Dave & Buster's Daytona Adventure

I will get to the FIEA capstone stuff later.  Spoiler alert--Battle Fortress Tortoise (and Plushy Knight...psh) survive the final cut.  Seriously, I can't be bothered to talk about school stuff for a while.

Anyway, my dad's in town for the Daytona 500 and we had a day to relax and do stuff.  So we decided after our failed opportunity to visit Dave & Busters' in August, we would go today.  Traffic along International Drive was bad but we made it.  D&B's is usually packed to the fire limit but here, we got in right away since it was still daytime.

If you don't know about Dave & Buster's, it's basically a large arcade full of arcade games, a bar, and a fancy restaurant.  It's not a Sega Gameworks but it'll do for now.  D&B's is like Chuck E Cheese's but with fewer kids around--granted there were quite a few around sucking at every game imaginable. I'll cut through the crap now--there was a six-player Daytona USA 1 setup.  There was also Fast & Furious Bikes, Sega Go-Kart Racing, Need for Speed Carbon, Dead Heat, NASCAR Arcade, four-player Pac-Man,, Time Crisis 4, Ghost Squad...I mean, who cares about any of that junk (except for Ghost Squad which is good)?  We're here to play Daytona USA.



Take a quick glance at the 5-6 sec mark...see the Daytona USA cabinets in the background?  Oh, and FnF, GTFO with that trash.



He's clearly playing Daytona USA in this scene although you never see the screen/logo.

This is what your Dave & Buster's Daytona USA setup looks like.  This is NOT a picture that I took--I had this one on my hard drive months ago.  It's not your normal Daytona cabinet.  The screens are huge and  the seat is cushy.  Oh, and the seat shakes like all hell when you turn.  Just like *BRRMMPPP*, the thing doesn't gradually slide at all--it just tilts back and forth like a simulator theme park ride.  And the wheel force feedback was really tough--it took about two games before I got used to the setup.  I persevered despite aching in my arms, legs, and fingers.  You have to wrestle that beast to the ground.  I'd like to see Team Marubaku put up WR's on these things.  Thankfully the cabinets were clean & functioning properly--no broken shifters or pedals so props to the staff.

Each go cost about $1.25.  You can't pinpoint an exact price since you had to swipe special D&B cards that you purchased credits for.  The more credits you bought, the greater deal you got on them.  We just plunked $25 and I played a lot of Daytona USA which was a damn good time.

Thankfully, my Daytona XBLA skills really paid off.  I wanted to play the Advanced and Expert courses, but if anyone joined during the 15-second wait time, you were forced to do whatever course they selected, usually Beginner.  When I did do Advanced & Expert (people stopped jumping in later on), I smoked the game.  Put up 3:02 on Advanced, 3:27 on Expert.  Ok, so the Expert time is pretty bad but it's up to par on my XBLA skills and I need to go back and improve.  It was the best I could do.

When I did play multiplayer, it was always on Beginner.  And I just about smoked everybody.  You'd be surprised the amount of people who hop on and have NO IDEA how to play the game at all.  How typical that they pick automatic transmission, bounce off the wall on the Sonic turn, accidentally go in the pits on occasion.  Only thing keeping them in the race is the major rubber-band/catch-up.  Noobs driving AT behind me didn't even have to strategize whatsoever--they were about a second behind the whole race but I made no mistakes.  Took the Sonic turn at about 180-185 mph each time and put up low 17 second laps.  I won.

Must've played about 12 races myself, let my dad try a few times.  We left feeling good about ourselves.  Finally, I had some fun for once in my life.  We will hopefully come back another day.

Here's another Daytona USA pic for good measure.

Now some other things about D&B's.  The place had a Star Wars arcade game (Model3, baby!!) and that game's just weird shooting your blaster with the flight joystick.  I can see using that thing while piloting a ship but not while traveling on foot.  Oh well.

And I also saw a new Midway/Raw Thrills game called "Big Buck World."  Now I know about those cheesy deer hunting games in every arcade/pizza place imaginable, but I just want you to take a look at the logo and see if you notice something:

Don't see it?  Well, lemme help you out:

That's right--the buffoons at Raw Thrills decided to recycle part of the Cruis'n World logo.  I can't believe--Eugene Jarvis and the crew just blow me away with their games.  The level of crap in their games is evident even in the logo.  Just great.

As for the rest of the games, there was a couple of HUGE basketball games (sink baskets not from the free throw line but the 3-pointer line) and a ton of slot-machine ticket games.  It's basically like a casino but kids are welcome to play.  Yeah kids, come on down and gamble your cash for a couple of Chinese finger traps and Jawbreakers.

The ticket redemption area is in the corner of the arcade and it looks like a small Disney gift shop.  You'll see toys, candy, soccer balls, giant stuffed animals, t-shirts, grills, blenders, deep fryers, iPads, PS3s, Xbox 360s, I mean what the hell???  If you want a blender, go to Target and buy one.  How many adults are in dire need of a blender that they would be willing play Wheel of Fortune/Deal or No Deal redemption games to get the tickets required???

