First off, thanks to everyone for coming in, sharing ideas and enthusiasm, and spreading the word about the PG Arcade. You have no idea how excited we're all getting about the outpouring of interest in the arcade. It all directly feeds our drive to keep making the place better! The employees at the store seem genuinely blown away by the whole thing, and sales have seen a clear jump in the past 4-5 days that the new games have been running. This is all extremely good news!

I think 4th+ will have to be what we go with in the other DDR cab, at least for a while. Since the place seems to be doing well so far, we're thinking of rushing in the second DDR sooner than planned -- maybe even this week/weekend. I'll tell you right now that it will look like crap at first, since my plastic marquee front is shattered (anyone have a lead on these other than Channel Beat?), but it should play fine!

Other updates: Dangun Feveron (Fever S.O.S.) and Joust are in, and Joust 2 is out. Marc's games have almost completely been purged -- only Asteroids and Ms Pac left. Bucky O'hare wasn't pulling its weight, and the PCB was starting to really act up, so that's been swapped to Turtles in Time.

I know two other mainstream places which have DDR stuff, though neither specifically says they sell the clear bezel. You could ask them about their DDR Extreme overlays, perhaps they come with the clear plastic part of the marquee too? It's worth checking out.

http://www.coinopexpress.com/products/parts/dance___music_machine_parts.html

http://www.uniarcade.com/dance_machine_parts/dance_machine_parts.htm


Saweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Is this store game sales? If so, that's great!

Anyone going Saturday afternoon, around 3pm-4pm?

Yup! And after they close each night there are usually groups of people hanging around outside wanting to come in, which is a pretty good sign too!

More updates:

STAR WARS and Robotron: 2084 are in, Asteroids and Ms Pac are out. Replacement versions of Asteroids and Ms Pac are both coming soon, so if you're into those games don't fret! We just had to make a clean break from the old op. All games in the store are mine now.

Pinball coming very soon (probably this weekend) -- just one game to start but it's a really, really good one.

I've heard one of the Pop'n buttons is sticking sometimes, so I'll be checking that out ASAP. It's a hard issue to combat permanently, but I'll give it my best.

We're staying open until at least 11 tonight, possibly midnight, as a trial run of new hours. If you're into later-night gaming, come out tonight and show the bosses that it's a worthwhile change for them to make!

Are there any more success measures that you can provide?  I know you're not there anywhere near constantly and PG obviously has multiple employees, so it can be hard to gather some of the following, but:
- Does everybody play a few games then leave, or are there some people who stick around for a long time? 
- Returning players (not from the forum)?
- Dead during the day and busy at night, or is it an all-day flow of players?
- Are most games getting good amounts of play, or is concentrated on two or three games?

You had me at "4th+"

One of my favourite mixes for freestyling.

lol, says the guy who'll probably never play on this machine due to living in Oregon.

So 4th Mix isn't there yet. Bobby told me they would try to get it in this weekend, but he said don't have high hopes. It should be coming in next weekend or the one after that from what I'm guessing.

SuperNova 2 rocks my socks right now.

Sure, I'll try my best, though I'm not there all day so it's hard for me to answer some of these questions. I would say that play on the DDR seems pretty evenly split between people whose names I know from the forum and just random people who stumble upon it. There are some really good (by my standards) players in the "randoms" group, too! People do seem to come specifically for that game and park themselves on it for a while.

It definitely seems to pick up at night, but honestly our experiments at staying open late have flopped a bit. It seems like it's worth it up untiol 9 or 10, but the couple of nights that we planned on staying open until midnight we ended up just closing early because it was so dead. It kinda sucks, I was hoping we could get a bit of a late-night scene going on. Maybe this will change as people continue to discover the place. We are staying open LATE tonight because there's a Penny Arcade signing event happening at the UW bookstore across the street, and we're hoping to leech some people off of it.

