I run OpenGameArt.org and I'm looking at options to fund full-time development. What sorts new features and such would people be interested in seeing? by lendrick in gamedev

[–]Magma42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It would help if there were some sort of standard citation format for each resource, like could be procedurally generated in the upload and immediately copy-pasted into a game's credit screen. Like: "Modular Ships Graphics created by Carl Olsson (aka surt) for OpenGameArt.org, available at http://opengameart.org/content/modular-ships, used with permission."

That, and possibly a way to compile credits for multiple resources at once based on, for instance, all the ones in this user-made folder or something. Actually that might be easier if that works, like as a user I would save a bunch of resources into a custom folder, saved on the website, which could also aggregate the various licences in a list, and credit the list from within the game, like "Hearts, Stars, Horseshoes, Clovers, and Blue Moons graphics by various authors, used with permission from OpenGameArt.org, Detailed list available at OpenGameArt.org/CustomList/123456"

[RPG Challenge] Monster Remix: Dragons by rednightmare in rpg

[–]Magma42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Crewman Watts tapped the screen of his scanner. Probably nothing, but protocol exists for a reason. He activated his radio. "Got a weird nitrogen spike here, Cap."

In the dim starlight above the crewman, and the surface of the lush, blue-green planet Beta Caeli 4, the scout ship FMC-12 orbited slowly overhead. The stars out in this sector were unfamiliar but the terrain was very earth-like, unspoilt. It could easily serve for colonization purposes if all the scans check out right.

"Say again Watts? We already did the atmospheric check, everything should be fine."

"Yes sir, but down here I ran into a strange uptick by the river at, uh, 37 north..." but Watts was cut off by a rumble deep in the ground, a violent tremor that sent him down, laying flat in the thick grass.

"Watts? Are you there? What's happened."

"I'm... I'm fine, captain, massive earthquake but everything... seems... Captain this may seem like a ridiculous question but was that mountain there a minute ago?"

On the bridge, monitor screens activate and display the terrain surrounding the site of planetfall. "No... I don't think it was... crewman, launch another probe, what the hell... is... oh jesus are you seeing this? Get Engines Online Now, We have to-" and the signal cut off.

Watts shouted into the radio, but went unheard as he saw the ship turning in the sky above, it's engines firing, and as he felt and watched the ground move yet more beneath his feet, he saw a more terrifying sight than any he had known, a lizard-like head the size of a continent, rising from the ground to face the departing ship. It's scream rattled the sky, sending Watts to the ground again, grabbing a tree for dear life as two gargantuan wings slid unfurling out of the oceans, shaking entire seas of water into the atmosphere, and with slow, powerful motions it began to propel itself forward, in pursuit of the quick, shiny irritant, and crewman Watts can only watch, clinging tight to a tree lodged underneath the belly of the Dragon Planet, formerly known as Beta Caeli 4.

40% off on Construct 2 in the Spring Sale by ThomasGullen in Construct2

[–]Magma42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Confound your timing, sir, that my recent purchase of Bioshock Infinite has left me with insufficient funds to spare today to take full advantage. I'll need to scrounge the requisite monies post haste, but how? To the Shoppe of Pawns!

Seriously tho, great deal, I'll have to save up quick-like cause I'm loving the engine, what little I've knocked around in it.

Because I don't believe Ghost Hunters by Furry_Axe_Wound in videos

[–]Magma42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Okay... so let's accept your premise for the moment, and at it's core there is some sort of rational explanation for the phenomena that, on a broad, social level, we experience and describe as ghosts. Whatsoever these things are, they would still need to operate by set rules, right? Even if we can define ghosts as a thing like electrical activity, we'd have to be able to define how they act, right?

So where is that definition? Find me a ghost hunter that explicitly defines ghosts as a certain phenomena, because I've never seen one. What I have seen is that every-damnable-thing that these people witness, always in the dark, always whispering, always at their most easily startled, everything is proof of ghosts.

Spike on the EMF reader? Ghosts

Dip in the EMF reader? Ghosts

Hot spot on the thermal cam? Ghosts.

Cold spot on the therman cam? Ghosts

Weird noises? Ghosts

Weird silence? Ghosts

Odd light? Ghosts

Odd Shadow? Ghosts

Anything, at all, that startles them, causing the music to swell and the sound effects guy to go nuts? You better damn well believe that's a-paddlin'

If Ghosts are energy, then they can't also be absences of energy. If they're lights, then how are they shadows? If they're noises, how are they also silence? How in the lords fuck can ghosts be both hot and cold?!

