon in the summers of 2002 (Max2 had just arrived) and 2004 (TOAST). When DDRInfinity died in Fall 2004, things began to slow down a lot. Large tournaments and gatherings can still attract many people, but hardly anyone still practices regularly. With so few players in the area, new players don't have much motivation to play seriously and don't often stick around.

At least I don't have to avoid the hour-long lines anymore.

I agree with Kyrandian.

For the last two or three years the community has really taken a nose-dive. Not just in the Portland area either. I travel between Pullman, WA and Fresno, CA each year and both communities have all but dissapeared. I know DDR began it's popular run in Japan about 3 years ahead of the US, and about 3 years after it died out in Japan, the US followed. Kind of strange, yet ironic.

I wouldn't say it's dead, but I wouldn't say it's alive either.  Not in the slightest.  I'd say the scene is quite incapacitated, but not yet beyond the grave.

It seems to me like the death of the bemani scene was self-perpetuating. No experienced players ever move or travel here anymore because there are few other experienced players. As Kyrandian said,  newbies are discouraged by the lack of interest and protips, and even when they get good they rarely think to check out other players online.

Oh, and I think instead of trying to have a huge tournament to interest players it would be better to have informal, smaller tournaments that would still encourage everyone to practice and get better.

Just my opinion on the subject.

It's 'cause not enough people play on Standard any more.

Heavy is intimidating and light is unexciting.  People still like to watch it, but nobody wants to try it, because they don't realise that it just takes a little practice to get good.  Personally, I'm to the point where I'd rather play non-bemani games with all my Bemani friends.  It's a cool group, but the game just isn't that great to just play.

I still play DDR semi regularly. Everytime I'm at the mall or movies, I take the time to play at least 1 round of DDR.

I'm not here to upset anyone, but there is something I've noticed regarding the age of players and their comitment to the DDR/ITG series.

Myself, and most of the bemani buddies I play with have continually played DDR or ITG for years now and we're all 20+ years old...In the 5 years I've been playing, it seems that the most dedicated of the players I know are over 18 years old and have continued to show intrest and dedication to the DDR/ITG games, depite their stagnation. On the other hand, in the same amount of time, I have seen dozens of younger players (ages 13-18) that come, get REALLY good, then get bored, then dissapear. I realize this probably doesn't apply to the majority of you on this site, (you wouldn't be here if you were only in it for the short term) but this is what I have seen from my experiences.

My main theory for why younger players leave the scene is a simple matter of 'burn out'. These players seem to start fast, play constantly and perhaps even excessively within the first 3-6 months, they excel at the game and get to the point of beating Max 300 and other difficult songs within a year. Then the burnout occurs. Most younger players I know get to this point, then they slowly lose interest in the game and you see them less and less. It appears to me that the main goal for these players seems to be the ability to complete all the songs on the list. Rarely do I see them strive for AAAs (they do try to get better at PA'ing, but the players I've known never seem to get very far). Even more rarely do I see them dabble in freestyling, aside from the a-typical Butterfly or R3 routines. Is this because both of these require larger amounts of time, energy, and concentration to perfect, opposed to simply completing songs? I'm not sure how much others can confirm this observation, but this is somthing I've noticed and I felt that perhaps it might be relevant to this topic.

Suko, I totally agree (even though I have like 15 SDG's and 1 BF, lol).
I think it's just because most young teens have little ability to stay interested in any one thing for a while. The first part of that sounds just like me (the first time I cleared max 300 I got an A), but I have not really experienced a serious drop in my interest in music games.

I've been pretty solid, up until recently.  Now, I actually have to go downtown to play at the arcade.  Hopefully, I'll get my StepMania machine built before too long and I'll start playing more again though.

Well I'm 17 and I started playing when I was 13 I think. It's been a long time since I got those soft pads and konamix for christmas, but after my friend who I played with regularly became an alcoholic, and dropped out of High School, I don't have anyone my age who I can play with. I just don't make the time to go down to the arcade anymore. I still play stepmania at least 1 hour a day though, cause thats conveniently right here on the computer.

