IndyDDR.com

I will simply respond by saying that Indiana isn't California. I think most people will know what I'm getting at.

MonMotha wrote:I will simply respond by saying that Indiana isn't California. I think most people will know what I'm getting at.

Agreed.

MonMotha wrote:I will simply respond by saying that Indiana isn't California. I think most people will know what I'm getting at.

A new drummania machine costs around 6,000. Getting an upgrade to a V-mix is like 3,000 at most.

Even just one new bemani game I guarentee would pull in more traffic and make you back your money for it eventually.

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:I guarentee would pull in more traffic and make you back your money for it eventually.

I can guarantee almost ANY GAME will make its money back eventually. This isn't the point. You want the game to repay itself ASAP and start making profit ASAP.

danc1005 wrote:

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:I guarentee would pull in more traffic and make you back your money for it eventually.

I can guarantee almost ANY GAME will make its money back eventually. This isn't the point. You want the game to repay itself ASAP and start making profit ASAP.

Bemani games in this area do not really do that well, the dancing games: DDR, Pump it Up, and ITG are the most successful in this area. Percussion Master and Beatmania does Ok but not fantastic, you are better off with getting the Dance games and rather than putting in other games that will ok and eventually pay for itself, it would be better just keep your machine up to date with upgrades and all working with repairs and replacing parts.

I think you have a wild misunderstanding of the economics of the arcade operator business. You have finite floor space. You need to get a set of games which maximizes revenue. You can do this in a few ways:

1)Redemption: kids love these, and they earn like crazy at a quarter a play

2)Pinball: nobody plays these anymore, sadly

3)Videos to draw parents: these pretty much have to break even - parents are occupied while their kids spend boatloads of money

4)Videos that make money on their own: these are rare, and we're lucky that DDR and Pump barely make it into this category around here

5)Videos that attract everybody: Pump and DDR shine here - they get people to go "wtf is that?!" and walk into the place, buy some tokens to play a game or two, find out it's not for them, then spend the rest on other games. Also, people enjoy watching others play the dance games much moreso than just about any other arcade game. It keeps people hanging around, which, in theory, means spending some money.

Part of the reason for this is that there's just enough players who are "good" to be impressive to casual passerbys, but not enough that almost all players are seen with a "well, anybody can do that" attitude. Drummania doesn't fall into this realm.

While a drummania might EVENTUALLY pay for itself (and you seem to be vastly overestimating the take of these machines), it's also big and takes up floor space. If you drop a slam-a-winner in there, you're guaranteed to make more. Hence, drummania has to fit into #5 or it has no business being on the floor from an economic point of view. Unfortunately for the drummania lovers, drummania isn't nearly as impressive as DDR or PIU (though it's not House of the Dead, either) to spectators.

That's not to say it's totally unfeasible to find a drummania placed around here. If the operator likes the game, enjoys the players, wants to attract a unique audience, etc., it might be something to consider placing. However, if your goal is to maximize profit (which is what most operators are going for), you're better off using the floor space for a Colorama. Sorry.

Basically drummania is not (by definition) #2, is unplayable for young children (#1), lacks general audience appeal (#3), doesn't earn well on its own (#4), and isn't impressive enough in this market to observers (#5). 5 strikes and you're out.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see a local drummania V3/V4/whatever, but I don't think it's practical from a business standpoint.

MonMotha wrote:2)Pinball: nobody plays these anymore, sadly.

Isn't that the truth? I have two in my basement and they're always great for a rainy day arcade experience.

danc1005 wrote:

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:I guarentee would pull in more traffic and make you back your money for it eventually.

I can guarantee almost ANY GAME will make its money back eventually. This isn't the point. You want the game to repay itself ASAP and start making profit ASAP.

no game on earth will do this.

MonMotha wrote:I think you have a wild misunderstanding of the economics of the arcade operator business. You have finite floor space. You need to get a set of games which maximizes revenue. You can do this in a few ways:

Now, as you know, i like debating. So don't take any of this personal or anything when i'm rebutting SOME of these points.

