Future projection: Cinemas will become the next arcades. For a time, arcades were the only way to experience video games, just as cinemas were for films, and,

Future projection: Cinemas will become the next arcades. For a time, arcades were the only way to experience video games, just as cinemas were for films, and, at least through the early 90's, they were still by far the best way to experience most AAA titles like Street Fighter 2, etc. But game companies wanted more profit than just arcades could bring in, so we got the advent of the home console. For a time, the arcade technology was still clearly superior to the home console technology, but home consoles quickly eclipsed what the arcades could do,and simultaneously changed the medium massively, allowing us games like RPGs, which had multi-hour-long very immersive and deep gameplay and storytelling that was simply not possible on a cabinet designed to get as many people in and out of it as quickly possible. In the late 90's, we had games like Final Fantasy 7, something so far removed from the original concept of an arcade game it could only have ever existed as an in-home experience. What can we learn from the closure of arcades in relation to the fall of theatres? The experience of media has to be better than what is offered in our homes, to get us to leave them. Cinema has practically passed that tipping point already, especially to anyone with a decent home video/audio system, which is more insanely affordable than ever. I predict cinemas will, in the next couple decades, very much go the way of arcades - including a small resurgence of 'real', independently-owned cinemas that will exist to give us that nostalgia-laced experience that will be indie enough at the time to be considered hip and retro.