As for actual numbers, I won't get too specific but I'll say that DDR is earning the most by about 2x the next closest game's numbers. Pop'n Music is second, and third is amazingly not Marvel vs Capcom, not Crazy Taxi, not TMNT, but.. Armed Police Batrider?! Exciting stuff for me, since a big goal of mine is to get a nice little shmup players scene hanging out at the arcade. Hopefully I'll have more games for them soon. Also, new addition Star Wars seems to be kicking ass so far, but we won't really know the concrete numbers until Friday when we collect.

Other news for those who don't know -- I added my lovingly restored Medieval Madness pinball machine to the arcade! I don't know if any of you are into pinball, but if you are it's about as good as they get. Also, we have a Twitter set up and supposedly Facebook is coming soon (it's out of my hands). You can follow the Twitter here: http://twitter.com/PGArcade

I found this place which sells the clear marquee.
http://www.arcadespareparts.com/arcade_parts/dance_machine_parts.html

Facebook page for the arcade was set up recently, if you have a Facebook you should fan it!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=324831493510

My Tetris The Grand Master 1 board is currently installed at Pink Gorilla. It's only 50 cents, give it a shot! It's TGM1, unlike the former Acme TGM3, so it shouldn't be ridiculously hard or complex. There's only one game mode and it starts out pretty easy.

Also updated because Extreme is here now too.

It's right by the window which iis freakin awesome.
Note, this is supposed to turn into 4th Mix Plus sometime. Bobby hasn't given a specific date, so it'll happen when it happens.

Looks like the monitor has already died on the Extreme, which sucks -- I had really hoped to have it running all day during the tournament. I'll try to get it going ASAP! Guitar Freaks V3 is also in, as is Ms Pac-Man.

As for the Extreme/4th+ thing, I'm not really sure how to proceed. I was going to try to make it 4th+ right off the bat, but now I'm getting an overwhelmingly positive response to it being Extreme. Maybe I should switch to 4th+ in a couple weeks after people start to get sick of it? Seems like there's no good way to please everyone, but I'm trying!

Well, as I told you at the tourny, I suggest you leave it as Extreme for at least a month or two. Once revenue starts to taper off, maybe try switching it out to see if it boosts revenue.

On that note, I'm not 100% sure about it, but when I played on the left side it felt like I was creating a lot of noise. At first I thought it was from the wall or floor vibrating, but the more I think about it, it could be from the pads bumping into the storefront framing. Perhaps moving it a few inches away and/or putting padding there would be a good idea. The other thing that might be making the ruckus would be if the legs on the stage aren't equal or lowered all the way down. It's be good if you could check these things out when you get the free time.

Bobby, I just wanted to tell you that I <3 your DDR Extreme machine. I can't believe how easy it was for me to get some new high scores on it. I was able to AAA My Sweet Darling twice on command and I black flagged it the third time. Your machine is the best Extreme I've had the pleasure of playing on in ages and I can't wait until I get another chance to head down their and stomp some more arrows.

Funny you should say that, Scott. I completely agree with you! I don't know what it is about this particular Extreme, but it's easily my favorite DDR machine that I've ever played on.

This should probably be added to the OP...

GF V3 $1.00/3 songs

(unless it's changed between Saturday and now)

Thanks for the reminder.

Bobby, you should setup a webcam to show the PG arcade. It would be awesome to be able to hop onto your (or PG's) website to see how active the place is before someone decides to head down there. It could upload an image every 3 minutes or so in a compressed format to show the current "happenings" at the store. Give it some thought, 'cause I think that'd be pretty cool.

Security / Privacy issues? Doesn't sound appealing to know when I'm playing DDR the whole world can see me...

I'm gonna have to agree with jon on this one. Granted there is machine by the window, it's a bit different when the whole internet can see me playing live. I'm not to fond of that idea.

1 frame every 3 minute is live? Also, security and privacy issues? Wouldn't this improve security and reduce the opportunity for vandalism? And what privacy are you concerned with at a public arcade? Your points don't make much sense to me. If you just don't like the idea, that's fine, but I can't see the logic in your counterpoints when dealing with a public space and arcade games.