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[Tiktaalik]

I've been thinking recently of how game design would have been different in the golden age of the arcade. Suppose you were a game designer in 1984 working for Sega or Midway. At that point in time I don't think it was enough to simply come up with a good game idea and create it. For the arcade, not only did a game have to be a good game design, but to be profitable it also had to be designed around somehow getting quarters. Further than that it couldn't be a completely obnoxious rip off, and so there was a balance there. A game had to be difficult enough so that the game would end extremely quickly (~2 mins) but satisfying enough that a person would feel fine about throwing another 25 cents in the machine.

Some design concepts jump out as obvious ones.

Point tracking is a quick and easy way to provide a goal that continues from game to game and a reason for someone to keep playing the game over and over. The concept of getting a high score exists nearly purely in the arcade, and games that have graduated from their arcade beginnings, such as the Mario series, have ditched the points system along the way.

High difficulty coupled with a longer linear quest (TMNT, Ghouls n' Ghosts) seems to be a good way to draw people into spending a bunch, though it seems like there's an increased chance of people just getting utterly frustrated.

Very short gameplay, but rewards for technical skill is another method I've noticed. Racing games frequently have a limited clock that you can only extend by reaching checkpoints in time, which is often a difficult skill to master. Fighting games have a very limited match time, but by being great at the game you can advance on in single player, or in a two player situation, stay on with one quarter.

Fighting games leads to maybe another method, which I guess ties in with points again, which is to somehow provide some braggability factor. If you you're unable to beat your friend in street fighter then maybe you'll throw in quarters to try to beat him again, or later on play alone to practice.

If you were a designer back in the golden age of the arcade what would you do? Would you try to tweak your concepts to throw in something like a high score for example?

On the other hand I wonder if maybe score is irrelevant. It seems like there's a magical balance in a game to be found aside from keeping a personal high score. For the life of me I can't understand why I continue to throw in coins into a Donkey Kong machine whenever I find one even though I know I will probably die almost instantly.

[moi]

I can't really answer since there doesn't seem to be a clear question (If I was an arcade game designer in 1984, I would make,well arcade games lol), but I can say that you can find parallels to the arcade model (albeit with different constraints) nowadays in casual games and flash games designs.
Since there are no more quarters to munch in those models, they have opted for different strategies.

-In the case of flash : keeping the player with either very difficult addictive games( mostly tower defense variants nowadays) or very short replayable games with community rewads, unlockables and achievements (dino run,paper moon). In the first case, long sessions, in the second case, frequent come backs to the website. Ad money or SEO tactics are the farmer's rewards here

-in the case of casual games, they seem to be doing their best to provide a very easy and entertaining medium, with cute/cartoony/mystery ambiance to attract mostly computers novices and try to have them come back to the same brand of products (casual games) again and again.
the objective in this case is to provide a very shallow gameplay type but all the visual/story parts have to be in line with the type of entertainement players are conditioned to expect from the portal.
Provide a quick 'fix', make them taste something but don't give them anything really consistant in the mouth, etc...

Hope this makes some sense since it's late

Tl;dr :  modern arcade games are portal and flash games.

[moi]

A game had to be difficult enough so that the game would end extremely quickly (~2 mins) but satisfying enough that a person would feel fine about throwing another 25 cents in the machine.

Yeah, another design requirement is to hook the player instantly in the first few seconds he might be playing, that explains that arcade games jump directly to the action, with almost no warm-up time, with loud and impressive graphics/sounds right from the start.

[Bree]

Don't forget the classic "Attract Mode", too- those are about as close as those games get to tutorials.

[Lyx]

Interesting question. What after a minute of thinking became quite obvious to me, is the strong link to "games in a classical sense"... you'd want a game which is simple enough for everyone to quickly get into, yet which is difficult to master. Who would have thought that greed can unintentionally result in something nice

[Anthony Flack]

Greed? Nah, arcade games are the most honest. They beg for your attention one coin at a time. Nobody ever blew $50 on an arcade game they didn't like...

[moi]

business has always been the drive of great art.

[Bree]

business has always been the drive of great art.

This needs to be quoted more often.

[Alevice]

related:http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/

[Zaratustra]

The solution is obvious.

ARCADE GAME COMPETITION.

[moi]

related:http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/

Wow, after reading a few articles on this blog: this guy is really the king of trolls.
He's like superjoe^3

[agj]

He is much worse than Super Joe, actually.

[Super Joe]

he's long winded and stupid and knows nothing about the cold hand of science. i'll crush him and i'll crush you. Fuck your weak thoracic cage. Flexibility? Eat my turds. Eat 'em up! Imbibe this grownness.

[Biggerfish]

good article, worth a read

[Cymon]

The solution is obvious.
ARCADE GAME COMPETITION.

Please insert coin into A: