How did DDR become so unpopular?

I remember, back in 2000, my cousin would have hockey games and I'd go see him, and there would be a mini arcade inside the big sports complex.

I remember there would be a HUGE crowd around the original DDR machine! Everyone wanted to get on it and try it! At the time, I was nervous because it was a "girl's game" but then I saw another guy tried it, and I tried it too!

It was so much fun... and It felt so much funner back then too. Now all the hype about DDR has gone down. Maybe if they didn't come out with a release every single year...

*Sigh* I miss the good ol' days.

Well, duh. DDR is pretty mainstream now, so it's not this "OMG, LOOK AT THIS STRANGE NEW GAME." for most people anymore, it's basically part of pop culture.

But Guitar Hero is mainstream now, yet people still go insane over it...

Guitar Hero is still fairly new, and people don't go as insane in the sense of "OMG, LOOK AT THIS STRANGE NEW GAME.". It's mostly the same insane that we get when a new DDR game is announced.

Well, just compare how much advertising went into GH and DDR...

GH kills Bemani? Again?

But yeah, GH only had a few releases so far compared to DDR....

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maybe because in the groove is a much better game than ddr, plus you can do all sorts of neat mods and upload your own songs on r21 machines. plus there hasnt been a really good ddr mix since extreme (not to mention that the challenge charts to many of the boss songs in supernova/2 sucked anyways, especially in 2). sorry if i pissed off any ddr fanboys but i jumped ship to itg a long long time ago.

on a more positive note, i am really looking forward to ddrx because of the new interface and pads, plus a revamped rating system that will hopefully better gauge the difficulty of the song (a lot of sn/2 nines are coming close to lower tiered 10's in my book). plus this is going to be a little more like itg in sense with the shock arrows. maybe in the next installment, we will have "quake" arrows for rolls, a special arrow that looks like a hand to be used for hand plants (the hand can only appear in trips or quads, and in between holds), and maybe implement a ddr version of the lift arrow that was going to be used in itg3 before its demise.

Perhaps, depends on personal opinion. I'll probably have a different view on ITG if we had some damn machines in this country but no, there's only a handful in the UK.

DS is still fairly popular here and most people in the UK will have at least heard of DDR/DS by now so it's rather mainstream, just not as popular as it used to be.

you can try finding an old dedicab, an old computer/monitor, 2 blue sharks or pads of your choice, and use the openITG program for the best itg feel next to the arcade.

in the Phil..its more of PIU vs. DDR but both are still crowd's favorites

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Better get a cup of hot chocolate or a pack of M&Ms and make yourselves comfortable.

I haven't seen a PIU machine somewhere in any of the malls I go to (or is it because I don't go to
the arcade areas). The ones I've seen in person as of now are DDR, DMX and GF/DM (read as GF or DM, I can't remember which one was it), although I'm sure I've seen a IIDX somewhere, just can't remember it.

Anywho, I don't know what is up with GH, that innovation they created is not new, I don't know why so much people hog over it so much that they call DDR as gay (someone on bemanistyle got an infraction for it), but we don't call GH, Rock Band or even Karaoke Revolution as gay to them.

Besides, it didn't struck me as much as DDR X did. And it didn't even have much exposure to the local channels here (an american SN2 CS was featured as a challenge in PBB Teen Edition).

That was long, here's the real post.

Although DDR started with 11 something songs, they themselves were incredibly danceable, and the fact that it's own kind of gameplay was unique in it's time. The fact that it was exclusively released in (not including spin-offs or non-Japan games) Japan until Supernova (if 3rd mix doesn't count) made people all over the world curious enough to import it.

Of course, it had it's own list of problems.
a. The fact that the majority of the songs were from dancemania and only one song (make it better) and the two boss songs (you know them) were from konami.
b. The fact that it only had one founding artist (Naoki, at least beatmania had 4), and that he did almost all the music-related work on it.
c. That only a handful of bemani musicians can be considered as those who regularly make songs for it and those that make good dance songs.
d. Yeah, and that they pump out a new major release every year.
e. That it's heart and core was dancemania (just look at supernova).
f. Konami acted very immature when it sued Roxor for ITG, that was a sign of envy the way I see it, dragging the fans along with it on its hiatus after extreme and before extreme 2.
g. That depending on how you look at it, DDR was not very high on konami's priority list.