Honey, get that deep-fryer with the Dave & Buster's logo on it!!!

Aaaannddd...there's the restaurant which is just like your normal Applebee's/TGI Friday's stuff.  Place looks nice and has a bunch of TV's with ESPN.  The cheeseburger was alright, nothing new but satisfactory.  Then we went home.  Had a lot of fun.  Daytona USA was great.

Now I have to go to bed and drive to the Daytona 500 tomorrow.  It's gonna be great.  I'll try to bring a sign that says "Hey Sega, wish you were here, bring us Daytona USA 3" but I don't know if they take signs.  EDIT: No, signs are stupid but I'll bring something Daytona USA-related anyway.  Hahaha, later guys.

DAAAYYYYYTTTOOOOONNNNNAAAAAAAA!!!!  ROLLLLIINNNGGG STTAAARRRTTTTTTTT!!!  BLUE BLUE SKIEEESSSSS!!!

So What's Raw Thrills Up To Anyway? Pissing Me Off As Usual...

Nice, I'm watching the NASCAR race on TV...it's about time.  It's at Pocono, the Daytona USA tri-oval.  I keep forgetting to watch these things.  Now Brad Keselowski wins (and is drinking a Miller Lite) and Kurt Busch just said "bitch" on live TV (referring to an altercation with Jimmie Johnson).  And forget about censoring that word--if he can say it uncensored SO CAN I.

But I recently checked out a couple of Twitter accounts.  Raw Thrills has a Twitter, oh geez.  Anyway, here's what I got.

Justin Bieber on a Fast and Furious Bikes game...good enough of a reason NOT to play it now, sheesh...

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Here's a YouTube video. 



The Description: Employees of Raw Thrills, Play Mechanix, Betson Enterprises and Namco Cybertainment risk their lives to bring you the best games in coin-op...

WHERE THE HELL IS SEGA???  WHY IS IT THAT EUGENE JARVIS HAS MORE DESIRE IN HIS PINKY FINGER TO MAKE A GOOD RACING GAME THAN IN EVERYONE AT SEGA COMBINED???  AND RAW THRILLS DOESN'T EVEN MAKE NASCAR GAMES, GOD FORBID THEY ACTUALLY MAKE ONE NOW???  AND NAMCO, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE???  MY GOD, WHAT HAVE WE WROUGHT???

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There has been both a Big Buck Hunter and a Big Buck Safari tournament recently.  The winner of the Safari tournament took home $10,000.  Wait--$10K?  Isn't that the same amount offered to those at EVO and MLG?  Screw Cock o Doody: Boring Ops, Gaylo: Reach, and Starcrap 2; I wanna watch some BIG BUCK HUNTIN'!!!  But no, really, Big Buck Hunter is the kind of game you'd see in a tiny pizza parlor arcade or in the front entrance of a Wal-Mart.  Golden Tee, an underground competitive game, is treated with more dignity.  Geez.



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And now for the big salad.  This is a flattening article if you're Raw Thrills, otherwise, it's embarrassing.  Top 10 Secrets for Arcade Operators to Make Money.

Many survivors, such as Sega Sammy and Namco Bandai, were forced to merge and expand far afield into non-amusement territory in order to survive (despite which, their annual profit and loss statements still don't look nearly as healthy as stockholders would like).

This rocky history makes it all the more impressive that a relative newcomer, Chicago-based Raw Thrills, founded in 2001, has succeeded in a tough industry during a very difficult decade of consolidation and retrenchment. The extent of the company's success is impressive. Not only did distributors vote Raw Thrills top honors as "Manufacturer of the Year" in 2007 and 2008, but leading operators have named Raw Thrills chief executive Eugene Jarvis as 2009's Man of the Year. The Amusement and Music Owners Association of New York will present this honor at a dinner on Feb. 8 in New York City.

*profuse vomiting*

I'm going to apply this to SEGA....

Lesson 1: Learn your trade through years of hands-on experience. - Suzuki and Nagoshi have been making arcade games for years. 

Lesson 2: Build a great team. - These are the same people who made Virtua Fighter & countless arcade racers so no excuse there. 

Lesson 3: First be great at doing "just one thing." - Suzuki talked about "self-improvement" in his words of wisdom section from the game design book which is close enough. 

Lesson 4: Be an entertainer, and keep it simple.
Lesson 5: Respect the hits. - Quoting from the article:

When RT launched in 2001, the amusement trade could not foretell the staying power of its games. But from the very start, the company has worked to achieve a style of gameplay and graphics presentation that attracts the casual gamer and holds his interest. Rather than over-complicated simulations, simple yet fun gameplay has led to core playability that keeps cashboxes full. In short, RT always remembers that it's in the entertainment business, not the "super accurate simulator" business.

....and...

