The Wall Street Journal reported that

Call it "Karaoke on Toe"!

Headsets, 5D gaming experiences, panoramic displays, curved surround displays, ......

A large number of gaming equipment that needs enough space is seen as a moat for arcade overturns.

It's just that the investment is also large, the risk is also large, and the possibility of technology iteration and obsolescence is greater.

How to solve the arcade machine?

Perhaps, the past of the arcade machine that jumped up can give more imagination.

In 2018, a video of an elderly Japanese couple playing dance machines in an arcade was retweeted tens of thousands of times on Twitter.

In the video, two lean elderly men with gray sideburns are playing Konami's classic arcade game Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), with a sharp and agile pace, and there is no sign that they are over half a hundred years old.

It is said that exercising through the dance machine is a habit they have developed since 2000.

For more than a decade, they have been visiting local malls twice a week to "get active".

Of course, this is only a special case.

After all, the dance machine is still more of a young man's game.

After the release of "Dance Revolution" in 1998, it immediately set off a dance machine craze around the world.

Not to mention, the song "Butterfly" of the Swedish Smiling Sisters, which was included in the dance machine at that time, was so well-known that it left countless streets of the later divine comedy "Gangnam style".

As for the hot sale of home dance mats and the trend of fitness and dancing among young people, the aftermath has not been interrupted to this day.

Soon, the popularity of the dance machine also brought out a variety of strange dance steps.

In the case of the so-called Kanto Step, the player steps on the left-facing arrow with his left foot, and then his right foot is responsible for pressing the other buttons.

Another example is the Kansai step, which is to quickly return to the central position after stepping on a button.

At the same time, many game manufacturers began to imitate "Dance Revolution" and launched more dance machines with different gameplay routines.

Especially in South Korea, a local manufacturer has launched a localized dance machine game called PUMP.

Although it is actually a copycat gameplay + a variety of styles of dance music stew, players have found their own innovative way of dancing style in the messy style:

To play a game, as long as you step on the pedal accurately to ensure that the game continues, but instead of competing for the program requirement of accurate pedaling and high score, you will start to use other body parts to perform.

This makes the dance steps on the dance machine no longer a foot movement, but a full-body dance, forming an innovation that is out of game design.

They called it "freestyle" and it quickly became a global phenomenon.

Who does better and who is better is no longer scored by the machine, but by the default and recognition of the players who watched the performance.

What is it? The game version of Hip-hop Fight.

As a result, the heat wave of the dance machine indirectly promoted the revival of the once depressed hip-hop dance.

The dance machine is no longer an awkward dance of pedaling, but has begun to have its own artistic elements, which also makes the obsession of boys and girls more fanatical.

The secondary creation based on the dance machine has also made many people work hard, preferring to go to other cities to find an arcade hall with a dance machine to show off their dancing posture.

On the eve of the millennium, when internet socialization was not yet widespread, this wave further boosted the social culture of dance machines on a global scale.

In this regard, the Wall Street Journal also called it "karaoke on tiptoe" with great interest in its report.

In China, however, in the summer of 2000, Guangming Daily published an article entitled "Computer Games: 'Electronic Heroin' Targeting Children," which led to a nationwide crackdown on arcade halls and related "Internet café" establishments.

But the arcade hall was closed one after another, and only the dancing machine in the arcade was still dancing.

After all, it's a bit of a game for all ages, and it's mostly for adults.

Jumping up, it's so simple to renew the life of the arcade.

There are more possibilities, such as co-branding.

In 2018, Chanel opened an arcade hall in Shanghai for a limited period of 10 days.

The all-round red and black color palette with the retro arcade setting instantly made it popular on social networks around the world, with pinball battles, rhythm masters, virtual racing and catching dolls, all of which are a few.

The female customers who came to Chanel to experience makeup also found their own game time: for example, when they went to catch dolls, most of them were Chanel's makeup experience suits.

Such a pop-up store can also allow arcades to find a new way out.

More co-branded brain holes may also find new vitality and vitality for the arcade.

Even subversive innovations such as "Street Fighter" and "Dance Revolution" have become popular again for ten years.

Published in the People's Post and Telegraph on October 11, 2024, Issue 416 of the column of "Le Youji".

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