I was surprised to learn that Xbox co-creator Kevin Bachus took a job with Dave & Buster’s as the company’s senior vice president of entertainment and game strategy. The possibilities are intriguing. Bachus is a sharp man, but he’s had a rough go of it since leaving Microsoft (see Infinium Labs/Phantom Entertainment). Although home consoles have greatly diminished the popularity of arcades, I believe people are still interested in them as a social destination based around gaming (the food and booze help too). I’m anxious to see what changes Bachus will make to the Dave & Buster’s formula. Here’s a quote from “Dancing” Dean Takahashi’s article:
Video game enthusiasts are always looking for the next big thing, and I believe Dave & Buster’s is uniquely positioned to deliver it to them. As a long-time fan of Dave & Buster’s, I am excited to have the opportunity to help shape the next phase of interactive entertainment outside of the home.
On a purely personal level, there are two things I hope this hiring results in. I hope that Bachus is successful in his new role and takes Dave & Buster’s to new heights. He was always nice to me and I’d like to see him to well. As a gamer and a consumer (of beer, spirits, and sliders), I’d love to see a fresh gaming experience at Dave & Buster’s. In my head, I see a cool form of gaming that can be enjoyed at home, but is enhanced when played at a physical location. Yes, that’s a really vague description, but I think there are some fascinating possibilities there. Imagine a social game that can play on your PC, phone, or tablet and also play — with more features and live social contact — at an arcade . That would be sweet.
Then again, I don’t know how appealing that idea would be to the valuable 18-34 demographic. I grew up with arcades and miss location-based gaming. Younger gamers that grew up with home consoles might not see the appeal…or they could see something completely novel. I’m not smart enough to intuit something like that.
That’s where you come in! I’d love to hear your thoughts on gaming at physical locations. Is that something you like to do every now and then? Or are you completely satisfied with the home-console experience?
I’ve been a long time fan of Dave and Busters. I’m a little farther away from any of them now, but it used to be nice being so close to the one on the northside of Indy. Location based gaming is fun, and I always had fun with arcade games. I’d like to hope something different can be done in the future at D&B, so hopefully there will be some fun changes coming soon.
Any ideas on games that you can play on a PC, phone, or tablet and can extend at D&B’s?
None come to mind for anything that they have in their locations currently. I could see this working with with a simple fps or action game where you can play solo campaign on a phone, tablet, or pc, and then come together with your friends to play the co-op/multiplayer stuff at D&B locations. The easy answer is always trivia or card games, but I think they could do something more than that if they went this direction.
It has been years since I’ve been to a Dave and Buster’s. Recently I had a project at work that dealt with arcade machines. What I noticed was they were all old and in standard definition. I don’t think you can convince gamers to pump a half dollar or more at a time to play a timed SD game that will last from 30 seconds to maybe 5 minutes. A $1 game on a retina display or AMOLED offers more value minus the social aspect and atmosphere.
My suggestions for DB going forward:
1) Buy cabinets from Japan. Do not buy things like Crazy Taxi or Daytona.
2) Topless waitresses and random chrome poles on the game floor.
Serious Suggestion:
Have cabinets or IPs that utilize cloud saves. For instance: If you play DOA5/Tekken/Whatever then there should be a cloud save so players can utilize their custom characters at an arcade. This cloud save can be accessed via the internet or directly from NFC on a D&B app/PS App/Xbox App/Steam/etc (PassBook?). The load would be mere seconds and someone can use their naked woman with a joker mask that fights with a shovel in a fighting game of their choice that they use on other machines or at home via console or PC. Why would a person use the arcade? Put in rewards: Win 10 matches in a row and unlock a hidden fighter or something. Maybe even exclusive custom options. It really is no different than DLC. Maybe capitalize on the emerging eSports scene. (needs a better name). Get MLG or EVO to have tournaments in a new DB location or something.
I think something like this could foster interest in the game at D&B as well as sales at home. So a game dev would be incentivized to do this.
I’ll stop there. Pretty sure if I read that over instead of clicking submit I’ll wind up going on more and more or stumbling over my errors.
I’d go to Dave & Buster’s way more if it had pole dancers.