Arcades of Dhaka City

Whatever happened to the arcades? Well, they haven’t disappeared; they simply got overwhelmed by the rising number of consoles, handhelds and multiplying networked gaming zones popping up everywhere.

Hi people, I’m the newest kid on the block…err..I mean blog. While others will enlighten you mostly about new games and gaming devices, I will just talk non-sense. Well, of course it’ll be gaming non-sense, but it has got nothing to do with the parental theory of gaming being a non-sense activity.

Anyways, back to arcade gaming. Back in the 80s , we were a lot younger and people used to call us confused kids. One prime entertainment activity for us was to hangout in the local arcades. See, there were good games and great gaming champions, and you could spend the entire day out there without even spending a single taka. So why wouldn’t the youth flock to these 2/3 taka costing gamer’s heavens?

But gone are the golden days of Shoryu Ken, Haoh Shiko Ken, Haohmaru, Ryu, Ken, Guile, Mustapha, Captain Commando, Aero Fighters and such. Now there is DOTA, NFS, Fifa, Counter Strike–the concept is similar, but the implementation is different. Previously you would join with your friends and beat up enemies. Now you join up with your friends to beat up some other friends. Nothing can be satisfying than beating the hell out of your best friend in a good 5 vs 5 defense of the ancient normal mode game as Terrorblade.

So what caused this transition? When we were flocking to the coin operated arcades of Dhaka, some rich kids still had the Segas and Nintendos in the comfort of their living rooms. But the arcade games were still more fun, and competitive. Kids from all social classes would be there. However, due to remarkable advancements in console games graphics and game play, and also due to the surfacing of PC as a viable gaming device made most coin operated arcade games to fade in to oblivion. Also, the crowd changed. More and more so called slum kids started visiting the arcades, which made some of the more sober crowd to feel further isolated. Thus most of our generation retreated to consoles and or PCs. However, we all were missing multi player gaming, and the new multi player gaming zones came to us as a savior.

More on gaming zones in the next issue.

Too bad this blog is bereaved of comments at this moment. Bad, bad spammers! I would’ve really liked some comments. Anyway, good bye till the next time we meet. Adios, amigos. I’ll be back.