Arcades as a social space

This idea came up in this week's tutorial and it really interested me.
To be honest, I never really thought of gaming as a social activity. Perhaps it's because of my preference for single player games. But then again, one of the ways I spent time with my brother when we weere children was to sit and watch him play single player games.

The clip we watched in the tutorial talked about arcades being the place where kids used to gather to not only play games but also to socialise. Our class discussion observed that this didn't seem to be the case anymore.

However, even in New Zealand, I don't think that this trend has disappeared completely. I'm sure many people know of that arcade on Queen St called 'Yifans'? Well, I'm not entriely sure if it's where the kids gather (I hope not, cause it seems a bit iffy sometimes) but when I do have the chance to go, there are always groups of people standing around one machine watching one person play the game. Sometimes it's Tekken, sometimes it's DDR , a lot of the time it seems to be House of the dead or some racing game... But what I love is that there are always a couple of really hardcore people playing on the classic arcade machines, playing games like  'Raiden' and there are usually people watching them (myself included) and 'oooh'-ing and 'ahh'-ing over their well practised manoeuvers. 
See! Arcades haven't been completely taken over by internet cafes yet!


We also watched another clip in the tutorial that showed the gaming and arcade culture in Japan. It is still thriving and very much the place that young people gather to socialize and to play games. One of the reasons for this is because of the arcades' locations being in large shopping districts located near train stations. 
There is a similar culture in Taiwan. Near underground metro stations, there are underground shopping districts. Within these districts there are arcade-like spaces in which there are claw machines and a number of arcade games. One of the really popular game machines in Taiwan is the basketball shooting machine. A lot of the time, you will see large groups of students gathered, chatting, hanging out, playing the game, or watching their friends and classmates set high scores. 

In this sense, arcades still allow playing games to be a way to socialise with others in the flesh, so to speak.


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