First off, about finite floor space;

Arcade Infinity in California is the size of Ho's downstairs basement, if you've seen it before. It has;

-Two DDR machines
-2 Beatmania IIDX machines
-Drummania/Guitar Freaks
-10 fighting cabinets
-3 shm'up games
-Typing of the Dead
-a boxing game
-Pop'n' Music
-Two token machines
-A gigantic, wide-screen SF3rd Strike machine in the middle of the area
-Three weird japanese games
-Crackin DJ (large as a 5 key beatmania cabinet)
-Toccatta Shakka (tambourine game, HUGE ass cabinet)
-A counter where you can ask for help (people working there)

And a ton of people in there constantly. The way they managed to fit this is through intelligent placement of machines, and using candy-cabinets for the fighting/shmup games. There is ample enough room to walk around, and if they can pack that much into a space the size of Ho's basement....

MonMotha wrote:1)Redemption: kids love these, and they earn like crazy at a quarter a play

Definitely true. Gotta have these, unless you're catering to the hardcore (which i'll of course admit only certain areas can pull off, like the Arcade Infinity area)

MonMotha wrote:2)Pinball: nobody plays these anymore, sadly

There are a few of these at SVGL, and while they do get a lot of playtime by 40/50-something adults, true, they're not worth it that much anymore.

MonMotha wrote:3)Videos to draw parents: these pretty much have to break even - parents are occupied while their kids spend boatloads of money

Assuming you meant video games, or did you mean something like a sports TV setup to watch stuff?

MonMotha wrote:4)Videos that make money on their own: these are rare, and we're lucky that DDR and Pump barely make it into this category around here

A good substitute to make money cheap is to get SNK cabinets; the cabinets are cheap, the chipsets are less than 200 bucks at max, and you can rack up money really quick with stuff that eats quarters like Bust a Move or Metal Slug's series of games.

If you REALLY wanna rake in money, get a beat-em-up or a shm'up; 95% of people who play these just ram the bomb/special attack buttons over and over, die in about 30 seconds, have to continue, over and over.

MonMotha wrote:5)Videos that attract everybody: Pump and DDR shine here - they get people to go "wtf is that?!" and walk into the place, buy some tokens to play a game or two, find out it's not for them, then spend the rest on other games. Also, people enjoy watching others play the dance games much moreso than just about any other arcade game. It keeps people hanging around, which, in theory, means spending some money.

Now, again, this MAY be just my area, but i've seen this happen in many areas besides my own as well;

DDR and Pump universally do get on average the most crowd out of any game, BUT at my local John's Incredible Pizza (think a fun-center type thing, food, video games, redemption stuff etc.) the crowds around the Drummania machine are ALWAYS 3-5x more than they are on DDR.

Why?

People on average see DDR as "wtf is this, these people are fucking weird" or "wow, that's crazy" or something like that, but they can't *relate* to it because to them it's just hitting panels. They don't really get the mechanics of it at all, because it's not something that's been in human society for a long time, as opposed to....

Drums. When I start doing 80's/90's on Drummania, HUGE crowds gather, like 40-50 people at max. The reason for this is because they can relate to drums, and understand that what i'm doing on drums isn't easy at all, thus impressive, and that i'm "making" music (key sounded of course), which is also something they relate to.

I've never EVER gotten a crowd over 15-20 people, at max, in my life, from playing DDR or ITG, even when i'm doing edits on DDR or songs like Determinator on ITG2, in any of the arcades i've been to (and i've been to them all over the USA). Yet I continuously get large crowds playing drummania, and again, why?

When they see DDR, they just think "people moving really fast and flailing limbs", and they just seem to relate more to DM.

Add into this that after i've played, many people ask me "how long have you been playing drums/are you in a band/how do you play this" etc. more than on DDR, again because drums are a relatable thing, compared to DDR being "hit arrows", and afterwards there's usually a five or six person line of people wanting to just play around on DM, compared to almost no one brave enough to try DDR.

Again, that's just in my area though.

MonMotha wrote:Part of the reason for this is that there's just enough players who are "good" to be impressive to casual passerbys, but not enough that almost all players are seen with a "well, anybody can do that" attitude. Drummania doesn't fall into this realm.

