Arcades in 2021 in a post-Arcade era

Silent_Gunner · Jan 17, 2021

https://soranews24.com/2020/08/04/a...t-sega-arcade-announces-its-closing-for-good/

As last year has demonstrated, gathering in places is frowned upon in popular culture...something of which arcades are much more dependent upon compared to other businesses. Thankfully, as all of this was occurring, an alternative that I've personally tried and can vouch for became more prominent called Parsec.

https://parsec.app/

Parsec is a streaming app and platform that streams games to the client's PCs that, with a good enough connection, has low enough latency for the client to not be at a disadvantage in a match. To say that this is revolutionary and timely is an understatement. When the client connects to the host's PC, it is the same as them plugging in their controller to the host's PC!

Now, I have a lot of fighting games on Steam on my own personal account, and I also have other local multiplayer games from other genres. And I got to thinking, as someone who was planning on putting together a PC running inside an arcade machine using a pair of HORI RAP4 arcade sticks until 2020 occurred, it hit me; what if someone decided to take a burner PC, install a bunch of games and emulators, and just let it run as a server people could possibly join in and play games together as a sort of "online arcade" idea?

The only problem is maintaining this server, as having people pay to play games online with each other is a whole other legal minefield that probably isn't worth it for someone like myself to even attempt to navigate. All I'm doing here is kind of just tossing it out there and seeing what everyone here on GBATemp might think of the concept?

BlazeMasterBM · Jan 17, 2021

Silent_Gunner said:
https://soranews24.com/2020/08/04/a...t-sega-arcade-announces-its-closing-for-good/

As last year has demonstrated, gathering in places is frowned upon in popular culture...something of which arcades are much more dependent upon compared to other businesses. Thankfully, as all of this was occurring, an alternative that I've personally tried and can vouch for became more prominent called Parsec.

https://parsec.app/

Parsec is a streaming app and platform that streams games to the client's PCs that, with a good enough connection, has low enough latency for the client to not be at a disadvantage in a match. To say that this is revolutionary and timely is an understatement. When the client connects to the host's PC, it is the same as them plugging in their controller to the host's PC!

Now, I have a lot of fighting games on Steam on my own personal account, and I also have other local multiplayer games from other genres. And I got to thinking, as someone who was planning on putting together a PC running inside an arcade machine using a pair of HORI RAP4 arcade sticks until 2020 occurred, it hit me; what if someone decided to take a burner PC, install a bunch of games and emulators, and just let it run as a server people could possibly join in and play games together as a sort of "online arcade" idea?

The only problem is maintaining this server, as having people pay to play games online with each other is a whole other legal minefield that probably isn't worth it for someone like myself to even attempt to navigate. All I'm doing here is kind of just tossing it out there and seeing what everyone here on GBATemp might think of the concept?

That would be awesome (but make no mistake, I'm a HUGE fan of irl arcades). If someone possibly had the connections, resources, and money to make that happen, I'd be on board.
Anyone for 2-player Pac-Man? (Yes it's a thing)

Deleted User · Jan 17, 2021

not arcades, but i kinda wish i would have gone to internet cafes while they were still popular

BlazeMasterBM · Jan 17, 2021

Azerus_Kun said:
not arcades, but i kinda wish i would have gone to internet cafes while they were still popular

I just go to libraries, they have computers, quiet, and manga

Deleted User · Jan 17, 2021

BlazeMasterBM said:
I just go to libraries, they have computers, quiet, and manga

i mean the internet cafe experience, i have a pretty capable pc and a discord friend group i play games with, but reading stories of people going to internet cafes and playing CS 1.6, Quake 3, half life deathmatch and others on lan, seems fun, i know you can setup your own lan, but i dont have the space

BlazeMasterBM · Jan 17, 2021

Azerus_Kun said:
i mean the internet cafe experience, i have a pretty capable pc and a discord friend group i play games with, but reading stories of people going to internet cafes and playing CS 1.6, Quake 3, half life deathmatch and others on lan, seems fun, i know you can setup your own lan, but i dont have the space

that does seem fun. Any gaming party is always a blast

Silent_Gunner · Jan 17, 2021

BlazeMasterBM said:
That would be awesome (but make no mistake, I'm a HUGE fan of irl arcades). If someone possibly had the connections, resources, and money to make that happen, I'd be on board.
Anyone for 2-player Pac-Man? (Yes it's a thing)

For sure, but the fact is, even before COVID, arcades were on their way out. Nowadays, if people want to simulate the arcade experience, they usually opt for something like a fightstick and just play games online.