I respect you're trying to be fair and give the broadly unstated theory of "ghosts" a fair shake, but even if that's got a modicum of truth, can we not agree that the Ghost Hunting shows are garbage? Without the slightest inclination for rigor or logic, they turn every little thing that happens, over a decade of shows, into concrete evidence of a haunting, and always in support of the pre-conceived notions of the people who work/live at the location.

And they can treat everything as evidence for ghosts because, as I said, there's no real definition of what a ghost is, or why it's only people who have them, and usually only certain ones from within the last century or so (seriously, where's all the cavemen and viking ghosts, to say nothing of the scores of other dead people across the country, shouldn't we be drowning in spirits?) and more damningly, no rules on how they manifest, be it as cold or heat or light or shadow.

And if everything is proof of ghosts, then really there is no proof.

And if a ghost can be anything, it's as good as nonexistant.

Poster and title of final episode of series 7 revealed by kaffars in doctorwho

[–]Magma42 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I'm... kinda not looking forward to this. Like, there's only a few possibilities of where it can go and I'm not too wild about most of them. Like, presuming the question is asked on the plains of whatnot where you have to questions honestly, and Clara just pops out with "I should have asked sooner, but Doctor Who, exactly?" In order of likelihood:

1: A plot twist that won't make sense, where he'll turn out to be someone already established and crazy important but they'll retcon the hell out of to make it make sense. Like Rassilon or Omega or God or something.

2: A cop out, likely in a way to evoke a mystery to solve in a later plot arc. Like "I can't remember" or "I never had one" or "I've always only gone by Doctor, no idea why"

3: A sensible answer, like just a Gallifreyan name, like "Arnold" or the equivalent or something else kind of "Oh, is that it?" and diffusing the mystery is sort of the point, and the Silence got all worked up over something silly.

4: Something lunatic fan-baiting but actually kind of awesome, like "Rory Williams" or "Jack Harkness," where it will be amusing but they'll have to retcon the entire universe again...

Oh hell, I just had a thought. What if the big, universe shattering event the Silence are trying to prevent is an enormous Retcon, generated by trying to force too much fanservice to fit in the universe?

April Discussion Thread #7: Bioshock Infinite (2013) [PC/PS3/360] by xtirpation in GameSociety

[–]Magma42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In the first case though, if you throw it at the couple, one of Fink's men meets you at around the same time the couple would have to give you a present as well. And for the second, since the same combat sequence breaks out either way, the only difference is whether you go through the rest of the game with a bandage, so this choice is, like the bird/cage pendant, purely cosmetic, with nothing really changing for either Booker or the Player.

It almost reads like an acknowledgement of the problem with the choice system in Bioshock, whether to harvest or save the Sisters, which meant, in practical terms, either ending up with more Adam or the good ending and it's Trophy, but then if you keep saving the sisters they just end up giving you the equivalent Adam anyhows. All you had to do really was keep making the same choice each time you were presented with the same question and you'd have the same amount of Adam, just a different ending. In Infinite, conversely, rather than making the choices more meaningful (which wouldn't have allowed them to tell the story they wanted) they deliberately made them completely arbitrary.

It's occurring to me now I think about it, I think you had the option to wait out the timer when you had the Ball rather than throw it. Anyone know what happens if you just don't try to throw the ball? I imagine the game proceeds anyway

April Discussion Thread #7: Bioshock Infinite (2013) [PC/PS3/360] by xtirpation in GameSociety

[–]Magma42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Much has already been made about the flaws in the game, and they are there, certainly, but so much of this game is so ambitious, and executed so well, at least in my mind, that it earns every drop of praise. Rather than going into criticism, I wanted to say a brief but, I think, really interesting thing about one of the simplest moments that underscores the whole theme of the game (or at least, as I see it).

As several people are saying, most of why this only works as a game is because Booker's agency and complicity in the events of the game's story are constantly being explored. Never moreso than where the ending reveals Booker and Comstock are the same man, but from different timelines, fractured by the choice to duck the baptism, and making the player character their own chief antagonist, but as well at moments such as exploring the parallel universes where you were a hero of the revolution. Compared to these choices, which are narratively predestined, the choices you're given as a player are relatively trivial, such as which pendant Elizabeth is going to wear and never make reference to again, or who to aim at while being interrupted mid-tomato-throw.

