5 Arcade Features Missing in Modern Video Games (Part One)

1. Fear of Death

Source: Fraserking  
(Ghosts and Goblins)

This is probably the most important loss we've experienced transitioning away from the arcade format. Games are a lot more fun when you your death has a consequence that you don't want to experience. Arcades were based around this very feature. Every time you died you lost money from your wallet.

I'm not saying we should introduce micro-transactions for lives because no one wants this, however if every time you died you permanently lost significant progress towards your goal you would play a lot more carefully and more importantly you would try your best, to be the best.

Roguelikes and roguelites do this to an extreme. You get one life and that's it. I personally enjoy these genres and will play on 'hardcore' mode when it's available. Nothing quite beats the rush of the near death of the character you've spent many hours building up.

2. Easy to Learn Hard to Master

Source: Auntheather
(Pacman)

Not many games get this right, but most arcades were like this. Just about anyone with prior experience in video games can learn to play an arcade game within a minute, but only a select few can be on top of the leader board, or get to the end of the game.

Most modern games choose one or the other, games like call of duty are easy to play and relatively easy to master, whereas games like dwarf fortress can take days of reading wikis and tutorials before they know what they're doing.

3. Score

source: Coinopspace
(donkey kong 2)

This feature does exist in a lot of ways in smaller games where the goal is to get a high score. Most AAA games however, forgo a scoring system altogether and if they include it, it feels tacked on and is mostly ignored.

With a good scoring system in place you give the player a choice in how they play, they can do everything they can to get a good score or they can complete the game efficiently. This could give just about any game additional depth if done right.

However with modern games you need to reward score with something tangible, Japanese action games tend to do this well by rewarding additional experience points or unlocks if you get a good score rank

-Tristan