New York: A dying state for dancing games?

Oh, I wasn't really meaning you more than the mention of the thread in general, nor was I really making a downwards turn at this thread. Although it probably comes off as that if you read it as such...

I'm trying to be more sympathetic to the case while still expressing some sort of envy.

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The D&B back home usually kept their machines in good shape. Hoping for the same level of attention here. I do hope it works out because I really had high hopes for Wow, but with D&B coming in, I think they're in jeopardy if they don't do something. Rent at Crossgates can't be cheap.

RANT WARNING

The X2 that used to be in Bayside, Queens in Peter Pan Games was one of my favorite machines for me and Mr Grimm to go to their arcade and play on. This is mainly because it was a one-of-a-kind machine that was a dual boot of DDR X2, and ITG2. As small as the arcade was, it was worth going to, for me, and for many others we've seen there. Of course, being a place that would (and has) attract so many people for the dancing game machines, that automatically meant (maybe it's just bad luck) the place isn't supposed to last. If that has happened to me seven times (where a seemingly perfect arcade, with a lot of dancing game players to talk to, great machines, and in short a place worth going to always seems to have something bad happen to it where the machines disappear/break beyond possible restoration to former prime, or the place closes down, mostly without any trace of who, what where, when, why, or how regarding the machines AND the people who went there), it can keep on happening.

My question nowadays is, why has it happened? And, why has it happened the many times it has? And, how do you stop it from happening any more? I cherished these locations from the bottom of my heart, I improved my skill on music games over the years on those machines, I got to know so many people at those places whom I've never forgotten, I've made so many videos at those places, and I simply loved going to those arcades. And, I lost every single one of them. The arcades, the machines, the people, ALL OF IT. And, I'm sick and tired of having to deal with that.

Palisade's Arcade (Catskill Laser Tag): This is where it all started (the problems). I would go here whenever my family went to this mall. Back then, I could be going there and be excited to go to Catskill. I'd always go there with my friends, and hope to see everyone else there. Adam, Seth, Scott, Tim, Liam, George, Bill, Joe, Zero, Patrick, and whoever else I knew there. If you'd have been there yourself, you'd be surprised who'd have gone there. Probably some of the most unique players in the entire state (at that time). And then...Irene happened. Catskill Laser Tag lost power, and couldn't be bought back. The manager tried his best, but was electrocuted trying to bring it back. That meant, no more hacked ITG2 machine, no jobs for it's workers, and nowhere for it's players to play at (even though Sportime USA was clearly just 15 more minutes away, on the other side of the river). Even now, I wish I could just get one last chance just to see them again...I could never forget all the good times I had there. Zero, the guy who kicked the bar of the rock climb when playing ITG. I could never forget that funny moment. Tim, a really chill & cool guy. Also the best player who ever set foot on that machine (literally). I admired him & his skill. He inspired me to become better, despite my physical limitations. And Liam, probably my favorite one of them all. Now ask yourselves this: What are the chances that a guy playing MAX 300 would inspire a five year old to want to be trained by him to become just as good as him (probably even better), and eventually be known by people as the dancing game expert far younger than virtually all other players, but yet just as good, or even better? Seriously, who's heard of a short, little 8-9 year old child passing 12s on ITG?

Fun City (Krazy City): After Catskill Laser Tag closed down, this place soon followed suit. At some point, the card readers on this arcade's DDR SN & Skee Ball machines stopped deducting points from the power cards swiped, so that meant infinite free game play. I was happy to be able to enjoy 20 free games of DDR SN with my friend. And, being the arcade/redemption game hobbyist I am (like MewtwoStruckBack on YouTube), getting over 9,000 tickets (no pun intended) on Skee Ball for free was a dream realized for me. Too bad the balance of good luck & bad luck didn't like that, and decided that Krazy City just couldn't make money anymore, and forced it to close down (I hate Palisades Mall now for closing down all the businesses it did, and replacing them with stores that interest me not). The worst part was, I should've seen it coming, with the shrinking inventory in the prize center, but the lady who helped me out at the prize center the last time I ever went; she LIED TO ME, and stated that they were going to get more prizes soon. If she knew that the arcade's days were indeed numbered, she could've at least told me the truth, so I could've claimed those tickets right there and then. Tell me the truth, how easy is it for one to just walk into a redemption arcade with high-difficulty rigged games, and win thousands of tickets at a redemption arcade, without spending a single penny?