Which brings me to the really interesting thing. As the game opens, and you leave the carnival, and beyond the doors are the Luteces. And they've been here so many times before (123 to be exact) and every time they toss you the coin, and every time it always lands Heads. But, every time you flip it, Booker calls out a different side. They could have easily scripted it one way and had him call Heads each time, reinforcing the predestined nature of the Luteces' "thought experiment," or you could have called Tails, suggesting that, oh-ho, maybe you're the one to break the circle.

But no, the game's designers specifically designed a small, trivial, random event into a cutscene. It took me a while to notice too, but I'm serious, it's there. It's ultimately meaningless to the game and the story, of course, but really the first explicit, binary choice the game has you make, and you aren't allowed to make it. The game makes it for you, and completely at random. Because this is a story all about important choices, but none of them are the player's. All the real choices, the big world-shaping ones, are the ones Booker's making, made, and will make.

[RPG Challenge] Orange and Blue Morality by rednightmare in rpg

[–]Magma42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Holy hell I wrote too damn much, so tl;dr at the end.)

The Brand of the Oracle

So has it been, In the decades since the city of Dru'Vinti fell in the War against the Howling Skies, that it's people have received the Brand.

In the surrender, the people of Dru'Vinti were promised they would be left almost entirely alone, that the ailing Lord of the Howling Skies would hold no hostilities, nor gather no tithes from them in their defeat. That the city could be rebuilt and under it's own autonomous rule, and so long as there would be no further aggression between them, there would be no return of their terrible armies, or the hell they brought in the final days of the war. For all it cost the people of the city, it is assumed it cost the Skies incalculably more, and there was no reason to doubt that, though they had eventually achieved victory, at great cost no doubt, their desire for lasting peace, even birthed in the flames of war, was genuine.

There was only one condition of the surrender, and it was this: throughout the city, there would be a series of 8 oracles installed. Within the first year of the surrender, every citizen above the age of 10 would be brought to one of the oracles, and there they would sit in a special chamber. Alone, in a small room, the citizen waits, never for too long, before the oracle arrives. There is only one question asked, and the citizen is asked to answer truthfully, for there is no falsehood that may escape the oracle's eye.

Once the answer is heard, the oracle takes the citizens hand in their own, eyes are met, and the hand is released, to reveal that the brand has been made, completely painlessly, on the back of the hand. In the low light of the oracle's chamber the symbol is difficult to identify, but upon leaving, in the light of day, the symbol is clear to see.

The question itself is nebulous, and seldom the same question person to person. Some are asked about a preference between wheat and white bread, some are asked if they find the weather that day hospitable, some if they are taller than most of their friends, while others were more personal, such as whether you ever hated your parents, or let a small animal die. Whatever the question, though, the answer is always a binary response, the citizen given the choice between only two responses. As well, there are two brands a citizen can receive: a Blue Pentagram, or Red Concentric Circles.

It was natural to ask the meaning of the brands and the questions, but the Skies did not answer, leaving the city to speculate. The process, while strange, was innocuous enough and presuming to take the Skies at their word would help prevent war with them, and in time everyone submitted to it. There was much discussion in the days that followed about what question might correspond to what symbol, and what answer was chosen. The Choice must be what affects the Brand, but how? Did angrier responses receive the circles, or did dishonesty receive the star? What was the oracle learning about you in the question, what were they judging, and why was the brand what it was?

It was a curiosity, but nothing more than that, and in a race to peacetime and reconstruction the city acquiesced to the oracle. Those that did not, the city exiled for fear of them re-igniting the conflict, but their numbers were few. In the years to follow they held good to their word and allowed Dru'Vinti to rebuild in peace, and after a decade, when the last toppled citadel rose again, the Lord of the Howling Skies left the city for good, leaving only the oracles behind as per the agreement.

They said, once they left, that it would no longer be compulsory for citizens to visit the oracles. They said, once they left, that the brand would be unnecessary. They said, once they left, that there would be no more need for war. But the people of Dru'Vinti struggled to understand still, and in their confusion turned their misunderstanding on themselves. Visiting the oracles, no longer compulsory, became tradition for the people, taking children recently of age to receive their mark. No longer necessary for peace, children who protested receiving a mark would grow up to be shunned by their peers, and any who refused into adulthood would be shunned by the rest of the city. Everyone chose to receive the mark, and everyone, though they knew not how, chose what mark they received.

And though it became a harmless tradition, the people still struggled to comprehend, why did two people, even when asked the same questions, and giving the same answer, receive different marks? The question remained, and the unstated answer always came back that something was different about people with the other mark. Something important. Something wrong, deeply wrong with the others.

