Yes, I would absolutely love this. You have no idea.

<3 That would be wonderful

Seconded

I visited one of the two Round1 locations in California. I am going to through out a different viewpoint here, and say that a Round1 expansion to the PNW could actually harm our existing arcade ecosystem and is not a good idea.

When I visited the CA location, the bowling alley was right next to the arcade machines, and the amount of noise on a normal weeknight was LOUD. I could not hear the music from their Jubeat machine. For Technica machines you can use headphones, but you can't with DDR and other music games. So point #1 was it was a horrible experience compared to playing music games at Acme, Gameworks, or Powerplay.

Point #2 is that we already have our own version of a Round1 called Gameworks. As much as people like to hate on Gameworks, adding a Round1 to the mix would not add new customers to our market. The Seattle area knows about Gameworks, and GW carries many of the Japanese music games. People need to support our existing arcades that are trying to survive instead of adding another one that could take business away from the others.

Point #3 is demographics. The Round1 in California was in an Asian dominated city, and as a white guy I noticed only a handful of other non-Asian visitors at the arcade. Round1 draws a very specific demographic, similar to E-Spot up in BC. In Seattle I've seen that Gameworks, Acme Bowl, and Power Play are usually not primarily populated by Asians, but instead a wide variety of people. Round1 targets a specific type of customer and they they stick to areas that have that demographic and enough population to make their (very large investments) work. The Round1 in CA I visited was much larger than Gameworks. It was huge.

Maybe a Round1 would be helpful, but I don't think so. I honestly don't think that the Seattle area is looking for an Asian version of Acme Bowl/Power Play with karaoke added.

Please feel free to disagree and/or prove me wrong.

I kind of side with Jon. I've never been to Round 1, but I think our biggest problem with Gameworks isn't their game selection, but their maintenance. This is one reason Bill gets so much love from us. His dedication to keeping his machines running at top notch is admirable.

Everyone knows that Japanese arcades keep their games well maintained. Japanese arcades also exist in a culture where public vandalism and abuse isn't as common as it is in the states. For those who have visited Round 1 in California, how are they about maintenance? I'd hate to see them come here, do all the things Jon just cautioned about, then let all their machines fall into disrepair months later, never to come back to a playable level.

Unfortunately I didn't stay at Round1 very long during my one visit due to the noise problem, but most of their machines seemed to be in good order. Their Drummania machine's pads had no issues, jubeat was fine, the 3 Technica machines were all in good order, and the DDR screens were bright and in use. 

I don't support Gameworks because they don't keep their machines maintained very well. All DDRs except for the SN2 there are unplayable and the GFDM machines have had their fair share of issues from time to time. For a good stretch of at least 2 years the Pop'n was also totally unplayable. It's fine now but you have to wonder how much of a shit Gameworks gives about keeping their games working. The last time I stopped in there on my way through downtown I noticed tons of games out of order. None of the Initial D machines have working card readers either which is a real buzzkill. The KOFXIII cabs that they spent ludicrous amounts of money on have been out of order for at least a month IIRC. Quick and Crash has been fucked up for years. 2Spicy has had problems for pretty much the same amount of time. All of the light gun games are so far out of calibration they're unplayable. The place is just a sad graveyard for games; before even taking into account the fact that they are uninterested in upgrading their music games (which isn't that surprising given that they probably make absolutely nothing when everyone just goes and abuses online coupons and free timecards) Gameworks is already worthless since hardly anything works!

With that said (long tangent), I would certainly support Round1 if they decided to open a branch up in the Seattle area. I don't think they will for the reasons Jon mentioned, but man oh man I can certainly dream about it.

In general, I don't think music games will exist for much longer in the arcades here. Let's look at Pink Gorilla. Bobby put his mint (MINT!) GFDMV3 cabs, SN2, Extreme, Pop'n 14 AND Pop'n 17 out there. The games hardly made any money because no one came and played them. We can all make excuses all we want but the fact of the matter is that there was a perfect fairly central (moreso than Acme or Narrows anyway) location with tons of great Bemani and no one played them. Full Tilt Ice Cream in Ballard had Pop'n 17 for a while. No one played it and now it's gone! Bill had all sorts of music games at Acme. Clearly no one played them enough because they've all been sold now other than the dancing games.

Okay, rant mode disabled

This is the truth that many of us have to face.

<Story Mode>
I admit, living in Mukilteo/North Lynnwood I rarely visited Pink Gorilla due to it still being 25+ minute drive (one way) for me. On top of that, parking was nigh impossible when I could visit (after work or on weekends).

I actually do tend to regularly play at arcades when they're local, but there are none near me. When I worked downtown a few years ago, I would visit GW about 2 times a week to play DDR, Technika, Taiko, or whatever. Yeah, the machines were a bit beat up, but I didn't really care. I felt "at home" in a true arcade like this. However, now that I no longer work downtown, I rarely visit GW...it's just too inconvenient.

That's my excuse.
</Story Mode>

I was wondering when someone was going to disagree, but the responses are very interesting nevertheless.


Okay, so the worry is that we might get some reduced form of Round1 in California instead of those as robust as in Japan. In Japan, you can use headphones on many jubeat machines and the bowling alleys and the arcades are on separate floors. Unless the malls are only one story high, I don't see why US locations have to change from that at all.


I have never been to the California locations myself nor to Gameworks, but I somewhat understand the worry for certain arcade chains over others. Although as long as we're pouring more money into the arcade culture, it doesn't really matter who we give our money to IMO. Round1 doesn't have an arcade monopoly in Japan either and I frequented many other arcades while I was there too. The way I see it, what the California locations have to offer is much better than what ALL of Oregon has to offer, but it looks like Washington might be a different story.


I'm Asian and I'm offended lol jk. But in all seriousness, is there any statistic to back that up or is it just an anecdote? So if Round1 is successful because of the Japanese population, then there should be a location in Hawaii by that logic (largest % of Asian/Japanese population). Surely, it can't be the only factor to Round1's relative success in California, although I agree that the fanbase needs to be a little more diverse if arcades as a whole are going to be successful here, and it is interesting to see the culture differences Japan and the US have on public gaming (arcades) v. private gaming (consoles). I know the economic structure in the US isn't exactly tailored for arcades anymore, but one can hope that will change in the future.

Kevin, where were those machines at when they were active and what exactly happened to them? Bemani games aren't exactly "vintage" by any means if you're talking about Full Tilt; that's not what 70s/80s arcade players might be looking for, but that's just speculation on my part.

And Suko, if you don't mind, I want to know what you mean by being "at home" at a "true" arcade. I thought I was only "at home" at the arcades in Japan, but I'm probably the only one here who thinks that.

For me that's simple, a place who's primary agenda is to provide video game entertainment. I'm used to playing my games in a small room off to the side of a bowling alley someplace. A place that doubles as a day care for the 40 year old bowlers who think me playing dancing games in public should be a crime because I'm probably corrupting their children with my rhythmic jirations.

In short: I like playing games at a place where playing games is what you are SUPPOSED to do.

Gameworks (and to a lesser extent, Power Play) are the only places I feel cater directly to this. Gameworks is off the beaten path for me, but I do try and visit PP occasionally after work.