Why Dave & Buster’s Is Transforming Its Arcades Into Casinos

Comments

• tal@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  They should probably be more wary of the likelier—and grimmer—alternative: becoming something closer to most of the other casinos in America, where no parent would ever dream of throwing their kid’s birthday party.

  I haven’t been to a Dave & Busters in ages, but I’d guess that their existing business model may not be in great shape. What did they offer? A restaurant with an attached arcade aimed at adults.

  Generally, arcades have not done terribly well. There used to be a lot of video arcades all over out there. Video game hardware has gotten a lot cheaper, and a lot of people just have it at home now.

  Last I looked (which was not recent), the kid-oriented Chuck-E-Cheese and the adult-oriented Dave & Busters tried to compensate with hardware that had a high hardware cost and couldn’t readily economically be brought home, like light guns, enclosures that enhance immersion (e.g simulated motorcycle seats to ride on on motorcycle games). But for at least some of that, VR setups are probably a partial competitor, and they’re a lot more available.

  Many of the setups are aimed at letting multiple people play games together, but wide availability of broadband and VoIP and good headsets has made it easier to play games remotely. That won’t replace all of the experience of playing against someone else in person, but it is a partial substitute.

  They sell alcohol, but young adults – who l’d guess are most likely to frequent a D&B – in the US are drinking less than they did in the past.

  They focus on people who stay at their premises, but there’s apparently been a big shift in consuner use of restaurants towards takeout:

  www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/…/677675/

  According to the NRA, on-premises traffic hasn’t returned to its pre-pandemic highs. But drive-through and delivery orders have grown so much that together they now account for a higher share of customer traffic than on-premises dining, for the first time ever. Meanwhile, the only parts of the day with growing foot traffic are the morning and late night, when customers are likely to be on the go.

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  • UrLogicFails@beehaw.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s a really good point about their business model potentially being unsustainable, but I still question if adding gambling is the answer.

    Things that get me to go out (and I know that is anecdotal at best) are things like trivia nights, theme nights, stand up comedy, etc. I don’t think I would be very tempted to go out by the opportunity to be hustled in Angry Birds.

    I agree that Dave & Buster’s needs to develop a more novel niche to not get erased by home entertainment, but I would be shocked if this was the best way to do it.

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  • Telorand@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Generally, arcades have not done terribly well. There used to be a lot of video arcades all over out there in the 1980s. Video game hardware has gotten a lot cheaper, and a lot of people just have it at home now.

    Why bother with going to an arcade when you could go to a cozy place with a Steam Deck? Why pay to play old games on an arcade cabinet when there’s countless handheld emulators out there?

    It worked when people had to go to a mall or arcade to play things, but nostalgia can only attract so many people, anymore. The market is no longer captive, and the people who played in arcades have grown up, gotten jobs, families, Steam Decks, and beefy gaming PCs of their own.

    The only demo left is the hobbyists, and even they can now build their own arcade cabinets to get some of the experience.

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    • tal@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mean, there’s probably still some niche, but the niche can get pretty small.

      Movie theaters kinda did this before the arcades did. Used to be that it wasn’t normal to be able to watch movies at home, but once that happened, the space for movie theaters got a lot smaller.

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_theater

      New forms of competition

      One reason for the decline in ticket sales in the 2000s is that “home-entertainment options [are] improving all the time— whether streamed movies and television, video games, or mobile apps—and studios releasing fewer movies”, which means that “people are less likely to head to their local multiplex”. This decline is not something that is recent. It has been observed since the 1950s when television became widespread among working-class homes. As the years went on, home media became more popular, and the decline continued. This decline continues until this day. A Pew Media survey from 2006 found that the relationship between movies watched at home versus at the movie theater was in a five to one ratio and 75% of respondents said their preferred way of watching a movie was at home, versus 21% who said they preferred to go to a theater. In 2014, it was reported that the practice of releasing a film in theaters and via on-demand streaming on the same day (for selected films) and the rise in popularity of the Netflix streaming service has led to concerns in the movie theater industry. Another source of competition is television, which has “…stolen a lot of cinema’s best tricks – like good production values and top tier actors – and brought them into people’s living rooms”. Since the 2010s, one of the increasing sources of competition for movie theaters is the increasing ownership by people of home theater systems which can display high-resolution Blu-ray disks of movies on large, widescreen flat-screen TVs, with 5.1 surround sound and a powerful subwoofer for low-pitched sounds.

      Drive-in movie theaters got hit even earlier:

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-in_theater

      Decline (1970s–1990s)

      Several factors contributed to the decline of the drive-in movie industry. Beginning in the late 1960s, drive-in attendance began to decline as the result of improvements and changes to home entertainment, from color television and cable TV to VCRs and video rental in the early 1980s. Additionally, the 1970s energy crisis led to the widespread adoption of daylight saving time (which caused drive-in movies to start an hour later) and lower use of automobiles, making it increasingly difficult for drive-ins to remain profitable.

      Mainly following the advent of cable television and video cassette recorder (VCR), then with the arrival of DVD and streaming systems, families were able to enjoy movies in the comfort of their homes. The new entertainment technology increased the options and the movie watching experience.

      And like D&B, they apparently did a similar, more-adult-oriented shift to try to mitigate losses:

      While exploitation films had been a drive-in staple since the 1950s, helped by relatively limited oversight compared to downtown theaters, by the 1970s, several venues switched from showing family-friendly fare to R-rated and X-rated films as a way to offset declining patronage and revenue, while other venues that still catered to families, began to show R-rated or pornographic movies in late-night time slots to bring in extra income.[citation needed] This allowed censored materials to be viewed by a wider audience, including those for whom viewing was still illegal in some states, and it was also reliant upon varying local ordinances controlling such material. It also required a relatively remote location away from the heavier populated areas of towns and cities.

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• UrLogicFails@beehaw.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I remember when this news first leaked, people online were joking about getting into fights over a 200 dollar bet on a kid’s game if skeeball.

  While I’m not sure how common that type of phenomenon would be, I have to agree with the author of this article that I would certainly think twice before bringing a child to a location where gambling is encouraged (especially in conjunction with drinking).

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