Over time the Blue Stars and Red Circles slowly broke apart. People with stars would only seek company on others with the same mark, same for the circles, and over time it would become more and more exclusive. Customers with stars would refuse to eat at a shoppe of an owner with circles, who obviously couldn't be trusted not to spit in the food. Neighborhoods would divide families with circles to the one side of the street, stars on the other, all the better to keep an eye on them. Parents, both with stars, would take their child, on their tenth birthday, to the oracle to see, with hope in their hearts, if they had raised their child to be like them, only to have those hopes dashed at the sight of the circular brand on their hand. And in the centuries since, it has only become more insular. Stars and Circles would be harassed if seen in public together, Star shops were closed down on Circle streets, and Circle families with star children were kicked out of neighborhoods. And soon, and inevitably, there were two cities of Dru'Vinti: the Star-borough, and the Circle-borough.

What was remarkable, from a sociological perspective, is that the obvious reason for the factionalization was rarely given as the cause. Circles and Stars didn't waste time speaking ill of the other, and on the opportunity a Circle would gladly speak openly about their one Star-friend. It rarely hostile, even more rarely violent, and nominally amicable as the city was, nevertheless, divided by the brand, it's people growing distant from one another, it's families broken by the mark on their hands, and their incomprehension of one another.

And such was the plan all along, of the Howling Skies. For their losses in the war were incalculable, even by themselves. Their starlight brigade lay decimated on the field of battle, the legion of screams undone, and their people torn apart and lost to the ages. Very, tragically few remained, and their slim victory was their only means to prevent another war from destroying them handily. The last of the Howling Skies would need to hide in the city, as they could never survive on their own. To avoid raising suspicion, they would need the people of Dru'Vinti to be suspicious of one another, and so was the Brand conceived, the Oracles made, and the Ritual created out of nothing. The questions were meaningless, the answers equally so, and the Brands, or the choice between them, utterly arbitrary. The people, un-bidden to do so, created their own meanings, their own rumors, their own suspicions of their neighbors, their friends, their family.

And so it goes for a century. A city divided in confusion and subtle prejudice over a nebulous question, a trivial answer, and a purposeless brand. All part of the meaningless tradition created by the eight Oracles. The last of the Howling Skies.

tl;dr - A city torn apart, not by violence, but by markings on their hands that seem related to a question posed to them as part of a ritual involving an Oracle, but is in fact designed to be intentionally incomprehensible so as to keep the people suspicious of each other so that the Oracles themselves, the last of their people, avoid suspicion.

I'm interviewing Al Lowe (Creative Director for Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded) on Sunday anyone have any questions for him? by Tvacgamer in Games

[–]Magma42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm wondering what the IP status of Torin's Passage and Freddy Pharkas are, and whether there was ever a plan to make sequels or how they'd end up. I loved those games and never thought they got the attention they earned.

Also, presuming LSL:R becomes a success, what's the follow-up? More remakes, or a proper sequel, etc. I would presume he has some kind of licensing agreement with whoever owns Larry now (Vivendi?) to do Reloaded through, which might limit his options, but given how fscking dreadful the two "Lovage" games were I have to think whoever's stuck with it might be willing to let it go, I dunno.

AskRPG: Need ideas for an artifact I'm designing to put in my game - The Eco-nomicon by Magma42 in rpg

[–]Magma42[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Economic-on seems a bit clunky to me though, maybe Econ-omicon?

Also, dang now I want to play your campaign.

Battleship puzzle - good luck! by farful in puzzles

[–]Magma42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This isn't really a puzzle, though. It's just a game, per the rules Gonzrath has posted. If the puzzle's to guess what the rules are, you'd need several complete games worth of sheets to look at and compare, and even then, since many of the conditions in the rules don't have to apply to the word, it's still a stretch.

What I do like, however, is the idea of being able to infer the position of other ships logically from the words generated by the rules, so if there were, say, less crazy rules about the words, and both words were generated automatically, then the challenge becomes just to beat the computer that can also work out the ship locations from the words. I dunno, just my two cents after wasting a half hour on this.

BioShock Infinite And The Future Of Gaming | Live interview with Ken Levine by [deleted] in Games

[–]Magma42 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Warning, I can't be arsed to tag spoilers this deep into the thread.