Chinatown Fair (the old one) As much as it got crowded, and as much as I hated the coin line for ITG2 over there, I liked going there. This new arcade is NEVER going to match the old one. The REAL one. Probably even IF this new arcade somehow gets the ITG2 machine back from it's new home in Next Level Arcade, a small little gaming place, in the middle of the ghetto, in the middle of nowhere, with confusing/shady policies, and high prices. That ITG2 machine DOES NOT belong to stay down there in Sunset Park, and it never will.

Queens Center Mall: Because no one would take me to this mall at the time Tokens & Tickets was still there, I had to sneak there on my own. Granted, it was worth going to, and the ITG2 machine was one of the best I ever played on. You have NO idea just who used to play on that machine. And then, one day, someone decided to play something really hard on that machine, and broke his leg. His dumb self didn't know how to think, and sued the arcade, causing it's closure, and the disappearance of yet another perfect ITG 2 machine. Once my parents decided to start going to Queens Center Mall, that's when the arcade disappeared, which upset me so much.

Seafood City: The first time I went here, the machine has a screwed up monitor, and very slippery pads, not to mention the wrong people in the restaurant at that time. When I went back a year later with a friend, we discovered the most amazing thing; a guy named Joseph & his friend hacked the machine with all the songpacks I could ever need to want to go there and play ITG2, despite it's location & how many times little children have tried to interfere. The reason why they were able to freely hack the machine, was because the management didn't care or pay attention to any of their machines. But, the problem was, that whenever it was turned on, it had to be turned on in a certain way, with a "keyboard" as instructed by the machine itself. But, because it had to be done that way every single day (and then some), the hard drive just couldn't take the stress anymore and crashed. Nowadays, the machine is just as plain as bread. No more hacked songpacks, and the pads aren't any better. The bars (which were about to come off from being severely wobbly) were JUST recently fixed, and when the machine was first restored to factory condition, the monitor was zoomed in towards the upper left corner, so that you could only see P1, and would have to use slower speed mods. A new monitor was just bought, but that STILL doesn't bring back those hacked songpacks. Customs are no longer enabled either. Being a MAC-only user DOES NOT help me use a USB to play ITG2 customs, it does the opposite.

El Dorado Bumper Cars & Arcade: Some time goes by between incidents, so whatever was left was doing just fine. In 2012, from April to October, I spent weekends going to Coney Island, for the El Dorado arcade, which had an ITG2 machine for several years, but was JUST hacked in 2012 by one of it's workers, by the name of Dimitri. The cool part was, the workers ACTUALLY knew about dancing games, which surprised me when one of them told me about DDR songs being on that machine, with bonus Expert (Challenge) difficulty ITG-styled charts made by none other than the King Of Light himself. So, I enjoyed sneaking there solo on weekends, too bad they never opened until 3 PM on weekdays, which pissed me off big time, when I tried going there over the Summer on a weekday SIX times. At that time, Deno's had nothing more than a DDR SN (It now has a PIU Pro 2 which I was able to enjoy only once, since the pads were broken when I went back), so without El Dorado, Coney Island was NOT worth it to me. I had become such friends with the workers, because they knew me so well from going there over ten times that year, just to play ITG2, that the last time I went there (October 2012), they were to open at 1:30 PM, but I got there at 12 Noon, and they let me in anyways, because they trusted me. For an arcade in Brooklyn, that was really impressive to me. Too bad it would only last so long, that another hurricane came by, to take yet another ITG2 machine away. The worst part is, the management will only tell me so much as to admitting that they lost DDR Extreme (replaced by Deno's DDN SN), but they won't tell me about ITG2. Losing all these hacked machines really hurts me inside.


Peter Pan Games of Bayside - CLOSED: Unfortunately, the reign of terror over NY wouldn't end there. While everyone expected this place, despite it's small size, to last until at least 2014, it closed down out of completely nowhere after May 31, 2013. I wanted to go, but May 31 was on a Friday (I had school), and I wouldn't have been able to go until June 1, and I my friend couldn't take on May 31. I wish this place could've just stayed open a day more for me. I was one of their best customers, who'd go there very often, because they had a one-of-a-kind DDRX2/ITG2 dual boot. Despite having DDR pads, me & my friends playing my songpack simfiles on that machine felt like playing on Sportime USA's dedicab pads. And, their redemption games were just as easy as Krazy City (the same went for El Dorado). Too bad that wasn't supposed to last either, since the balance of luck struck again, as it had six times before at this point.