That's all I can think of. I'd say that's looking at DDR in a very intelligent way, since I didn't cite about the songlists that differ depending on the region, the Dancing Stage series, vocalists and singers that they fired or maltreated (if any), etc.

But that was still long, if you think something is not right or if i missed something, point it out to me and state the reason.

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Look up. The guy above me's pretty much on the money as I see it.

Anyway, when I was in Florida, there was an arcade (well, DisneyQuest) with 3 PIU machines (EXCEED 2, ZERO, NX2), and 1 DDR machine (SN2). And whenever I went, there were nearly always queues for DDR, moreso than pretty much any machine in there, while the PIU machines were far less popular. Not that I minded, as I could play all the NX2 I wanted, but still.

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Why didn't Konami market its GF/DM to the states like they do with DDR? Or else people will know more about bemani over GH.

DDR has been in the market for 10 years. People are already used to it just like any other games. Plus Konami had been slacking for marketing DDR. Why do we have to get the SN2 while nothing can be unlocked until someone feels like giving us a generous amount of donation of songs that are built in?

Do we still wow for a new Final Fantasy? (Well, bad choice. How about an old school racing game in the arcade?)

Yes, we still wow for Final Fantasy

Not sure about the racing game though... people still like Daytona USA though.

Why is GH hero so popular in the states and not GF/DM? My friends, my brother and I have this converstation numerous times before.

We know that GF/DM came long before GH and Rock Band. The reason it is so popular in the states is because of the song choices (licenses if u will). I don't know many Americans that would want to play japanese songs compared to songs they know with bands like foo fighters, metallica etc. If Konami brought GF/DM to the states before GH came out, we could all be guitar freaks instead of heroes (or heroines for u ladies here). Konami made a poor business move in not bringing over other series when DDR was becoming popular.

In general though, arcades have become a pretty much dead institution in the states. A simple Cost/Revenue analysis can prove that point.

It seems like "conventional wisdom" but likely, no, no they would not. Guitar Hero become popular, like you said, because of the song choices, and because of the interface as well. Believe me, I've been in 'casual' arcades where they had GF/DM machines long before Guitar Hero was even thought of, and they were not very popular at all.

In fact, didn't Konami release one of the early GF games in the US?

In my area, DDR is becoming less popular because the machines are disappearing. We used to have a ITG 2 and DDR Extreme cabs at the movie theater in the mall, and now the ITG 2 is gone and the Extreme is a SuperNOVA, which no one wants to play. There was also a Cyberstation that had a SuperNOVA and an ITG 2. The ITG 2 eventually got moved somewhere else and a few months ago the entire arcade closed. Now there's only an Extreme with a broken coin slot and a Max 2 with one working side left to play on around here (Other than the SuperNOVA), so the whole scene has died completely. There used to be people playing DDR at the arcade every day of the week until it closed. Now there's no one, and it's because the machines are gone. Not speaking for everyone here, but it would be great to see MORE MACHINES.

DDR became unpopluar? when did this happen. I mean heck where I live the arcade store still has 3 ddr aracades

DDR Extreme
DDR Max
DDR Supernova

And everytime I'm there, theres like a huge line for each aracade. Man you must live in a place where DDR isn't popluar, where I live DDR is just like what it used to be back then.

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The only reason DDR is becoming unpopular by my area is because the owners refuse to upgrade the dance pads. The regulars by my area complain about the pads nonstop.

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I never thought of DDR as "popular" popular, but interest HAS waned. The few locations around here with Extremes have sold them to other places, and anywhere where there's a dancing game, it's not always on during business hours. The arcade down the street recently upgraded to SuperNOVA, but I don't see as many people as I did when I first went there and they still had Extreme.

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