gingerbeardman

I used to live in a seaside town and the guy that ran the arcade there said that each machine had its own income line in the books. As soon as it dropped below a certain amount it was swapped out for something else. Doesn't matter if it is an old classic, or the newest game, if it's not making money it's a waste of space. In fact the old classics were the worst performing games. That way of doing business—maximising income per square foot—is sort of the opposite of being passionate about video games: I'm sure it is easier to be absolutely ruthless if you don't have any attachment to the games/machines.

It's very rare to see a thriving arcade in this day and age, even in tourist destination seaside towns. Most faded away for good reason. And tastes and pastimes change, so they're very difficult to make work when you're competing with home consoles and more.

Arcade Club proves that it is possible. But it is certainly not easy! By the way, my arcade cab (Sega's Flicky from 1984) is on loan at Arcade Club in Bury.

@BionicDodo check out https://udm14.com for how you can stop Google showing you those things.

eye-watering!

Missing out on working with Moebius would have also scarred me for life. Damn.

Typo: "play with up to friends"

Wonderful. I wonder if Monkey stars in this interpretation of Journey to the West.

That's so cool!

I'm relived they're not in danger of closing.

@slider1983 by “talking” I meant publishing online, sorry. An instance is mentioned in this very article! GPS had to take some content down at the request of the government

@slider1983 Japanese gamers are interested in preservation but the strict Japanese copyright laws prevent them from sharing things, pretty much

I was just thinking, Patreon would take this to the next level. They'd blast past their 2000 member target in no time at all.

They could set up a Patreon and use whatever English content they're preparing to onboard backers. Or even just republish the existing newsletter content to spoon feed Patreon backers.

Great news! I'd welcome occasional updates here on Time Extension

If this is anything like their SNES game Smash Tennis (aka Super Family Tennis) I'm looking forward to playing it! It seems to be cut from the same cloth.

@Razieluigi there's still lots of places for entry because bullet hell is a subset of shmups, and even then most do offer concessions for novice playars. I would argue that well-designed bullet hell are just as technical as Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga.

@smoreon apparently the game was decompiled ages ago. This week's milestone is byte for byte match which proves the exactness of the project. It doesn't guarantee or make ports any more likely. I'm not sure what the blog post that went with the tweet said exactly as its gone. https://twitter.com/alejand56879654/status/1922362895397970193

The featured tweet has been taken down, and a other one is in its place saying it was an error. @damo

@Damo touché! There's the attract mode footage, but also another very low quality recording of the same level shown in this "new" footage. https://twitter.com/gingerbeardman/status/1517996355268059136

Anyway, yes, fingers crossed we can play it one day.

@Daniel36 what did you play from 1997 when GT was released until 2001 when Burnout was released?

@MysticWangForce @-wc- iirc and GT2 introduced Arcade disc.

There was also a hidden GT mode in Motor Toon Grand Prix 2.

@Vectrex my thoughts exactly!

It's also worth noting that footage of this game has existed online for decades, this is simply a higher quality recording.

The attract mode is well worth a watch. https://youtu.be/4XLQ9ds5PeM

Such a cool looking game.

Typo: The appeal of Resivour Dogs

Should be: Reservoir

I'm struggling to think of a part of the LRG business that is run well.

@Blofse @Zuljaras Lost in Cult announcing their physical label on 20th May so watch this space

Rumoured to have a great line up of games, the type you didn't know you wanted physically until they were announced.

@Stwert they're only starting to rub you up the wrong way? After all they've done? You have a high tolerance for pain!

This is a really tricky one. I'd give GPS money, but only if I got something in return. Selfish, I know.

But what would, or could, I get in return? They can't give access to their 35,000 disks because Japanese copyright law prevents it. Even in Japan you can only get access in person. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Giving GPS money to know they are preserving things but that I'll never be able to access is a much harder sell. I donate to many Patreon, Wikipedia, Internet Archive and more.

I've contacted GPS in the past and tried to get some things to read. The only information I could get was a confusing email reply from Joseph. Everything that I wanted to see was confirmed as existing and available, but off limits. Japanese copyright law is the issue. Maybe it'll change at some point.

