Some Greetz

I spell greetz with a z like it's the 1990's internet. I wanted to say thanks to a few peoples, I'll try to keep this short.
First, Thank YOU for reading this site!! You're the best around!
Thanks to Flack for making me want to write more and for putting up with all my arcade questions. Thanks to The NFG for The Arcade Font Engine, I use this for so many different things it's ridiculous. Thanks to everyone over at Heavenly Spirits for their help with the quest to make my skill ultimate at Samurai Shodown.
Thank you to everyone at The Pleasuredome for being awesome, and thanks to The Spriters Resource for also being awesome.
Special thanks to ScrollBoss for his Graphic Generators, I used these to help make the picture for our facebook page.
Lastly, but not leastly, check out shmups.info and play around with their rad Scene Generators.
*I almost forgot! Thank you MAMu_ for the icons!

Now that that's out of the way...
Long time readers will notice that we've made some changes around here! Insert Coins is dead, like I said before, I thought that it was a really cheesy and predictable name, so I changed it. Arcade Perfect is the final evolved form of our name and when the actual arcade opens, that will be the name also.

If you ever read video game magazines back in the 1990's you probably know where the name came from, but it in those days you'd always hear people say things like "Yeah I really like the Super Nintendo version of Street Fighter II, it's almost arcade perfect!" or "Man, I wish they would come out with an arcade perfect port of Mortal Kombat, that has blood instead of some silly ass sweat effect!"

I feel sorry for kids that only play PS3 and Xbox360, because no matter how good a port is, I say if it's not in a cab, running on actual hardware it'll never be arcade perfect!
So yeah, that's where that comes from. We got us a domain name; arcadeperfect.net, so we could ditch the silly blogspot address. Someone was cybersquatting arcadeperfect.com and wanted like 1700 USD for it or something, I think .net sounds friendlier anyways.

Eventually we' are going to ditch blogger altogether and put together a more proper site, but I'm not in any kind of big rush to do this.
Let's see...other than that, I added some links in the sidebar to check out, there is some good stuff there and I added a paypal donate button, in case some rich folks happen along and want to help us buy cabs :p (it could happen)
I guess that's it for now, stay tuned, there's more coming.
Cheers :)
*hex*

Discuss this topic on the forums!

Arcade Infinity is NOT Closing.....Yet.

While the first post of the new year was depressing and hateful, the second post is the exact opposite!
It seems that Arcade Infinity will stay open for at least a little while longer, thanks to community support!
From the Facebook

-UPDATE!!!- AI is being saved by the owners of Diamond Plaza. After seeing all of the public outcry over the closing, and how active this particular event page has been since the announcement, they've worked out a deal with AI to significantly help their operating costs and keep the arcade open for an unspecified period of time. While currently the arrangements that the landlords have made with the city of Rowland Heights regardi...ng AI's business license will only cover them for 6 more months, they're working out arrangements to extend it up to a period of 3 years. We'll know the outcome of this sometime in March when the approval is made or denied. Either way, thanks to the landlords we get to keep AI for at the very least a few months longer. After speaking with Ken, the first action they're gonna be taking with this turn of events is to put some money into getting 4 Super Street Fighter 4 setups running, beatmania IIDX 18 RESORT ANTHEM (possibly in a new cabinet), DDR X2, pop'n music 18 SENGOKU RETSUDEN, and a few other titles that he's has his eye on for a little while. Also just to clarify a bit on the closing of the arcade, while a good portion of it had to do with earnings (or lack thereof) the nail in the coffin was actually delivered by the city of Rowland Heights. AI's business license was to expire in December, and the costs that they originally wanted the Tao brothers to pay to keep things open was just completely unreasonable for how much money the arcade was pulling in. The landlords have since worked with the City to make their license renewal a possibility, and have secured them an extension. With all of this being the case, we still want to encourage everyone to make their way out to the arcade this Saturday. Instead of a last chance to play at one of the best arcades the US has ever seen, let's celebrate their 10 years of continued business and contribution to the arcade industry in North America!

It seems the reason for them closing was, as usual, the greed of someone else. It reminds me of the story last year of Oklahoma raising the price of vending stamps by 300% from $50 per machine to $150 per machine.
The people that are in charge of these tax increases probably figure that owners can just increase prices to compensate, except they don't think about the fact that you can't keep charging more and more for arcade games. They are mostly already more costly than the 25 cents per game that they should be in most cases.

In the case of Arcade Infinity, the city wanted more money from them for their business license and I bet they figured AI would just up their prices and everything would be fine, or they would leave and someone else would move in and pay, not caring if the arcade closed.
Luckily they have a large community of people down there that understand the value of video arcades and are fighting to save theirs.

Front page article in SGV Tribune.

Instead of a somber last day meetup, they had a big party at the arcade and lots of people showed up.
The second part of this story makes me as happy as the first part made me sad :) You guys down there ALMOST lost your arcade, I hope you will all put some extra effort in to going there more often now... for most of us in other parts of the country it's already too late. Long live A.I.!
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ARCADE!!!!!

Discuss this topic on the forums!

Arcade Infinity is Closing.

I just found out that Arcade Infinity in southern California is closing. I was planning on making a trip down there this year too. they are closing January 15th.

Arcade Infinity has been around for about 10 years or so and is known for having a large selection of NEW Japanese import games, with an emphasis on fighting, Bemani/rhythm, and rare Cave shooter games.
They also had regular fighting game tournaments and a very loyal community of players. I don't know why they are closing, but it's an extreme loss for the west coast and I'm sorry I was never able to make it down there.
Here's some pictures I pulled off of some guys flickr account and some vids.

 

Some Sega New Astro City candy cabinets.

Namco Cyberlead candies.

A couple of extremely sexy Sega Net City cabs.

If the place looks deserted in these pictures, it's only an illusion; at night it would get packed.
(I know! A packed arcade! What!? S'true.)

They have one of the only King Of Fighters XIII machines in the USA. Here is some tourney play.


Same for Blazblue Contiuum Shift


Arcade Infinity is damn near legendary. Every time I think of it or read about it I'm reminded of the old Street Fighter 2 days at the Regency Game Palace where walking into the arcade was like stepping foot onto the mat at the freaking Kumite. I've had many dreams of walking into that arcade as an outsider and dominating wave after wave of locals, but I guess I can forget about it now.
You can see by the number of articles about this that the Arcade Infinity will be missed very much.

It looks like they set up a group farewell on the 15th..it should be interesting to see 600+ people trying to fit into that little arcade!

Discuss this topic on the forums!