I am starting an article series about the history of gaming. It will be about one small aspect of gaming history (whether it is a series, genre, or character) and will appear every week.

I am asking two things:
1. Does anyone want to volunteer to help?
2. Does anyone have ideas for an article?

Lets bounce some ideas man. I'd love to help on an article like this!

I'd stray away from doing anything specifically about games series or characters, I think Retro Game Of The Week covers that. Systems, technology, companies etc. would be good though.

I'd love to do one at some stage, but I have no idea when I'll be able to. For now I'll just sit on the sidelines helping with organising and editing the series.

dickmedd wrote:

That's pretty much what I was thinking. If I even did one that was a game, I'd give the whole series with info on the developers too, so it would be a little different than RGOTW.

On the back of an article I just finished off for RGOTW I'll put forward a suggestion: the demise of SEGA from the console market.

Very interesting... I might use that. I'd like to take more ideas into consideration, though.

How about:

Console expansion packs and their success and failures.

ie
Nintendo Satellite
Sega CD
Sega 32X
Super Nintendo CD (known to become the PSX)
Turbo CD
Supergraphx
N64 mem pak
N64 DD
PS2 HD and networking adapter

I'm sure there are more

The failure of Sega's console expansions tie in heavily to the company's demise from the hardware business, so some planning would be required to figure out how best to handle that overlap.

Console failures in general might also be interesting (Atari Jaguar, anyone? Or perhaps some Apple Pippin).

I'd be very much interested in writing the articles for some of these ideas, but, as I said before, I don't have time at the moment (and probably won't until November), so for now I'll just be something akin to a managing editor.

EDIT: Also, the demise of the arcades -- that's a big one.

mossy_11 wrote:

I agree.

jack59splat59 wrote:

I also agree strongly.

Does anyone want to volunteer to write one of the future articles?
Also, I plan to get this started by the weekend, if Halo: Reach allows me to leave the Xbox long enough for me to write the article.

mossy_11 wrote:

There has been no demise. Please read this:

Seth Killian's "The Once and Future Arcade"

For those who may be unaware, Shoryuken (SRK) is a competitive fighting game based community. We have been playing arcade fighting games in tournaments since shortly after Street Fighter II came out. Back then they would communicate via Usenet to discuss strategies, trash talk, and announce tournaments. Today, arcades have much less activity than in the past, but still enough to sustain themselves financially. The ones with activity from competitive scenes (and not just fighting games, but also other genres) still see a large amount of people consistently going to play. In fact, some arcades in the U.S. were opened not too long ago, by people who are part of the SRK community (look up Denjin Arcade and ArcadeUFO). Also, arcades in Japan are still as active now as they were in the 80s/90s.

Here's another article that touches more on that:

Arcade Culture

In short, arcades are not dead, they are just less active in the west (with some exceptions) and still highly active in some parts of the world.

So if you're going to make any kind of arcade-related article, please give accurate information.

For what it's worth, I knew most of that. I was referring to the demise of arcades and arcade culture in the West outside of a comparatively small competitive scene, and if it ends up being me who writes that article, I'll be noting that they are doing just fine in some parts of the world. (I always do my research.)

If it's someone else who ends up writing about the arcades, I hope they also touch on this (if not I may block the article from being published )

Oops, it just occurred to me that I've twice now used the word demise when really I mean decline. Demise implies death, and as you rightly pointed out the arcades aren't dead or even dying - just different and, in some places, less popular. A more fitting use of the word demise might be to describe what's happening to the commercial pinball industry.

Went to Dave & Buster's on Saturday night. I forgot how packed that place gets. Especially considering its 21 and over to get in on Saturday nights. I never saw the local arcades that packed when we had them. Granted its one night, which is by no means a "study" but if its any indicator at all, I'd say arcade games are alive and kicking.

Sorry that this has been MAJORLY delayed, but I've had a lot of stuff on my plate lately. Once I start to get more time, I'll try to assemble this project together. Sorry for the delay.