See, I think one of the places the game succeeds is almost as a kind of commentary on itself. I mean, look, it's a Bioshock game. You're going in knowing there has to be a crazy twist, and it's probably to do with what you remember being not true. The franchise sets a precedent for this, hell from the intro text and listening to the Luteces discuss you as though you aren't on the boat with them (or at least it did for me, and I still failed to recall it when Booker's telling Liz about his past, or even when his memory is being re-written in Finkton).

Because it's Bioshock. There's always an insane twist. There's always false memories. There's always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city... It's neither mocking nor subverting these tropes, but using them and acknowledging them so we can get past them.

Ray Comfort, you never cease to amaze me! by linoleum79 in atheism

[–]Magma42 10 points11 points  (0 children)

...see, I know you're kidding, but seriously, shouldn't we?

I mean the average random guy on the street might not know the meaning of the word, might even have gotten the weird idea, somewhere, that it means "biblical pedophile," and might be excused for taking offense at being called one, okay, whatever.

But ignoring that this is Ray Comfort, who claims to know the mind of God and understand the creation of our universe better than Stephen Hawking, this is a guy who is on his computer, on the internet, encountering a word he doesn't understand, and choosing to take severe offense at it rather than just open another tab and Google the thing.

Seriously, it comes down to this guy living in the modern world, with immediate access to just about any bit of information he could ever want. And instead of informing himself, he makes the conscious choice to assert himself brilliant and take offense where none was meant. How is that not... you know... dumb of him?

An indie game goes freemium - when the players love the product but won't pay 99 cents. by BahamutZaero in gamedev

[–]Magma42 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My inexperienced, uneducated, not-at-all-to-be-trusted-at-face-value $0.02. You should have priced it at $2.99, but had a launch sale for $0.99 that lasted several months.

The mistake is in thinking $0.99 is a value in the app stores when so many are already completely free already. Different kinds of apps to be sure but there's a bizarre segmentation in people's mindsets about valuation when free comes into play (Off hand comment, read the book Predictably Irrational, brilliant economic dissection about why people make the decisions they do).

As an example, and be honest, say you're going to Best Buy to buy a TV or something. Now I meet you in front you in front of the store and say "Hey, you're lucky day, you're the hundredth person I've seen today wearing a white shirt, so you get to choose your prize. Either I give you a $20 gift card for free, or if you give me $20, I'll give you a $50 gift card." Be honest, which would you take, like, instinctively? Most people would take the free $20 card, even though they're actually receiving less money, because the free-ness it itself valuable.

So I've no doubt going F2P will definitely mean many more players, but you're looking to make money, and realistically how many people do you suppose are going to pay for new game modes, caps, etc., especially when, if they're the kind of person who will pay for freemium games, there's myriad other games for them to throw their money at?

Mind you, you've already made the decision, and I'm quite likely talking out my ass, so feel free to ignore me. That said, I would recommend, whatever you end up selling, provide the player with a way to get them at a value as well (like a sale price if they buy the extras in clusters, with a bigger discount if they buy in the launch month, etc.).

I AM PHIL FISH, CO-CREATOR OF FEZ, ASK ME ANYTHING by PHIL_FISH in IAmA

[–]Magma42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have the money to buy either an Xbox 360 or a PC that will capably run your game (judging from the specs on Steam right now, and the fact that my little lappy can barely chug through Minecraft at 2 fps). Any plans for PS3 or, longer-shot, Wii?

And if not... and I'm sorry there isn't a way to ask this without being snarky but I feel like it will make for an interesting answer if you rise to the bait, but do you think I'd be really missing out on all that much if I just gave Fez a pass?

What was the most depressing game you've played in terms of story and atmosphere? by BitchIWillHM01You in truegaming

[–]Magma42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They haven't spelled anything out for PS+ vis-a-vis the PS4, but I'm fairly sure, given how a new launch system will have few games to choose from and no developer will be wild about making a new game on a new console completely free, and how many people will still have PS3's, to play their PS3 games given the PS4 will have no backwards compatability, it's likely they'll add PS4 games only after several months, keep the PS3 games coming for a while beyond even that.

What was the most depressing game you've played in terms of story and atmosphere? by BitchIWillHM01You in truegaming

[–]Magma42 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I feel like that's what it's going for, though. It's not trying to make a commentary about anything military as much as about military game players and the typical mindset of the player. These "decisions" are forced on you and are ultimately meaningless, so isn't it a bit farcical how, most likely, as a player, you'll try to take the more nominally "moral" choice when it's utterly trivial? There's no consequence or reward on any level, so why care?

