Arcades have apparently fallen out of favor in Japan, or at least, with the 30 – 60 demographic.
Despite their new-found popularity with senior citizens, the majority of the Japanese public never go to an arcade. That’s according to a new survey, which seems to be trying its hardest to depict Japanese arcades as on their last legs, despite talking to people you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find at an arcade anyway.
The survey collected the opinions of more than 12,000 members of the Japanese public. Of that number, a little over half were women, and nearly 90% were older than 30. The survey suggested that 61% of the Japanese public never go to an arcade, with more than half saying that they were too expensive and that they were too loud. Just over a quarter said that they stank of cigarette smoke and a tenth said that they were scary.
Of those who did attend arcades, crane games proved to be the most popular attraction, followed by “medal games” – a type of slot machine that uses tokens rather than coins – and then other, non-crane based prize games. The kind of games that you might consider more typical arcade fair, like light gun games or fighting games, were rather unpopular, with only a small percentage of those surveyed saying they played them.
When you consider that the survey essentially ignores the youth demographic – the opinions of 2,786 people in their fifties are recorded, compared to just 191 in their teens – the number of people who attend arcades is actually surprisingly high. It would be interesting though, to see the study repeated with a more representative age range. That way, we could get a more complete picture of just how well arcades are doing.
Source: Gamasutra
Published: Dec 8, 2010 11:21 pm