In short, I want this to stop, and I want to do EVERYTHING in my power to bring NY back to it's former glory for the better of it's music game players, and the music game community. And, I could use all the help I can get. Because, I've got almost nothing left for me here in NY. And, my skill level on ITG isn't going to go up by itself. I may never pass a 13 ever again, if I cannot find a place good enough to do it on. Why can't NY be like the rest of the dancing game community? Why can't we go back?

I'm truly very sorry if I come off as a grooving, delusional idiot, and a sentimental, butthurt, fat, lonely loser, and also if I ever did anything wrong in the past that made me deserve what I have had to go through these past several years. But, I feel as if this problem has to be known, and that something has to be said about it.

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you have really high expectations for a dancing game that has been dead for nearly a decade

what is so bad about next level? you complain about it being "in the middle of nowhere" (I don't see how New York City is in the middle of nowhere) and it being a small arcade (so what? what do you need a lot of space for?) and expensive (of course it is--arcades aren't closing left and right because they were swimming in cash...) but you're nit-picking at best.

It could be a lot worse. we all long for this game to be back in its' prime but that will simply never happen again.

It sounds like you need a Cobalt Flux or something. Come up to Schenectady and i'll sell you mine for $500

on a serious note I saw a NIB CF go for ~$550 on ebay wtf lol

Pro-tip: 2005 was a long time ago, and the popularity of DDR has gone down steadily ever since. There's little to no demand for arcade cabinets, since they wouldn't be used all that often, and please don't say they would, because they won't. I cant think of many arcades that would be willing to buy arcade cabinets for a rhythm game that a lot of people don't have any interest in. It's ok to be passionate about this and want to see the game be popular again, but we all have to accept that DDR in the states is basically dead, or at best on life support.

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chab has it right

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Update on DnB's Albany for anyone who doesn't know already:

They have a DDR X US dedi and a Guitar Hero AC. The DDR X is not nearly as bad as I was expecting. Just don't expect any AAA's. Left pad is the better of the two. Right pad's down arrow was having a lot of issues, but as I was leaving, a couple of DDR players were in the process of getting a game tech to fix it. Guitar Hero is.... there. I don't play Guitar Hero at all so I don't know the condition of the machine. It most likely works fine.

This is the best score I was able to get on the DDR. My best is like... ~15 on Extreme/Supernova/Supernova 2.

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Don't really mind that it's X.......a Betson cab X (I think.) As long as the pads/USB ports work, that's cool. Who knows, maybe an upgrade to X2 will be down the road. I have to say that $1.85 a game is kind of steep.

They might have fixed the right pad's down arrow by now. I didn't have really have any problems with the left. I didn't have my flash drive on me so I didn't get to check on that, but I might be going back down later this week (either Tuesday or Wednesday) so I can check it then.

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The right bracket on the down arrow was sticky. if you play with proper form it's a non-issue though (I had no problems getting AAs anyway)
my main gripe with this location is that the employees aren't really consistent. most of them don't care that I play with socks but there are a few who will yell at me so I guess I'll have to talk to someone about it




sooooo who has some cool DDR X edit charts I can download. I saw that fancy USB input on the right

I went to D&B's today to unlock the machine for y'all but someone beat me to it

(*&^%*&

btw use the right side, left side left arrow is fucked atm

It'll be at least a week before they fix that arrow, if they even fix it at all.

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Crazy question: Am I the only IIDX player in the capital region (Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga, etc etc)?

You're not, but there aren't many. Considering that there were never any IIDX machines in the area, and I lost my copy of beatmania US and the turntable before I had the chance to get into it at all (yay, moving), and every arcade I went to that had it (places like TGA in Massachusetts or Hawaiian Brian's in Hawaii) always had long lines... I'm not one of them. /cri

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I think the only one around here is a Tricoro at Game Universe in MA. Have to suffer with my home setup until I can get out there, I guess. You'd think this area would be perfect for a decent arcade. Lots of people, quite a few colleges/universities etc.

It was a few years ago. As middle-of-the-road as it was, I think the scene took a big hit when the Cyberstation at Crossgates closed down in 2008. They did move the machine from there into the movie theater and then it was replaced by a SN1 dedi, but that ended up being taken out too, and then Crossgates didn't have any machines at all for about 2 years until Wow opened up... which, of course, ended up closing shortly after Dave and Buster's opened up.

There were also a bunch of other machines in the area, but every single one of them except for the Extreme at Zero Gravity ended up disappearing. And then most of the people who were involved in the DDR scene either don't play anymore, don't live in the area anymore, or both.

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