Maybe I'll go out tomorrow and play for an hour or two cause I just got paid and I have tomorrow off.

Actually so what contributed to the decline of the scene is the fact that when DDR came out, there were a group of people who were the type to get involved and play the game and improve and what not.  As people get older, some leave, and some enter.  Eventually, that originally group moves on, but it's not like there's a fresh group to replace them, it's just a few more people who enter that phase in their lives.

I don't think DDR/ITG will ever be less popular than it is now, not by much anyway.  Just never will be another booming scene unless there is some weird 90s/2000s flashback in a decade or two.

I'm glad that you agree, and as I said, I doubt that my observation applies to many of the players on this site (young or old). It's obvious that if you are present and participating on bemani related forums that you're probably not the a-typical came, saw, conquered, goodbye player I mentioned in my post.

I also agree with manyminimoos about the constant coming and going of players within the community. This is how the cycle works and your observation is correct.

My only question would be this; Why was DDR so popular 3-4 years ago and then lost it's pull on people? I understand the idea of a 'fad', but I never thought of somthing as awkward, nerdy and emberassing as DDR being simply a fad. To play the game, you have to have confidence, no shame, (especially if you play in the arcade) and some determination to get good at it. To me, this would restrict it mostly to dedicated, hardcore players and I thought that those players would stick with the game for years, rather than a few months. Also, whatever happened to the 'new crop' of players that is supposed to be taking the place of players like myself? In my area, all the hardcore players are the ones who've been playing for years. No one new seems to be stepping up to the plate to take over. It's all a bit strange to me...like a lion pack without any young males there to take over the pack when the old alpha lion is weak and sickly. (I know, weird analogy, but I think it works)

Beginner mode.
It doesn't give you any preparation for Light mode, so >99% of all people who decide to give it a try never go above beginner mode, simply for the fact that they don't realise that there are at least 20 songs on Light mode that a beginner can play sightread.

That's why I always tell my friends to get a copy of Max CS if they want to learn.  That way, they don't have an opportunity to make that crucial error.

Because people just don't give a damn.  If it doesn't come easy then why bother at all?  I experienced the same disappointment with someone I taught to play Street Fighter.  He's 15 and all, but I got him interested and we would play for an hour or so a day; I taught him some  smart strategies and how to not die and he was having fun.

Then he started playing less because I had to work more, then one day he rummaged through my games and found DOA hardcore (BARF) and suddenly thinks that it's wonderful.  He spits on my precious Street Fighter: Third Strike saying that DOA is a better made game.  And to think I actually gave him one of my arcade sticks.

Do people just not want to bother learning to be good at a particular thing anymore?

I haven't played a game of DDR or ITG in over 4 months now, so this is coming from the point of view of someone who has burned out.

I think it's that the game just becomes less fun after you're through the "passing a x-footer" phase, and then you're forced to move onto PA.  The getting AAs phase, then the SDG phase just become progressively less fun and more stressful.  Then it reaches the point where you have to get AAAs, which is more an exercise in tedium than anything else.  I feel like at this point, with the limitations of human brains/motor skills as well as technology, that it's more luck than skill at this point.  You're bound to get a Great or a pad error a certain percentage of the time no matter how good you get, it's just a matter of defying those odds for a certain number of steps.  It just is frustrating having to play out the rest of the song after you get a Great, knowing you've already screwed up.

The other Bemani that are still alive these days (and much more alive than DDR in Japan; almost every SN I saw was deserted, and the other Bemani machines almost always had someone on them) may just be more attractive because so many more people are still in the passing phase, and not all people can pass the hardest songs eventually with just casual playing.  IIDX is just punishing whether you like to pass songs with its ridiculous difficulty or you like to AAA them with its razor-thin PGreat window or do both if you're a freak of nature.  GF/DM and PNM also have that insane difficulty that only the most serious players will be able to get to.  Not everyone in Japan is trying to AAA Mei [a]; those are only the best of the best you see in those videos.

Not only that, but people seem to move up the ladder much faster these days, which could be why there are fewer people playing.  In my day, people were struggling to pass the easiest songs.  Now, people are passing Heavy songs on their first day of playing, and AAAing Max300 is nothing to brag about.

QFT.

when i started playing didder in 2000, the progress from beginner to expert/heavy was a long time.  depending on the player, it averaged out to be close to a year...i think because there's more access to the game (console versions) that the learning curve has shortened...

i still like to play because i still consider it fun...it's great when i aa songs and i like to constantly improve my perfect ratio, but i don't do it obsessively...most people that i observed being burnt out of the arrow smashers only took the time to only focus on aaa'ing everything and set the bar up too high for themselves...



wow...it must be the boobs...it's the only explanation i can think of...

You're the only person who is on the same page as me so direct response.
Tada is partially right.  Partially only in that his answer applies only to... well, only to those it applies to.  Almost everyone gets bored of DDR at SOME point, and for everyone it's different.  Passing everything did not present itself as some wall that I climb then find no meaning to progress.  But enough on that.  Everyone gets bored at some point, and that point is different for everyone.  That's what I said originally.  Now, I don't know how hard this is to visualize, but say you have like, a 1000 people who all get bored at some point or another.  As time progresses, the number of people who have gotten bored keeps increasing.  There could be those that never get bored, and there could be those that come back to the game, but overall, more people quit.

I'm going to try to make a mathematical model out of this.  A simple one.  Say for the age bracket 15-25, 10% of people will get into DDR. Those younger will get into DDR with the same probability when they turn 15, and those who turn 26 will quit.  Now, let's say that the "fad factor" increases this by 3 fold.  Now you have 30% of people age 15-25 playing DDR.  As time progresses, they either get bored at some constant rate or age at a given rate.  10% of people turning 15 will join the group. Eventually, this 10% itself slowly declines, as the "new" and "interesting" factors wear out and the "outdated" and "lol 90s" type negative stereotypes set in.  Given some number of years, the number of players decrease constantly.

I don't know how much sense this makes to anyone else (not claiming validity, just understanding of my post), but it's actually (I believe) a valid model for why fads come and go and never keep going unless it's something revolutionary and amazing (and thus changing certain variables like that 10% to some huge number like 95+%)

PS does anyone like diffEQ?  Model that, I think it's a simple first order linear (given of course that population is not affected by age at all, and also if the 10% never changes.  If the 10% changes then I don't know what it is. Maybe it's still first order.  Who cares.)

Once people get to college, they get interested in other crap.

My bro told me this, he says people that just play ITG/DDR at Eastern University have the worst social lives.

I blame DDR for my bad social life and being single.  No joke.

Be cool if Spokane did this.

Hey, it looks like Bumpers!

but i still manage friends and a hot girlfriend o.o

This happens to anyone who is too obsessed with ANYTHING. If you spend too much time on one thing, and you don't hang around a different crowd from time to time, this is inevitable. I don't think that nerdiness has much to do about the success of DDR/ITG and the recent decline. I have many friend and aquaintences that don't play DDR (or if they do it's once in a blue moon). If your only friends are all revolving around ONE thing, then yes, I could see that as a problem. PLaying an hour or two of DDR 3 times a week is no more time consuming than working out or watching TV. And I can't say that TV makes someone a fantastic socializer either.

P.S. After I got out of Highschool is when I really got into DDR and I've kept a pretty steady intrest in it ever since. I agree that college will detract people from the game when their intersts change and friends change with them. However, most of the hardcore people I have known, and those whom I still play with, started playing DDR/ITG after enrolling into college.

but im a nerd\geek\dork that plays diidder ad itg and is online for alot of the day and is a hardcore gamer and i STILL manage to keep a decent social life and a hot girlfriend o.o