I really doubt that the community would grow significantly if we upgraded to the most recent versions of every Bemani.

Are you saying just upgrading, or having "every bemani"? I suspect pop'n would bring a lot of interest.

I've been converting Milwaukie into a BeatMania haven by bringing BeatMania to school a bunch.
I'm hoping I'll generate enough interest to be able to reasonably ask Wunderland to get a IIDX machine. =D

Considering it seems to be DDR/ITG that attracted/will attract almost every person ever to the community, I doubt a Pop 'n would bring in much new interest.

I wouldn't be so sure.  DDR/ITG have started getting stale for most people.  Only the loyalists still play; casual players don't seem to be capable of maintaining an interest.

But IIDX and Pop'n don't involve falling over and killing yourself, and also the layout's more like the arcade panel they're used to: lots of buttons.
I think that it would attract more newbies into the bemani scene, and a lot of those newbies would go on to other bemani games.
Like or not, the regulars don't determine the inventory anymore, because there simply aren't enough of them.

Theoretical potential players don't determine the inventory either.

Unfortunately, they do.
Because they hit the machines more than the regulars.

I don't know, maybe it's different at Acme and Narrows, but regulars only make up for about 5% of the plays the machines get around here.  People don't regulate arcades any more because they think that their PS3's and XBox 360's are better.  So, you get a ton of people who only come to the arcade on a very rare basis, and 2 or 3 people who actually go to the arcades enough to know how shitty all their machines are.

Inviting people to our scene would make it bigger.

The main reason we don't get a lot of good Bemani machines here is that we're practically the only people who play them, other than DDR/ITG.  From what I see, the only real source of income for any music game that's not DDR or ITG is the regulars, which is not that much.  The only way for the machines to become updated is if we had a larger community, and I don't think Bill is willing to buy stuff in hopes that the community will increase in size and/or we'll play more often.

I guess you didn't understand my posts since the problems are just different up here.  I guess they might be the same though, since even if we did have a stream of money from casual visitors, none of them would care that IIDX is 8th style.  If the machine were a DistorteD or GOLD, I doubt the casual visitors would be more drawn to regular play, considering most can't even pass 5.1.1.  When I said "theoretical potential players", I meant players like we have in our community now.  I guess the only way to get a decent machine is to have the majority of income come from regular players, AND have it be a significant amount (i.e. a lot of regular players).

*sigh*.  I really have considered moving somewhere else, especially at times like this.  For those of you who are going to say that I'm being too extreme, Bemani is not the only reason I have considered a move.

If we actually put posters up letting others know we actually exist, we might get some more members. As Bill has said numerous times when I've talked to him, the current bemani community just isn't big enough to make a purchase of DMV3 or IIDX 9th+ worth it. He even said that he talked to the manager of e-spot, and still the only reason they have nice machines is basically fanservice. The machines aren't making much money. Not only that, e-spot is a different kind of arcade. Look at it! They have rows of candy cabs and some quite expensive stuff. As a standalone arcade in an area where internet cafes and the like thrive, it's very possible for them to afford it. I think the only thing we can do now is hope more people join, or hope for an incredible act of generosity from Bill (but why would we expect that? It's pretty stupid to do something that would take a huge loss for his company).

Not that I would mind a bunch of new bemani if it suddenly appeared!

Yeah, the Vancouver selection is the result of their huge community, not the other way around as far as I can tell.  For example, CHQ's three GFDM setups (V2 session, 10/9 session, standalone V) were making enough money between regulars are random passers by (they're a mall arcade for those who don't know; they do get more random players than a similarly sized standalone ever will) that they didn't upgrade to V3... they bought a brand new sessioned pair and sold off their GFV which was falling apart.  The fact that they can keep up with the newest versions keeps the established crowd alive (I know not everyone needs a constant stream of new content, but a lot of players get bored without new stuff to play) and keep a couple setups around for overflow/new players (think DDRUSA at GW... it got a ton of play from new players when it was back to back with Extreme because it was less visible and good players tended to go for EX) is a huge part of why they manage to be so successful.

Getting a newer dedicated crowd in place again is the only way we'll be getting upgrades with any real consistancy.  Especially with the hardware upgrades (IIDX 8th needs one, GFDM needs one to get past 11/10 and into the V's, Pop'n would need one at 9 [I think] if we got the IZ machine).

- We need a larger community to get decently upgraded Bemani.
- We need decently upgraded Bemani to get a larger community.

I love catch-22s.

well i say that we should be happy with what we have for now... oh and /r/ that bill switches out the GFDM session at narrows with the DM8 at acme

I'm telling you guys:
Frequent BYOB Nights = Easier access to up-to-date bemani for all

how is that relevent to the bemani upgrades?

Since we can't really get bemani upgrades, I'm suggesting that as an alternative solution. That's just what I think, anyway.

oh ok heheheh

Happy Sky , DMGF V&V2, and Pop'n Music Carnival (all CS) are good enough for me but it would be nice to have an arcade cab

The problem is, again, distance.  The sheer distance to the Seattle area for some keeps people from coming.  

And again, BYOBs would only keep our current community static.  No one new will come unless someone randomly stumbles upon these boards.

What we need to do is exactly what BLueSS said: Get the word out about our community.  If people find these boards, new people might start coming to these events, and possibly be introduced to new music games they may have never heard of.  I know that I was introduced to IIDX through community get-togethers that we used to have, and it was nice to be able to fail all I wanted without killing my wallet.  And look at it this way: I probably never would have found the Global BBS if it wasn't for Foy telling me about it.

i stumbled upon IIDX randomly.  then i watched Cynic play it at school one time and decided that i liked it though i didnt start to play it for another 6 or so months :lol:

Also, bringing any friends who are interested in music games at all (*COUGH*GUITARHERO) would be a good idea imo.

People just need to know these awesome games exist :p I think that's what it really comes down to.

Maybe having GH/GF sessions at BYOB would help interest people who are into GH, and then later that night introduce other cool games like IIDX?

BYOB is also good because many people don't want to play at an arcade if they totally suck at a game. And/or they just don't want to pay money. So home counterparts of bemani have that advantage.

we should all just migrate north

Today, I was at Tech City Bowl and I saw two new people play Extreme. One of them was getting consistent 30 great or less scores on most songs, and the other was getting A's or B's on most songs. I told them about the forums, so we might be seeing some new members.

That's cool.  We need to do more of this, for sure.

Guitar Hero is one of the most fun rhythm games I've played in a while, I don't know why it's so fun, but it is.

So yeah, Guitar Hero is cool