Alternative History
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Arcade Games were a fast-growing industry during the 70s and early 80s. The industry collapsed on Doomsday but has been making a small comeback since the start of the 21st century. Before Doomsday, the arcade industry was centered in the United States and Japan. Today it is based in South America and ANZC.

History[]

Most arcade games in the northern hemisphere were wiped out by waves of EMP on Doomsday. Despite there being no significant EMP damage in the Southern Hemisphere, most arcades there went out of business, at least in the short term, due to a lack of new games and replacement parts. Eventually, companies in South America and the ANZC were able to manufacture replacement parts for old games and started producing new games of their own.

Producers[]

Brazil[]

Brazil is the center of the modern arcade game industry.

Taito is Brazil's biggest arcade game manufacturer. Before Doomsday, they were the Brazilian subsidiary of the Japanese Taito Corporation. Taito was originally founded to be a distributor of games, but it soon started making borderline bootleg games because Brazil had outlawed the importation of pinball and arcade games. Taito survived the aftermath of Doomsday by providing repair services for the few arcades that had managed to remain open. In 1995, they started producing pinball machines, and in 1998, Taito started the small scale production of their old games from before Doomsday. In 2001, they released their first original game, a Food Fight clone called Snack Attack. Taito has since started making new innovative games with names such as Bubbler, Police Chase, Super Spy, Dune Buggy, and Wrath of the Sinistrals.

Taito’s biggest rival is Novafun. Their best-known games are Monster Land, Boxer, Super Race - the world’s first two player racing game - and a series of games based on the popular Brazilian comic Monica's Gang.

Other Brazilian game companies include Playtronic, Gametech, Eltromatic, LTD and JEstaban.

Brazil has more arcades than anywhere else.

ANZC[]

The gaming industry in the ANZC states is dominated by Three firms.

The first is Timezone Games. They made the hit games Race War, Marble Mayhem and the Turbo Wombat series. They are named for what had been the largest chain of arcades in Australia prior to Doomsday.

Their biggest rival is American Games, a subsidiary of American Entertainment. They are known for making games such as Pearl Harbor Attack, Olympics, Motorcycle Madness and several games based on the characters of American Comics (also a subsidiary of American Entertainment). Both companies also make clones of games from before Doomsday.

The third biggest ANZC firm in the industry is Atari. While not directly descended from the American firm Atari Ltd. took their name form them and got their start by making clone of their arcade cabinets. In 2019 Atari teamed up with a New Zealand based computer company called Technosy Research Labs released a home gaming console called the Atari Fundrive.

Argentina[]

Argentina has two major arcade game companies. The first is CyberJoy, the makers of Timaeus, Martial Arts Masters and Amazon. Their rival is Wonder Games. They are best known for making Urban Brawl, Star Herald, and Wizard’s Staff. In 2018 Wonder Games teamed with computer company to release the DigiToy, the world's first post-doomsday home video game console.

Japan[]

The gaming industry in Japan collapsed after Doomsday, with the loss of much of the population and modern life. Nintendo, one of the largest firms prior to the disaster, fell back on the hanafuda card games and other toys as the Ultrahand, or the N&B blocks, that had been their business decades before, and managed to survive - but many others did not. Nintendo restarted production of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr in 2017. Nintendo released their first original post-Doomsday game Donkey Kong 3 in August 2019 (thanks to the ideas of Shigeru Miyamoto). Nintendo has plans to re started manufacturing of their pre-Doomsday home console, (launched two months before Doomsday), the Family Computer. In May 2020, The Game & Watch has been restarted to become compatible with more games, as a change with the pre-Doomsday version. Taito relocated to Sapporo after the Brazilian Taito re-established an office to the pre-Doomsday company origin. An Osaka based company called Sakura Digital's factory was built by purchasing material from older Osaka gaming companies like SNK and Capcom. Japan has 71 arcades.

Socialist Siberia[]

Unlike the Soviet Union, which created their few arcade machines on military factories, Socialist Siberia has two state run arcade game factories that produces new units for most clones of pre-ww3 soviet arcades ("Sea Battle", "Gorodki", "Snaiper-2", "Highway", "Rally", "The Giant Turnip", "Basketball", "Football", "Safari", "Winter Hunt", "Quiz", "Battle-planes", "Horse Racing", "Submarine", "Tank-training area", "Doublet", "Probe", "Billiards", "Snow Queen", "Circus"), most of them clones of foreign arcade games. Approximately 90% of pre-Doomsday Soviet arcade machines were copies of western ones — shooters, football games, pinball and video cabinets.

There have been two unique Siberian arcades developed post WW3. One is a game called Towers of the Wizard, based on SNK games. The other is called Melody Master. As of January 2023, Socialist Siberia has 52 arcades, mostly on the Russian SSR and Kazakh SSR.

