Newsweek on Japan, arcade mecca
There are still boardwalk arcades chocked full of broken light gun games; there are still corporate arcade chains full of overpriced, out-dated racing cabinets and the requisite redemption games. Clearly, the American arcade isn't a corpse just yet, but when you read about Japan's booming arcades, you can almost smell rotting circuitry.
Newsweek's Brad Stone has an interesting (web-only) column on the booming arcade scene in Japan; however, underneath the bright lights and fancy interfaces of these two-storied gaming meccas lies a serious social problem:
"Japan is facing a looming demographic nightmare. With an increasing elderly population and a decreasing birth rate, there simply won't be enough workers to support the senior population. At the same time, young people dubbed neets (who live with their parents and refuse to get jobs), and freeters (who only have part-time work) are much-discussed social groups who exacerbate the population and workforce imbalance."
The entrance to the arcades are littered with pamphlets encouraging youngsters to put down their [Japanese equivalent of quarters] and pick up a paycheck. Are these people addicted to games, is this symptomatic of much larger societal ills, or are their arcade games really just that good?
[Via GSW]