If you're in the entertainment business, then you are in a hit-driven business. The U.S. economy increasingly has no room for "mid-list" book titles, "fairly popular" TV shows, and "modest sleeper" films. Either it's a blockbuster or it's nothing. Raw Thrills embraced this principle through licensing hit properties such as The Fast and the Furious (remember, it was a hit film before it was a hit game) and the Terminator franchise. RT was an obvious choice when a safe pair of hands was needed to bring the million-selling Guitar Hero consumer videogame franchise to the arcades.

Step 1: Make mediocre games based on pop culture crap.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!!!

Sega can't win here, they just can't.  When they're making good games based on true blood, sweat, and tears, they lose.

Lesson 6: Build your own brand.
Lesson 7: Remember the basics.
Lesson 8: Teamwork.
Lesson 9: Market to your ultimate customer, the player ... not just to the next level down in the business chain. - These all pertain specifically to managing arcades, something that Sega surrendered on years ago (aside from UFO catchers).

Lesson 10: Get connected. - Ever since when did Sega meet with their fans?  Other than ridiculous canned crap, like Sonic Boom at E3 or Nagoshi doing Yakuza promos???  Where's Yu Suzuki anyway???  Doing nothing other than  

Bonus lesson: Stay focused on the future. - Does Sega strike you as focused on the future?  Or are they just trying to stay alive, not looking to overtake anyone?  Whatever happened to Japanese honor???  What a catastrophe.

So lemme ask you this--if Raw Thrills can crap out anything and it's a hit, why can't Sega?  Two reasons:

1. No one wants to play Sega games because they are really bad and us Sega diehards are too blissfully unaware to notice this...
OR
2. Sega is too lazy and doesn't care.

So shame on everyone, shame on Sega, welcome to the future of racing games--Fast and Furious and Need for Speed!!!

EDIT: Well, let me elaborate on what Sega should've done.  Tomorrow, they can't just come out and say "We're reviving twenty of our IP's with 300+ man teams each," no, doesn't work that way.  Maybe in the past they could've produced some more DC/Saturn/whatnot ports, treated them with more TLC, started with smaller games working their way up in order to raise their confidence and consumer awareness thus beginning the process of rolling the ball down the hill.  Don't get me wrong, they've done this in the form of a new Yakuza and a new Sonic game (after six/seven botched attempts thus flatlining the franchise) and OutRun/Sega Rally Online Arcade, but that's not enough, it just isn't.  Especially if you're a racing game fan like I am.

And they don't necessarily HAVE to make an arcade comeback here--home consoles are fine by me.  Better that we get a measly Sega Racing Classic XBLA/PSN port than get another unique arcade racer (like R-Tuned or Sega Race TV) that makes a grand whopping total of US arcade appearances in the single-digits.  But no, today they're in a crap position so they're in a bind here.

I expect some Midway fans to read this someday and then proceed to call me a fanboy.  Hell, I tell you this--I played the crap out of Cruis'n USA and World (both in arcades and on N64) when I was a kid.  It was fun.  But now, I see through its transparency...

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And one more thing.  EDIT: I didn't find this on the Raw Thrills Twitter--no, they wouldn't touch this with a twenty foot pole.  This is about Pinball and Williams Entertainment (which would later become part of Midway).  Pinball lost popularity in the late 80's-90's.  Why?  

In 1986, Williams High Speed [a pinball machine] changed the economics of pinball forever.  Pinball developers began to see how they could take advantage of programmable software to monitor, incentivize, and ultimately exploit the players.  They had two instruments at their disposal:  the score required for a free game, and the match probability.  All pinball machines offer a replay to a player who beats some specified score.  Pre-1986, the replay score was hard wired into the game unless the operator manually re-programmed the software.  High Speed changed all that.  It was pre-loaded with an algorithm that adjusted the replay score according to the distribution of scores on the specified machine over a specific time interval.

Basically, what Williams did was alter the free game thresholds, either by making them increasingly more difficult or completely random.  And this isolated novice players and thus pinball lost a lot of players.  Then pinball proceeded to die.  Game over.

And what's sad is that Williams AKA Midway continued this winning tradition into Cruis'n USA, Cruis'n World, Fast and the Furious.  Come in first, win a free race.  Yeah, but the rubber band AI is so cheap that it's just a big tease to get you to play cause MAYBE you'll win one.  At least Sega racers don't give you this free game BS--you play one again, win or else, you're happy.

You know, I always thought it was weird that people would stand in the middle of the road waiting for you...what if you don't stop on a dime?  You run their asses over as they explode into packets of blood (Maximum Force-style).

Now don't get me wrong, these aren't the WORST games I've played.  But this is what I say--Midway/Raw Thrills make cheeseball games.  They ruined arcades for me...watching that Daytona USA or OutRun cabinet being ushered away for a Cruis'n or FnF game.  Makes me wanna puke (again).

Oh yeah, here's some quotes by Eugene Jarvis that I'm too lazy to elaborate on...

I need to go back to sleep.