But the fact is, most retro games didn't have anything resembling an online functionality. Sure, there was some weird projects that sort of act as a precursor to multiplayer gaming online, but I can't imagine any of those to be anywhere nearly as good as what we have nowadays.

The best simulation of that experience as far as I can perceive it is what I described in the OP; take a PC, let's just say a burner PC with no personal information on it since people are going to be accessing it as clients and there's plenty of bad actors who would take advantage of that sort of setup to do Heaven knows what, have a bunch of games on there that players can choose from, and boom! You have something kind of like an arcade experience. Build a few more PCs, and you have something of an arcade setup anyone can jump on at any time, and the users could pick and choose what games they want to play amongst themselves!

BlazeMasterBM · Jan 17, 2021

Silent_Gunner said:
For sure, but the fact is, even before COVID, arcades were on their way out. Nowadays, if people want to simulate the arcade experience, they usually opt for something like a fightstick and just play games online.

But the fact is, most retro games didn't have anything resembling an online functionality. Sure, there was some weird projects that sort of act as a precursor to multiplayer gaming online, but I can't imagine any of those to be anywhere nearly as good as what we have nowadays.

The best simulation of that experience as far as I can perceive it is what I described in the OP; take a PC, let's just say a burner PC with no personal information on it since people are going to be accessing it as clients and there's plenty of bad actors who would take advantage of that sort of setup to do Heaven knows what, have a bunch of games on there that players can choose from, and boom! You have something kind of like an arcade experience. Build a few more PCs, and you have something of an arcade setup anyone can jump on at any time, and the users could pick and choose what games they want to play amongst themselves!

It is a great idea. And most retro games would probably be extremely easy to implement an online functionality for.

Deleted User · Jan 17, 2021

I was still in University back at the start of Internet Cafes, in the early 2000s, so I spent many nights there until morning, both for the download speed and gaming.

After I graduated, it started to peak and you'd start hearing macabre things on the news, about people dying whilst gaming for several days in a row or who left their family members unattended and was arrested.

I'm not sure which stories you heard, but aside from the extreme cringe, there were good times had.
Also, some Internet Cafes in Tokyo also operated as a motel of sorts, for either locals or backpacking tourists who just want to shower, eat or drink lightly, and use the Internet whilst sleeping until morning.

Silent_Gunner · Jan 17, 2021

BlazeMasterBM said:
It is a great idea. And most retro games would probably be extremely easy to implement an online functionality for.

Parsec takes care of that automatically. Let's say I host a game of, say, Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the Saturn via Parsec which, like almost all fighting games of that era, doesn't have online functionality naturally. You want to join my session as the client. Upon doing so, your controller (of which you can define the inputs of in the Parsec program itself) is "connected" to my PC, even making the "new device connected via USB!" noise that Windows is known to make upon you joining into the game, and then it's streaming what's in, say, RetroArch on my PC to your screen with hopefully little to no lag or latency depending on your connection, location, etc., effectively making a game that you normally would have to be in the same room looking at the same TV for playable online!

Taleweaver · Jan 17, 2021

Is parsec better than steams own remote play?
I tried some overcooked with a friend over that, but while playable it wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped (he lived about 80 kilometers away).

While a burner pc sounds awesome on paper, you can't get around the fact that it's distributing illegal roms (I'm not sure on the legality of steam... In theory you could create an account, buy one game... And then share it with everyone through that method) . Therefore, I wouldn't make it a public server. But among friends it could work (besides... I don't think fighting games will remain playable with someone on the other end of the world

)

Silent_Gunner · Jan 17, 2021

Taleweaver said:
Is parsec better than steams own remote play?
I tried some overcooked with a friend over that, but while playable it wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped (he lived about 80 kilometers away).

While a burner pc sounds awesome on paper, you can't get around the fact that it's distributing illegal roms (I'm not sure on the legality of steam... In theory you could create an account, buy one game... And then share it with everyone through that method) . Therefore, I wouldn't make it a public server. But among friends it could work (besides... I don't think fighting games will remain playable with someone on the other end of the world )

This is just me tossing an idea around with others to see what they think. I doubt it'd ever be able to be something one could expect to execute without facing the possibility of getting screwed in some way down the line when it comes to that factor.

I just think that it's telling when Maximilian Dood, in one of his more recent videos where he's discussing various things regarding fighting games, considers Parsec to be one of the best things to happen to the genre during the mess that has been and continues to be the COVID pandemic.

The Real Jdbye · Jan 17, 2021

An issue with that that I see is that Parsec makes me manually approve every connection even if I have the user(s) set as trusted. So nobody can ever connect to Parsec without me manually approving the connection, they can't connect unattended.