Republic of New York[]

In 2008 a pinball machine manufacturing company called Flipp Co was founded in Binghamton. After the merger of Binghampton with Ithaca in 2011 Flip co renamed itself Union Leisure Machines. In 2014 ULM bought out Acme Amusements, Niagara Falls's sole manufacturer of pinball machine and air hockey tables. In 2016 Union Leisure Machine started manufacturing arcade games. Their initial products were clones of prewar arcade games. They released Block Rain their first and original game in 2019. In 2022 Union Leisure Machines made a deal to license Block Rain to Timezone for disruption in the ANZC. Union Leisure Projects is the largest arcade manufacturer in the former united states. There are currently 12 arcades in the republic, 5 in Binghamton, 3 in Ithaca, 2 in New Albany, 1 in Elmaria and 1 in Corning.

Alpine Confederation[]

The Alpine Confederation is home to the largest arcade game maker in Europe: Matterhorn Amusements Co. Matterhorn was founded as pinball manufacture in 1996. In 2007 they started making clones of per war arcade games. In 2014 they released their first original game Blue Bird and in 2016 they released Segie. Their games are licensed by CyberJoy in Latin America and American Games in the ANZC. There are 48 arcades in the Alpine Confederation.

South Africa[]

The Port Elizabeth based Quality Pleasure Products is Africa's largest producer of Arcade equipment. They were founded in 1998 as a producer of electromechanical game machines like Skee Ball, Air Hockey, and pinball machines. They started production of video games in 2011. Most of their games are clones of foreign games but they have released one original game, called Battle Road. As of 2023 the Dominion of South Africa has 44 arcades.

Nigeria[]

Nigeria has one one manufacturer of arcade games and it only produces low qulaity clones of forgin prodcuts. Nigeria howevr nigeria with 51arcades beats south afirca for the most number of arcades in africa

Others[]

Singapore, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, Peru, Prussia, the Nordic Union, Malaysia,, Kentucky, Victoria, India, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia Florida, Texas, Vermont, Superior and Colombia also have small companies in operation, but they remain niche players even in their own markets.

List of Arcade publishers[]

Logo Corporate Name Country Headquarters
Taito (Old) Taito S.A. Flag of Brazil BRA São Paulo
Novafun, Ltda. Manuas
Playtronic S.A. Rio de Janeiro
Eltromatic, Ltda.
JEsteban, Ltda. San Paulo
American Games Ltd. ANZ Union Flag with the golden ratio ANZ Canberra
Timezone Games LLP. Brisbane
Atari logo Atari Ltd. Auckland
Nintendo logo black Nintendo Co, Ltd. Flag of Japan JPN Kyoto
Sega Logo Sega Enterprises
Sakura Digital Company Osaka
Hudson Soft Hudson Soft Sapporo
CyberJoy S.R.L. Flag of Argentina ARG Buenos Aires
Wonder Games S.A.
Atari games logo Atari Games S.A. de C.V. Flag of Mexico MEX Mexico City
Juegos de Evolución S.R.L de C.V.
Union Leisure Machines Co. Flag of New York RNY Binghamton
Matterhorn Amusement Co. DD1983 Alps Civil APC Zürich
Quality Pleasure Products DD1983 Dominion Flag Civil DSA Port Elizabeth

Genres and formats[]

Beat 'em up[]

Claw machine[]

Claw machines are, as defined by wikipedia: "are upright cabinets with glass boxes that are lit from the inside and have a joystick-controlled claw at the top, which is coin-operated and positioned over a pile of prizes, dropped into the pile, and picked up to unload the prize or lack thereof into a chute. They typically contain stuffed toys or other cheap prizes, and sometimes contain more expensive items like electronic devices and fashion accessories."

Claw machines remain a popular staple of arcades, where they provide hundreds of prizes to gamers year-round. They are especially popular in Japan, where they are known as UFO catchers.

Shooter[]

Fighting game[]

Racing[]

Pinball[]

Platformer[]

Sales and Corporate Profits[]

Generally, the industry has had a long road to recovery, and still has a long way to go. Because of this interest has waned among vendors. Fewer entertainment venues have been built as public interest, in many areas, has returned to board games that need less maintenance.

This has not stopped the industry leaders from expenditures to attempt to get new players. Advertising eats up most of the profits in hopes of a renewed interest in more interesting and challenging games.

While arcades are still less popular than they were before Doomsday, there has been a steady increase in their popularity recently. Brazil's 100th arcade opened in 2015, the ANZC reached that milestone in 2018, Argentina in 2020, Chile and Venezuela in 2021 and Columbia in 2023.

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