As I said above, the number of "casual" drummania players in an area like John's Pizza (a family environment) far outweighs the casual DDR players. People can pick up drumsticks and hit pads. Not many people can be co-ordinated enough to even stand up straight while hitting arrows on a pad.

MonMotha wrote:While a drummania might EVENTUALLY pay for itself (and you seem to be vastly overestimating the take of these machines), it's also big and takes up floor space. If you drop a slam-a-winner in there, you're guaranteed to make more. Hence, drummania has to fit into #5 or it has no business being on the floor from an economic point of view. Unfortunately for the drummania lovers, drummania isn't nearly as impressive as DDR or PIU (though it's not House of the Dead, either) to spectators.

At the arcades in California, with the exception of MGL and CVGL, Drummania usually makes more money compared to DDR by about a 3-1 ratio, simply because people are bored as hell of DDR and again, many more casual people play Drummania compared to DDR because it's more relatable.

DDR is much larger than Drummania physically.

Drummania is far more impressive to spectators (as i've listed before) because to an average layman, Drummania is relatable. Does anyone go to a concert to see people hitting arrows on a pad? No. Do they want to see people do drum solos, arms flying everywhere? Yes.

I mean, it's kinda basic sense; if you understand more of how it works (and I can guarentee that the average populace has a far better understanding of how drums work compared to DDR), you relate to it more and are more interested in it.

MonMotha wrote:That's not to say it's totally unfeasible to find a drummania placed around here. If the operator likes the game, enjoys the players, wants to attract a unique audience, etc., it might be something to consider placing. However, if your goal is to maximize profit (which is what most operators are going for), you're better off using the floor space for a Colorama. Sorry.

As I said before, drummania around here (and other areas) generally makes a 3-1 profit compared to DDR (but not ITG, i'll admit).

MonMotha wrote:Basically drummania is not (by definition) #2, is unplayable for young children (#1), lacks general audience appeal (#3), doesn't earn well on its own (#4), and isn't impressive enough in this market to observers (#5). 5 strikes and you're out.

Unplayable for young children? Around 70% of the casuals are children under 9 years old. I was at SVGL the other day and a girl who *couldnt' even reach the bass pedal* played for a solid 3 hours, taking turns with people. I asked her parents how old she was; she was 6.

A LARGE majority of them are kids because the kids see the drumset and think "DRUMSET!" and want to bang the pads. Their parents pay for the game, they play it on beginner mode, parents join in, parents get interested, etc. I see it all the time.

General audience appeal? Again, if a casual person were to think about it on normal terms, playing drummania is a hell of a lot more acceptable to general society than flailing wildly on a pad and "looking stupid" (as most of my non-DDR friends have said, they would not want to play DDR because it makes them look stupid; drummania doesn't.)

As I said before too, drums are more impressive on average because they're something people know about. Almost no one knows even the basics of DDR play besides "hit arrows", but many people know that a drumset contains a snare, a hi-hat, ride cymbal, toms, bass pedal, know what the basic beats of drums are that you hear in music (innately, from hearing them in thousands of songs), etc.

MonMotha wrote:Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see a local drummania V3/V4/whatever, but I don't think it's practical from a business standpoint.

All I gotta say is, every arcade i've ever seen get a drummania profited almost immediately, and raked in more money (or equal to) most machines there. There's exceptions yeah, but i've said my case, haha

Fluffyumpkins wrote:

MonMotha wrote:I will simply respond by saying that Indiana isn't California. I think most people will know what I'm getting at.

Agreed.

to make my point simple and quick since I need to get some sleep..

Quit comparing Indiana to California. They're not the same.

holy shit, long post

zomg its joorz wrote:

Fluffyumpkins wrote:

MonMotha wrote:I will simply respond by saying that Indiana isn't California. I think most people will know what I'm getting at.

Agreed.

to make my point simple and quick since I need to get some sleep..

Quit comparing Indiana to California. They're not the same.

Of course this is true, but it doesn't HAVE to be a permanent rule, there can be an exception if the arcade's really superb.