Taleweaver said:
Is parsec better than steams own remote play?
I tried some overcooked with a friend over that, but while playable it wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped (he lived about 80 kilometers away).

While a burner pc sounds awesome on paper, you can't get around the fact that it's distributing illegal roms (I'm not sure on the legality of steam... In theory you could create an account, buy one game... And then share it with everyone through that method) . Therefore, I wouldn't make it a public server. But among friends it could work (besides... I don't think fighting games will remain playable with someone on the other end of the world )

Steam Remote Play has some quirks that make it not work properly with certain games. It will only stream windows that are detected as part of the game, some launchers will make the game process not be detected by Steam so instead of streaming the game window it just closes the stream once the launcher closes. Parsec doesn't have those issues because you can literally set any window you want to be streamable (and whatever window is in the front is the one that gets streamed, as long as it's on the list of streamable windows)
Apart from that they work very similarly. Steam Remote Play is the easiest to set up/use though but it's not really designed for unattended access since you have to launch a game and then manually invite people to join.

I'm pretty sure that's perfectly legal. It's just like letting someone borrow your PC to play a game. As long as you don't charge for access, then it kind of becomes a rental and you need special licensing to rent out games right?

Sonic Angel Knight · Jan 17, 2021

Sadly, arcades have become one of 4 categories.

First one is...

Buying compilations of emulated games you play on your consoles or pc with sometimes bad or good online multiplayer...

Second is

Buying one of those arcade looking machines like arcade 1-up, sega astro mini or more infamous, capcom home arcade. Because it look like the arcade controllers. You can also buy the same looking controller to use in console or pc games.

Third would probably be simply fightcade. For people who don't know, is a frontend for a modified version of final burn alpha or final burn neo (whichever you prefer) that let you play supported emulated games online with "Rollback netcode" which is considered prefer over "Delay netcode." TL: DR Online multiplayer is a lot more playable.

And four would probably be that steam multiplayer thing, or parsec OP mentioned... or just do like you normally would. With bad online like most AAA games come with for no using "Rollback" like most Indie games do.

Silent_Gunner · Jan 17, 2021

Sonic Angel Knight said:
Sadly, arcades have become one of 4 categories.

First one is...
Buying compilations of emulated games you play on your consoles or pc with sometimes bad or good online multiplayer...

Second is

Buying one of those arcade looking machines like arcade 1-up, sega astro mini or more infamous, capcom home arcade. Because it look like the arcade controllers. You can also buy the same looking controller to use in console or pc games.

View attachment 242167

Third would probably be simply fightcade. For people who don't know, is a frontend for a modified version of final burn alpha or final burn neo (whichever you prefer) that let you play supported emulated games online with "Rollback netcode" which is considered prefer over "Delay netcode." TL: DR Online multiplayer is a lot more playable.

View attachment 242168

And four would probably be that steam multiplayer thing, or parsec OP mentioned... or just do like you normally would. With bad online like most AAA games come with for no using "Rollback" like most Indie games do.

There is some hope on the horizon for some older fighting games on Steam. Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus R (the craziest title in the series) and King of Fighters 2002 UM (arguably my favorite of the KOF games still using the old Neo-Geo sprites) got rollback netcode implemented into their PC ports after the fact. I don't know if there's as many efforts to do so for other games like KOF98UM, KOFXIII, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, etc..

Chary · Jan 17, 2021

I’m pretty grateful, because while arcades are a little dead for the most part, Texas is home to Dave n Busters, which is like, I dunno, Chuck E Cheese on crack? Tons of games—and arcade cabinets. They have an original Pac-Man and Donkey Kong machine, along with really cool other ones like House of the Dead, Street Fighter, etc. I really miss it, out of all the things the pandemic has killed off for now.

That being said...Parsec seems like it has some serious potential. I wonder what the future has in store for it!

Deleted User · Jan 17, 2021

As far as I know, right up to the start of COVID-19, the Street Fighter Alpha 3 in Japan, or commonly known as Street Fighter Zero 3, Championship Circuit was going strong.

Now that is a niche within a niche because the whole Circuit is played out on the original Arcade machines; those who do git gud, as it were, spent a fortune training on said machines because apparently they never disconnected the coin slots so you really had to put in currency to gain training time.

I don't doubt they'll be back after the Pandemic; logically, they had no reason to exist in the first place seeing the scarcity of the hardware, the steep learning curve of paying to play the actual machines and the actual interest in this, but they did.

Edit: I stand corrected; they never even took a break. My apologies, Japan, for ever doubting you.

Arcades in 2021 in a post-Arcade era

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