{"id":586,"date":"2016-02-12T14:21:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T14:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeremiepgagnon.wordpress.com\/?p=586"},"modified":"2016-02-12T14:21:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T14:21:46","slug":"virtua-fighter-a-tale-of-two-cabinets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/2016\/02\/12\/virtua-fighter-a-tale-of-two-cabinets\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtua Fighter: A Tale of Two Cabinets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Released on December 6 1993, Virtua Fighter<\/em>\u00a0was the most popular fighting game of 1994; it was far ahead of its competition (Super Street Fighter II<\/em>) on the technical\u00a0front, and made a big impression amongst gamers and journalists. However, the game was what we can call a \u00ab\u00a0late bloomer\u00a0\u00bb in the game center industry.\u00a0While typical successful titles hit the top position in popularity charts almost at the moment of their release, Virtua Fighter<\/em>\u00a0staying under the radar for\u00a0about\u00a0a month after its release. A lot of factors may explain this, but according to some\u00a0research in RCGS’s archives, the design of the cabinet into which the game was installed played a significant role.<\/p>\n

It has become clear to me that Virtua Fighter<\/em> is a good example\u00a0to put emphasis on\u00a0the relation between social affordances and cabinet design; the game ran onto two different cabinet designs implemented at different times, but that were still present\u00a0in games centers in parallel to each other. One can make the case that each had its own role to attract different audiences, and that these cabinets generated different affordances\u00a0that resonated well with certain crowds. In other words, the play experience and the social affordances that these two models\u00a0generated\u00a0were completely different.<\/p>\n

\"Screen

Super Megalo 50 (picture from Virtua Fighter Maniacs<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Virtua Fighter<\/em> was first released on a modified version of the Super Megalo 50, a very large cabinet made of two distinct parts: a 50-inch screen and a separate installation that combined both\u00a0the commands and the seats. The two parts could be placed at various distances from each other. Essentially, two players would sit side-by-side and battle each other within a relatively close space. When the game was first released in this fashion, advertisement campaigns publicized the cabinet’s impressive screen size as much as the game’s technical innovations (the first polygon-based fighting game).<\/p>\n

\"Screen

Astrocity 2 (picture from Virtua Fighter Maniacs<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n

A month later, Sega released Virtua Fighter<\/em> for a modified version of the Astrocity 2 cabinet, a standard competition cabinet (taisendai). The screen was much smaller and a separate bench was required to play, and while two sets of controls were installed on the machine, it was more commonly in tandem with another similar unit installed directly behind the cabinet. Both machines were connected via network, and players could play together on two different units. It is at this point that Virtua Fighter<\/em> took game centers by storm, and dominated the fighting game scene until November of 1994.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Game Machine <\/em>(which ranks games according to the number of machine sold and the general \u00ab\u00a0impression\u00a0\u00bb expressed by the\u00a0operators surveyed), the evolution\u00a0of the bimonthly raking of Virtua Fighter<\/em> is very different according to the cabinet it was shipped in. The Super Megalo 50 version started in first position in the first week, but dropped to second place two weeks after, never to recover again. Game Machine<\/em>\u00a0ranks games according to cabinet type and provides a better idea than Coin Journal<\/em>‘s monthly ranking, which does not make any distinction between them (its ranking system is also very subjective, but that’s a story for another day). However, the latter conducts more precise interviews with operators, and in a specific interview, the reporter states that the introduction of the Astrocity 2 version of the game, along with a slightly better presence in game centers, turned the title from a moderately interesting game to a great crowd pleaser, and that, a month after the release of the second cabinet. A look at Game Machine<\/em>‘s 1994 ranking confirms that the Astrocity 2 version remains in top position during the year, while the Super Megalo 50 gradually drops lower in the top 15 in its category (it would come back in first position only for two weeks in June of that year).<\/p>\n

This story is confirmed in many players and journalist’s\u00a0accounts<\/a> of the era<\/a>\u00a0where one can read that sitting on a single bench\u00a0at a machine was a little embarrassing with strangers, especially when matches were one sided. While no sources directly confirms it, it is reasonable\u00a0to assume that a very different type of crowds made use of the Super Megal0 50 version of Virtua Fighter<\/em>,\u00a0people whose purpose in going to the arcade (their \u00ab\u00a0trajectories\u00a0\u00bb as Doreen Massey<\/a>) was much more compatible with the social affordances of the machine (users’ responses to close-proximity play and its high potential for performing to a crowd is more adapted to players familiar with their opponent). These would have been very different than the socialization patterns that normally characterize game cabinets when the identity of the opponent is often unknown. This is most likely why \u00ab\u00a0power gamers\u00a0\u00bb and beginners felt uneasy using the bigger cabinet; while the game was similar, the social affordances of the cabinet designs were very different.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Released on December 6 1993, Virtua Fighter\u00a0was the most popular fighting game of 1994; it was far ahead of its competition (Super Street Fighter II) on the technical\u00a0front, and made a big impression amongst gamers and journalists. However, the game … Continue la lecture →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,12,1],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-field-trip-2016","category-game-center","category-uncategorized","tag-virtua-fighter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeremiepgagnon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}