Over the last decade many new arcade games were sequels, part of a long series of similar games with very similar and confusing names. Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, DrumMania, and GuitarFreaks all come to mind. In the case of each of these series half or more of the existing titles were not yet entered into the Aurcade database, and in some cases a specific game was entered twice under two different titles. Understandable when the industry is using titles like "DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix." That is actually the correct title. Now as you drill down through the very long pulldown list of games when adding a title to a location are you going to find that game in the list? Probably not, because it doesn't appear next to all of the DDR games whose titles begin with "Dance Dance Revolution."

I spent some time researching these four series of games and cleaning up the database. I've added in all missing arcade titles, corrected titles that were named incorrectly (with some exceptions for clarity), and added all available info such as year of release, genre, # of simultaneous players, and KLOV ID number if there was one. I deviated from correct titles only for purposes of consistency. For example, the aforementioned "DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix" was titled "Dance Dance Revolution 7th Mix DDRMAX2" to make it easier to find it in the games list. Are you going to look for "DDRMAX2" as you scroll though the list or are you going to skip straight to the "Dance Dance Revolution..." entries? Exactly. I carried this naming consistency through on every title in each series. If you're looking for a DDR game in the list, the titles in the games list all start with "Dance Dance Revolution." This same consistency in nomenclature will apply to the DrumMania and GuitarFreaks games and other long series like Beatmania and Taiko no Tatsujin.

Wikipedia was the source of much of this info; it has complete lists for each of these series. I included all arcade releases regardless of country of origin. This is because even Japanese exclusives often find their way to American shores. Hell my local GameWorks has a drumming game that is entirely in Japanese, including all artwork, and it took some legwork to determine that it is the ninth release in the "Taiko no Tatsujin" series. Oh yeah, I added the complete Taiko no Tatsujin series to the database as well. (There are 17 of them; only 2 were already in the database.)

In cases of duplicate titles I merged the location info before deleting the incorrect titles from the database. I might have inadvertently deleted Dance Dance Revolution Extreme from three locations where it was listed under the incorrect (and non-existent) title "Dance Dance Revolution Max 8" (which has since been deleted from the database). Hopefully the next time people inventory those locations they'll be picked up again, but I doubt anyone cares that much which DDR it is. But for us exacting types hopefully all of this will make it easier to inventory a lot of the more modern games that are on location these days. In my region I have to inventory locations at least every two months or the changes are dizzying. The local ops sure keep games on the move.

I have completed work for the Dance Dance Revolution, DrumMania, GuitarFreaks, and Taiko no Tatsujin series but I haven't done the Beatmania series yet (there are a lot of them). I will get to it soon.

Hopefully going forward as admins add new locations and populate them with titles from these series we'll get correct info and will no longer compound the duplication problem with confusing and incorrect titles.

Rock on. great work bud!

You say the database is out of date? One way you as a member you can help keep the database fresh is to revisit your popular arcades in the area that are in the database and submit it as a new location. Just make sure you mention that it is a current location. You can either say "They have added these games and taken these games away", or you can just say "This is everything they currently have" and the changes will be made.

I recently revisited a bowling alley that has a decent game room, but I swear they haven't changed any of the games around in about two years. They should at least update the floor layout to keep it fresh. On the flip side, my local arcade changes the floor layout MONTHLY at least!

I've got four new locations lined up ready to be added to the database when I get to them. Thanx for your help in keeping this database up to date!

I added some games to the VA beach location.
Norfolk location is no more? Ok, the location will be archived. We won't delete the location, we'll just word it saying the location is no longer there.
Thanx for the heads up. I noticed that other location said it was "closed for remodeling" from two years ago... I guess it never recovered.

Thanx again.

The Rolling Stones pinball game has been added. Expect this title to reach an amusement center or arcade near you!
I also added a Guilty Gear title called Iskura.

Nashvillan Wrote: I added some games to the VA beach location. Norfolk location is no more? Ok, the location will be archived. We won't delete the location, we'll just word it saying the location is no longer there. Thanx for the heads up. I noticed that other location said it was "closed for remodeling" from two years ago... I guess it never recovered. Thanx again.

Also, the Fun-n-Games listed for Chesapeake, VA has been gone for a while.

I don't understand the archiving-vice-deleting decision. Is the website a shrine? If so, then there could be a whole seperate section for deleted arcades. A memorial of sorts. That would be kinda cool because we could share our memories of the places. Just a thought.

I have noticed the site is taking a little longer to load than usual lately.
I am not sure if this will help or not, but it can't hurt.

I call out to all the members of the Aurcade site to make a continuing effort to delete as much of your old private message mail as you can.
Think of it as taking out the trash that's been piling up for a long time. :)