Dave & Buster's and the Science of Fun
The game and arcade chain opens at the corner of Loyola and Poydras today and we have the first look around.
Monday, Dave & Buster’s opened at the corner of Loyola and Poydras. The chain aspires to be your home for games, whether watching them or playing them, with a wall of eight video screens dividing the bar and dining area and its signature arcade dominating the venue. At a recent press opening, I discovered that my arcade gaming skills aren’t what they once were, that typing muscles are different from shooting muscles, and that you can’t escape Trump news, as one screen on the video wall was on CNN while Sportscenter and replays of other games aired around it.
I’m always fascinated by the business and science of fun, and there’s no way that a chain of Dave & Buster’s size does anything in its arcade on a whim. According to general manager Jackie Wash, they work to have a mix of popular games and ones exclusive to Dave & Buster’s, but she doesn’t say what that mix is. Those decisions, she says, are made “outside this venue.” They know who their market is—average age is 25 to 35—and the size of parties—four to six people, though parties of eight to 10 are common—and tailor the arcade accordingly. It has such arcade classics as skee-ball and air hockey, but it also has video games are clearly meant to be played socially, where the interaction between friends while one or two people play is part of the experience. The Mario and Sonic Rio 2016 game puts a figure on a trampoline, and how high the character jumps depends on how well players time their jump on a pad. The quality of the trick he performs in the air is affected by the player’s ability with handles the directions on the screen.
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Some games including The Walking Dead and Star Wars Battle Pod are more immersive as the player is isolated in a booth. The Star Wars game puts the player in the cockpit of a ship by having the game play on a 180-degree curved screen in front of them, which was cool but it made me a little queasy to track enemy fighters as we battled around the Death Star.
“We have quite a few guests that just love specific games, and we want to make those the main attraction,” Wash says.
If the games in Dave & Buster’s are evidence, nostalgia affects who loves what. It can’t be an accident that one of the most low-tech first person shooters is the Ghostbusters game, which fires ping pong balls in the oldest franchise in the building. Playability also affects who likes what. “I like Fruit Ninja and Blackout—simple games that you can play on your phone, “Wash says. “It’s just a matter of eye/hand. If you involve my feet in it—not always so great.”
Click on the image, hold down and move the mouse to look around.
