Alright, lately I've been thinking about my local DDR scene and the community as a whole. I started playing DDR in April 2003 when my brother bought DDRMAX and a soft pad with money from his 11th birthday (he's 16 now). I would play it every day, struggling to pass harder songs until I eventually got to Heavy mode. One day I went to a local mall (Clifton Park Center) to find that the an arcade called Tilt had a DDRMAX2 machine. I went there many days until the arcade closed at the end of 2003 and was replaced by a Zumiez. My next DDR destination was another local mall, Crossgates Mall. When I first started playing there, there was a really good Extreme and a crappy MAX2 in an arcade in the food court called Cyberstation, and in the downstairs movie theater lobby there was an Extreme that was just as good as the one in Cyberstation. I would spend pretty much every Saturday at the mall playing on both Extreme machines, and during the summer of 2004 Cyberstation bought a bunch of other machines and at one point had 5 DDR machines all lined up against the wall. I would spend countless hours pumping tokens into all 5 of the machines and I always seemed to have a good time, mainly because many people played at Cyberstation at the time. There were even tournaments where people like JSB showed up. It was great. There were other great machines in the area that were all worth playing.

However, around April 2005, I quit playing for a pretty long time. I decided it was time to move on, despite the fact the scene was still thriving. When I came back to the community in December 2006, things seemed to take a turn for the worse. A lot of the arcades in my area stopped caring about their machines and just let them go to hell. However, Crossgates Cyberstation was still open, but it was starting to die. Nobody really played DDR anywhere in my area anymore. And plus, people seem to think DDR is a joke and make fun of it all the time. 

Crossgates Cyberstation eventually closed in May 2008. At first I was like "eh, whatever". But now I'm starting to think about the times when the place was thriving, and now I really do miss the place. I made a bunch of good friends (sup SoFreshSoDarryl and tofu), and I really enjoyed the Saturdays I spent there. Everything just seemed to crumble after Cyberstation closed. Two bowling alleys in my area recently sent their Extreme machines out for repairs, and the one good close Extreme machine has a really tempermental coin slot. Sure, I could travel 3 hours to TGA or 8 on the Break, but I'm only 14 AKA no car and no real transportation. Sure, places like the Midwest still have a decent scene, but here in Upstate New York there is no scene. None.

Also, it seems like people are too focused on getting AAA's on every song ever, and not trying just to have fun. Correct me if I'm wrong, but video games are supposed to be played for fun? Sure, it's good to have competition, but still, I think some people are too focused on score.

tl;dr: The scene sucks, and it seems like there's no real point in playing DDR anymore.

Pureblue,

Your outlook on the DDR scene is a little bleak, but I'm glad to see you speaking your mind here on the official community website.  I think a lot of what you are talking about plays in with the fact that arcades have slowly been dieing out during the past 5 or 6 years.  Home consoles have truly taken a rather large bite out of the arcade scene, and not only has this effected DDR in certain areas, but its effected all games that thrive in the arcade experience.

We've seen a lot of these games move to consoles, and therefore their arcade counterparts may get left in the dust.  Things change, and everything goes through cycles.  I hope to see the arcade scene pick up more steam as we move forward, and DDR is one game that could make that happen (especially with DDR X on the horizon).

I'm glad to have you here on the DDR Community, feel free to contact me at anytime!

PureBlue: i can et what you are saying about how the DDR arcade scene is starting to plunge down...here's my take: back when DDRMAX2 and DDR EXTREME was released here in Tampa, the DDR scene was HOT! if you could play DDR as good as the next guy, amn you would get CROWDS of people! but i'm guessing it was that long gap between Extreme and SuperNOVA that people started to move on (probably because people thought that DDR was done and over with...until SuperNOVA came out), even I thought that after Extreme that the DDR scene was done and over, and i started to move on...if it wasn't for Extreme 2 i would have probably lost interest in DDR all together...

Moving on, when my friend brought over SuperNOVA (for the home console) i thought it was like one of those DDR add-ons (like the Disney Mix) and i decided to try it out, i kinda judged the game on the defaults that it had, but ironically me and my friend went to our local Gameworks that same day, and guess what i find at the arcade? That's right! DDR SuperNOVA! so after that encounter, i asked to see if i could borrow his game, and sooner or later, i fell in love with MAX 300 (SMMM) and FAXX...my DDR interest was back in full effect!

However, it didn't really seem that the DDR scene around my area was back to the way it used to be, i mean in my arcades that i go to, people just don't stop to look at what you are doing on DDR, if you play an Expert song (or Heavy song), they just look for about 5 seconds, and leave. I can see that after a while, people just don't either care or they have already seen it a bunch of times, so they move on...

I really feel that DDR X might bring the scene back, new machine, new screen, new EVERYTHING! =D lol hopefully with this addition, people might start getting back to the DDR scene...

P.S. i also agree with you on how it seems that DDR players are going for the highest scores, and not to just have fun...i always have fun when i play DDR, and when it comes down to a competition, yea i give it my best that i can, but like i said, i always play DDR for the fun and the music =) 

As Elliott said, a lot of the feeling of the scene 'dying out' has to do with Arcades doing poorly as of late. Heck, I can't even tell you the last time I was in an arcade that was strictly an arcade. And given the current economic situation, I can't say that it looks to get better anytime soon, at least for the US AC market.  And you couple that with lazy arcade owners who don't take care of their machines. Heck, I don't think I've ever been in an arcade that didn't have at least one game that was so messed up it was pretty much unplayable.

However, what we lose in community in the arcade we make up for online.I've been going to DDR related forums for about 4-5 years, and I can tell you that they've been getting more users and interest as time goes on. The one exception is DDRFreak, but who didn't see that coming a mile away...

If you look at Zenius-I-Vanisher.com, the DDR X CS thread already has around 2,300 posts, even with over a month to go before its release. The DDR X AC thread has over 1,400 posts and lord knows we're months away from that release. Heck, even this place has 4,500 users already!

 So, the community is still thriving, it's just had to adapt a bit.

While you developed these thoughts and opinions, did you ever notice that the few arcades that seem to be doing well are the ones specializing in Bemani titles?

Hi, Konami.

Yeah, I did kind of notice that. Places like TGA seem to be doing well. But arcades that aren't just Bemani and other music games are doing poorly.

Other than TGA, what comes to mind for arcades like you just described?

The only other one I can really think of at the moment is 8 on the break. I'm half asleep lol.

I was never around the scene that you talked about because of where I live. Boy I wish I could of lived in a town that had a scene to have all those moments that you had. The only feeling of community that comes close to that is the online mode for the PS2.

I would say treasure those memories. Never let them die and never give up the arrows. ^_^

Other than TGA, what comes to mind for arcades like you just described?

CHQ in Vancouver

Orbit in Toronto

8otB

There're a lot more.