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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

They are already mostly gone except in a few places in tokyo and the obvious geek dens like Akihabara. And they are all smoking which means you get cigarette smell amd feel dirty after no time. No thanks.

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Smoking was common in Tokyo arcades up until mid 2020. Tokyo introduced a new, stricter set of regulations that banned smoking in most businesses unless they have a dedicated smoking room/section. Most arcades didn't build those facilities, so they are legally obligated to be smoke free[1]. Arcades outside of Tokyo have to comply with the looser national regulations.

As a non-smoker who regularly frequented arcades, I welcome this change. Sadly since COVID I've avoided going out entirely, and am not surprised that the industry is dying. I agree with trzy in a separate thread: experiences like The Void[2] which are impossible to have at home are the only thing I can see driving people back to arcades.

1) https://iwanablog.net/gamecenter-kitsuen-naze/ 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Void_(virtual_reality)

I would assume Meow Wolf snapped up their talent at bargain rates for the Vegas expansion.

You're thinking about pachinko with the smoking. None of the video game arcades allow smoking.

"None" is definitely not true. The smoking section is often separated, or on another floor but they definitely exist. Often with the Dart machines and/or with the more gambling style machines (not specifically pachinko).

It should be true as of the new regulation last year. Any laggers will fall in line soon enough or close down. It changed a lot in the past year.

They exist just fine out of Tokyo. Fukuoka for instance is brimming with them if you know where to look - I don't recall any of them smoking.

The article notes that the number of arcades across the country had already collapsed by 80% from 26573 to 4000-odd in 2019, and that's before COVID.

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