I think GPS are their own enemy in a number of ways. They do everything in a slightly odd, esoteric, old-fashioned way. No patreon? Downloadable newsletters? Awkward website? It feels that they are making everything more difficult than it need be. Modernisation is required. You mention that they don't communicate certain things well. That is the core problem. They need marketing help above all else.

I remember going there for a meeting about me helping automate the creation of digital manuals for Wii games. Must have been between 2007 and 2010.

For those unfamiliar with the meme (perhaps folks outside the USA?) it's a couple of clicks away on one of the links on this page. So, to save you the time: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-playstation-can-produce-mind-boggling-effects

@Damo cheers!

It's curious that the infractions were known about for so long—decades—but didn't make the news. I guess something happened to cause Marcin to speak up about it in 2025. But what?

@pigpennn it's all smoke and mirrors in any demo scene production. For example the ST can't do hardware sprites, but they make it seem like it can.

So, I expect the Neo Geo is capable of much more but simply hasn't been pushed as much or had as much attention.

Fairhurst was able to confirm with Time Extension that the repository is now fully up to date

Can you please link to this repo? I can't find it.

And no coverage of LRG doing multiple reprints of their "limited run" games? https://youtu.be/MvkZkgmpg2w

This is pretty cool, but far below the state of the art of demo scene on the arguably less powerful Amiga or Atari STE.

Top work preserving this!

Great interview. He's a true intellectual. I'd have liked him to open up a little more.

I was shocked to see my old tweet of a print ad for Seven Colors half way down the page!

So Masaya thinks music should be distributed as a fluid program, rather than the fixed output. Which is a really interesting thought, mostly because it's nothing new and it had already been done years before his first game. No need for AI.

Speaking of which, I recently stumbled across such alternative distribution back in 1989, where some music was distributed as MIDI files on a CD so that the listener could adjust the playback to their taste, using their own stack of equipment.

I even found recording of one of the albums, but naturally not as MIDI. It was an interesting listen.

https://twitter.com/gingerbeardman/status/1908277494400040990

Or (same content)
https://bsky.app/profile/gingerbeardman.com/post/3llzfvsuht22b

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Urgh. Not good.

This was released 31 March.

So we're looking for NES and GB Jaleco releases that are attractive to French publisher. Hmm.

Jack, you forgot to hyphenate Bullet-Proof Software in the paragraph after mentioning it should be hyphenated.

What is the USP of this? What does it do that I can't do with one other devices?

@GameBuoyGames agreed. The point I took away from the article is that it's all one interconnected industry and we need to be more empathetic and curious about things outside of our own bubbles

Really enjoyed this, thanks. Hopefully it will give people pause before they make a sweeping generalisation in future. Probably not though.

The best example of US-über-alles approach to gaming history is English language Wikipedia: every game article is named for the USA version, rather than the original or most popular version of the game (which is what the say it is supposed to be). So you'll need to look for Buster Bros. (the US-only name used for few versions of the game) to find Pang (the name used in the rest of the world for many versions of the game; provably more popular).

@NinChocolate that's exactly when the owner will pounce

We gotta believe!

Their industrial design is always fun and interesting, but it's another solution looking for a problem. They would surely benefit from some guidance.

Is this using the open source reimplementation of Wipeout? I think so. Same code that was being ported to Playdate, etc.

I don't believe any other games in the Wipeout series have been reverse engineered like that. But great that Dreamcast will have this one.

Game looks like it has a million colours! Amazing work by the artist and devs.

Absolute classic. Was lucky enough to play it at an arcade a few times.

I want one of these, would be perfect for my recent Dreamcast game. That's a very low requirement kind of game and runs fine on my GameForce Chi. But this device looks nicer.

I suppose it's referring to the mono sound game setting? As the game/PlayStation has no way of knowing the capabilities of the connected display/speakers

Love this. I'm making a tate mode shmup at the moment—would love to get it released on the Evercade.

Wow. That's all I have to say.

Every time they're caught out they say "oh, we'll change - it won't happen again" yet time after time it has happened, again and again. The fact that they're not learning from mistakes means that the problem is systemic within the company. The good will for LRG was burned long ago, and I don't see anything that rebuilds it. Even this sort of interview (that is perhaps damage control) is essentially worthless if they keep making mistakes. Given their track record you can bet that we'll be able to count in weeks until the next one.