You keep bringing up arcade Infinity. Yes, they have Bemani, but they have a lot of it. In fact, they have a lot of things Japanophiles would love to play.

Also I would argue that everyone knows the drums are difficult to play, but dancing is universal. The DDR home market is still growing, and many of these people eventually build the courage to try it out in the arcade.

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:

danc1005 wrote:

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:I guarentee would pull in more traffic and make you back your money for it eventually.

I can guarantee almost ANY GAME will make its money back eventually. This isn't the point. You want the game to repay itself ASAP and start making profit ASAP.

no game on earth will do this.

What you just said right there; it makes no sense.
Just FYI.

Also, totally and utterly disagree with the statement about DM being easier to relate to and pick up. If people really care that much, I'll give my reasons.

danc1005 wrote: What you just said right there; it makes no sense.
Just FYI.

I was talking about the part that said that the game would make back money "immediately".

danc1005 wrote:Also, totally and utterly disagree with the statement about DM being easier to relate to and pick up. If people really care that much, I'll give my reasons.

It only seems that way to you because you have more experience in DDR.

Sitting down on a chair and only having to move your hands (since 95% of casuals use auto-bass) is a hell of a lot easier in terms of co-ordination than having to stand up and move your feet around on arrows.

The human body was naturally designed for hand-eye co-ordination; (drummania); it was NOT designed for foot-eye co-ordination (DDR). DDR takes a hell of a lot more to get accustomed to because of this.

Fluffyumpkins wrote:Also I would argue that everyone knows the drums are difficult to play, but dancing is universal.

Just curious if you've ever played drums? Hitting big ass pads with two sticks is a hell of a lot more intuitive and easier than trying to keep your balance while hitting arrows on a screen with your feet (because again, the human body was never designed for foot-eye-coordination the way it was for hand-eye-coordination).

Also, drums at a basic level, even WITH a bass pedal, are child's play. DDR is simply not, for the aformentioned reason.

DDR has never been about dancing to me. DDR *ISN'T* dancing. I would love to see anyone do anything on a DDR pad (that is NOT freestyling, i'm taking about playing the game normally) and take that to a dance competition or a club. Outside of freestyling (which blocks you from playing anything hard), DDR is nowhere near dancing, and it never will be.

Fluffyumpkins wrote:The DDR home market is still growing, and many of these people eventually build the courage to try it out in the arcade.

And you just proved my point right here.

*build the courage*. Why would they need to build the courage to play the game in the arcade?

Simple; because if you don't know what the hell you're doing on DDR, you look like an idiot. Actually, unless you've played the game for years, even if you can beat all the songs in the game, you're going to look stupid doing it. This is fact, pretty much; the better/faster/harder songs you play on DDR, the stupider you will look to casual people because you'll be flying all over the place (again, this is assuming you don't have years of experience to keep your body movements in check).

If you don't know what the hell you're doing on the drums, people see you as far less silly, because drums are universally cool; hitting arrows on a pad to arrows going up a screen is not.

Well since this topic is unfortunately derailed (I really appreciate an arcade investor actually coming to the players for opinions).

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:

danc1005 wrote: What you just said right there; it makes no sense.
Just FYI.

I was talking about the part that said that the game would make back money "immediately".

He said nothing about "immediately." ASAP stands for As Soon As Possible. That means AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, not immediately. A game that pays for itself and generates more revenue faster than another game will typically be chosen in an arcade that isn't specifically targeting a bemani demographic (take your Arcade Infinity and Pinball Pete's out of the equation).

liquidblue aka DBV wrote:

danc1005 wrote:Also, totally and utterly disagree with the statement about DM being easier to relate to and pick up. If people really care that much, I'll give my reasons.

Sitting down on a chair and only having to move your hands (since 95% of casuals use auto-bass) is a hell of a lot easier in terms of co-ordination than having to stand up and move your feet around on arrows.

The human body was naturally designed for hand-eye co-ordination; (drummania); it was NOT designed for foot-eye co-ordination (DDR). DDR takes a hell of a lot more to get accustomed to because of this.

Source this claim of "design." I want scientific studies and observations, not any anecdotes.

P.S. Drummania has a bass pedal.