Indie In: An Indie Publisher And Arcade
I’ve had a bunch of business ideas over the years, so I’ve decided to post them onto here, for me to flesh our or to get stolen. And if you do end of stealing this idea, at least give me some royalties! >:P
Alright, get this. So, when it comes to indie game studios, developing traditional games, it takes a lot of time and resource to make a game that is fleshed out and complex. Arcade games, on the other hand, are made to be simple. Any Joe-Shmoe should be able to walk up to a machine, button mash, and enjoy himself. While developing arcade games are easier, the complexity comes from the hardware side of the product. Arcade cabinets are nearly always unique to the game, bulky, and expensive. As such, no indie company in the world would ever want to tap into the arcade market. Also because of its slow death
But, what if a brick and mortar arcade business also acts as a publisher? With a standardized collection of arcade cabinet configurations, each being ran on some shitty 2012 gaming rig. An arcade business who contracts out the games available at the establishment to indie developers. Now, this is a batshit crazy idea because the arcade machines, themselves, are not the profitable part of arcade businesses, it’s the consessions. Pair with this another pulling force for playing arcade machines is the branding. What would you rather play Chucks Chunky Run, or Star Wars Battle Pod! See?
There is only two things I could see which would drive engagement to an establihment like this:
- New Releases
- FOMO
With being a publishing company, having a constant influx of development companies requesting to develop games for the business allows for fresh and novelty, which could bring people back. On the other side of the coin, there’s only so much space, and so many cabinets available at a given time. As such, some games gotta go. Think of it like Fortnite’s item shop. I haven’t played the game in quite a while, but I got a buddy who has the most stern attitude, but once the Clone Trooper skins dropped again, he was soypogging while pulling out his credit card. Managing to get a McRib game, constantly going in and out of rotation, would be extremely important. But, God knows how many failed games it would take to get one.
Even if there’s a location, and games available, there’s another elephant in the room: the cabinets! In order to make arcade game development cheap for the producers, the arcade business will have to provide the specs of what’s possible on the machine, and the machine itself. Now I’m asking for an already struggling arcade company to take on the roles of arcade cabinet manufacturing, video game publishing, and some secondary profit model to stay afloat.
Another question is what sort of profit model to use for the arcade? There’s always the traditional coin-op. But I’ve been thinking about how Costco works, with a paid-membership and unlimited plays. I could see an issue where a player could hog a cabinet. I’d love to see how to properly implement in a free-play model, though.
I’ll think more about this shit later…
It’s 4 in the fucking morning.