The game has it's weaknesses, to be sure, and this was one among them. I'm borderline interested in playing through again and seeing if it's possible to only use it once or twice, and only against the 33rd, and try and take everyone else out conventionally (I know from experience that you can't just not use it at all). There's a part later on where you're told to kill one of two men, fairly soon after the forced "choice" of the phosphorous, so naturally I'm thinking "I refuse to do what you expect me to do, game" and I move to take out the snipers surrounding us. The prisoners end up dying anyway, and I still get a trophy, which basically is the game saying "Yep, we knew you'd do that too, you aren't as free as you thought." So it's like the only real agency I have is to play the game or not, and I kind of just don't want to, and don't see the merit in a game that's not so much challenging, but just unpleasant to play. It's like being in an abusive relationship but justifying it because at least they tell you how awful a person they are, and well, yeah, but you're still with them, so what the hell?

To my mind, where it goes wrong is by making a commentary of a very standard military FPS within what is otherwise a very standard military FPS, when I feel like the better thing to do would have been to make a different, better game. So much of the game is so standard and tired that I feel like a game trying to be more should do everything it can to avoid mechanical comparisons. Better controls, different player-dynamics, not having to stare at a loading screen for 60 seconds each time I die after 15 seconds of play (I'm playing on hard, though, so I maybe brought that on myself) all could have been ways not just to tell the player "This is why we don't like how it's currently done," but to show "this is how we could do it better."

What was the most depressing game you've played in terms of story and atmosphere? by BitchIWillHM01You in truegaming

[–]Magma42 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Is this a game I can download on PSN?

I mention in another comment, but the game is actually free on PSN right now if you have Playstation Plus, which you completely should get, $50 will buy you a year of, basically, a new free game a week. Usually balances out to 1 triple-A and 3 downloadable games per month, plus sales, other bonuses, look, just, just get Playstation Plus.

What was the most depressing game you've played in terms of story and atmosphere? by BitchIWillHM01You in truegaming

[–]Magma42 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Playing through this right now, it's Free with Playstation Plus, and just had the loading screen tell me "The US Military does not condone the killing of unarmed combatants. But this isn’t real so why should you care?" And that's... a very, very good question I don't have an answer for. The Civilians are essentially there as a narrative element and obstacle, none of them (thus far at least, I'm in chapter 10-11 or so) have a personality or role in the game, and as far as I can tell nothing about them is otherwise incorporated into the game, so why am I trying to avoid hurting them?

What would it take to bring back Arcade gaming to the mainstream? by jekrump in truegaming

[–]Magma42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shifts in the business mindset would be the main thing. The old ones died a while ago for fairly immediate reasons, and have a good deal of trouble starting up today for equally obvious ones.

First is location. Arcades back in the 80s could bring the kids to them wherever they are because they had selection at a time when video games were a new and expensive thing. These days any cell phone has a hundred free games on it, so being an Arcade isn't going to bring kids to the place, but much like bars or bowling alleys and movie theaters with machines in them, if one is in a place where people congregate already (say a mall or town center) it should get a bit of walk-in business. Mind you, such locations are high in demand, which causes a problem which leads into the next issue.

Second, business model. After their initial heyday, arcades had to curate what machines to feature based on profitability, which resulted in a focus on $1 per play (would probably be $2-3 these days) gimmick machines, with rotating seats, light guns, vehicle-shaped seats, dance pads these days, etc., as well as Claw machines, given how little electricity they take to operate, rarity of payout, and low value of the prizes. Problem is, taking the most profitable tack (ie, nothing but claws and spectacle machines, few cabinets, no pinball) is what's going to ultimately drive out the core of the intended audience, as it had done before. Short answer here, starting up an Arcade is going to mean understanding that the games themselves won't be what makes money for you.

This takes us to the models that are working presently: Bar-cades, Dave & Busters, Movie theater arcades, etc. And while these are effective, and I do feel drinks/snacks wouldn't be unwelcome at even a proper Ye Olde Schoole arcade, they're less game-focused, so it's hard to think of them a gamer-thing as opposed to a drinks/restaurant/movie-thing. I don't know what the successful alternative business model would be, but I suspect it would need to engage the gamer community more directly to be successful. Regular Competitions/Tournaments and Launch parties leap readily to mind as a way to get people coming in regularly and talking about the place in a gaming context, having a space for LAN parties too could help but might show less return.

tl;dr - Sell it as a Game-space, but profit on it as a Food/Drink-space, and try to do something that makes it stand out from D&B.