Wen 丨 Rat Typeface 丨 Arc Wing Execution
If you want to choose an award for "the most popular picture of teenagers in the 90s", this picture must be on the list.
Twenty years ago, this pixel animation that could not be easier in just a few seconds was a "famous scene" that any post-90s generation would be excited to see.
Behind the famous scenes are beautiful childhood memories in an era when the reflection has now become black and white.
Thanks to the introduction from Hong Kong in the early 1980s, the arcade has become a must-have choice for many teenagers in a short period of time, and because of its magical "magic" of always attracting a large number of children who do not return at night, it has attracted parents and attracted the attention of the public.
In contrast, in Japan, where otaku culture is prevalent, arcade machines have become directly part of popular culture.
The Game Hall in Takadanobaba, Japan, is known as Japan's "Arcade Mecca".
Here, the social animal man in the suit and leather shoes and the childish teenager are in the same room, and the fatigue at work and the pain in life fade away in the BABA up and down, left and right.
Here, compared to the cold screen of a computer, the creaking and twisting of a mechanical joystick and the clap of a button are more humane than the former.
From the very beginning of its arcade culture, Japan has been exploring the close but silent relationship between entertainment facilities and society.
In the past, there were game companies such as Konami, Sega, bandai Namco and other game companies that created and operated the machine hall to operate and hold shares, and then THERE was ROUND1, a comprehensive entertainment venue that combined arcade machines with common entertainment facilities such as bowling and karaoke.
Under the unremitting efforts of major game companies, it eventually became a situation where "Japan cannot do without arcade game halls, just as the West cannot do without Jesus Salem".
In an interview with arcade players previously produced by NHK in 2018, you can see a civil servant who works the night shift, a big sister who is blind in one eye but is still skilled, an Ingrid Asco foreign teacher from the United States, or a red-haired punk teenager waiting for employment. Their identities and lives are very different, but they can all come together out of a love of the game.
But if the arcade hall, under the stacking of the above rhetoric, is gradually becoming a growing phenomenon-level complete industrial chain, then I am afraid that we will not miss the past.
On September 20, 2021, Sega Ikebukuro gigo, one of the most iconic game halls in Japan and one of SEGA's longest-running machine halls, finally lost to The Times due to the expiration of the lease agreement and the repair of the building, and the machine hall that accompanied players for 28 years finally lost to the times and announced its closure.
This isn't the first machine hall to close in this era, but it won't be the last either.
"Thank you for 28 years.1993.7.21-2021.09.20"
Affected by the epidemic, Japan, which has just come out of the "lost twenty years" and has been able to breathe, has once again suffered a sharp blow to the economy, according to the GDP report released by the Japanese Cabinet Office on May 18, 2021, the Japanese economy fell by 28.1% in the second quarter of 2020, even if the overall economy has rebounded in the third and fourth quarters, the overall economy is still showing a downward trend.
The once 28-year-long locomotive hall milestone is now left with an empty shell that has stood for several months, and this phenomenon is not only happening in Japan.
In China at the beginning of the 21st century, arcade game halls have the opportunity to take root even in the small eighteen-line county town in the remote countryside where the author grew up. Even with environments dim enough to be used for horror filming, and swearing with a thick smell of smoke, for untouched children, the arcade game is as tempting as a fried chicken cola watermelon for a particular group.
This is a picture.
But 20 years later, the emergence of smart phones, the popularity and price reduction of computers, or the continuous rise of various types of consoles, virtual games and major console platforms, so that the original rich content of the arcade machine in that era, now seems too cheap.
Once for the player two dollars a happy afternoon, now far less fast than mobile games. Once face-to-face battles and even developed into the fun of offline live-action kombat, now relying on the Internet can also be supported. For game room owners, the cost of maintenance is intertwined with the headless cycle of returns, and those who persist along the road are either daydreamers or idiots.
Every owner of an Internet café seems to have the heart to open a clubhouse, so that their decoration is really exquisite. Seriously, it's so delicate.
There are also arcade halls that choose to conform to the development of the times and launch activities such as virtual idols, linkage peripherals or online live broadcasting. Some game companies have also made bold attempts to port arcade games to PCs and even mobile phones. With the cohesion of players and the history of the origin of arcades, Japan's arcade industry even if it loses the dominance of the game industry, it can be regarded as surviving this hurdle, in the hearts of many Japanese, this is still their "spiritual sustenance" worth paying money and time support.
The above-mentioned game hall has its own account on Youtube, and it will broadcast classic arcade games live every night, and with the spread of the Internet, it can also attract many fans.
The domestic arcade era is more short-lived, but it is not short-lived. Search for arcade halls at Station B, and you'll be able to find machine halls in your city in almost any video.
However, these arcade halls are more bound to the game and social attributes, and most of the machine halls will always be placed with some doll-catching machines that make the object happy or edge-rubbing slot machines with gambling attributes. Few players who come here can appreciate the passion and youth of teenagers who explored other worlds in those dark basements twenty or thirty years ago.
In this fast-paced era when the same is equivalent to death, the arcade machine is like a deer stuck in the mud and unwilling to perish, it can't keep up with the changes of the times, but it still has tenacious vitality. But no one can say exactly whether this culture, which was once the youth of countless people, will eventually become a sign of the times or fall into a silent dead silence.
We can only remember the times, until the times have left us behind.