My views on the (arcade) rhythm game scene in 2023

Apr. 21, 2023 10:45 PM

This post was originally written for my Dreamwidth blog on the timestamp written above - the original formatting has been preserved whenever possible.

(I made a video briefly touching on this topic in more recent terms on April 16th, 2023. You can watch it here if you want more concise thoughts.)

So the rhythm game genre has been in a weird state of flux for a while now. 2020 was probably the death knell, if there ever was one, for a scene that primarily depends on arcades as its main form of engagement. Anyone who's played fighting games in the last half decade or so knows just how hard Covid hit pretty much the entire industry, since arcades across the world were forced to shut their doors in the midst of an unforeseen bankruptcy wave. It hit rhythm games much harder, since the genre hasn't had a fallback in much the same way fighting games have had with... rollback netcode. *cue the cheers of Sajam watchers*

Jokes aside, it was dire before Covid came through. Vivid Wave was admittedly a really bad low point for SDVX, having a not-so stellar engine change that was pretty unpopular on release, with a decent portion of new charts becoming very reliant on sightread traps that turned a lot of content into trial-and-error gameplay. IIDX HEROIC VERSE brought a new 120hz "Lightning Model" cabinet that made the game significantly smoother to play on, but as history will tell you, that momentum would be very shortlived, considering these new cabs started rolling out in... December 2019 at the earliest. pop'n music peace was heavily rumored to be the series' last installment, what with the name and slogan being "back to the roots" leaving very little to the imagination. jubeat? Who the hell knows what's going on with that game, because Konami wants to axe it and then revive it again every other week!

As you can probably gather from that brief BEMANI recap, it's been rough sailing. I'm not exactly versed in arcade logistics, being more a player than an enthusiast for the most part, but losing a swathe of arcades and cabs to play on devastated virtually the entire genre as a whole. Events for virtually every game getting cancelled until late 2021 at the earliest, like the Konami Arcade Championships, KING of Performai, and the then-recently proposed BEMANI Pro League, really killed off the momentum that was just starting to find new footing. It sucked! A lot of people thought the genre was pretty much cooked! Unlike the FGC and Strive, or STGs and the countless number of ports, rhythm games hit a dark age I didn't think we'd see for a very long time.

To this day, the unique mechanics of every game makes it a nightmare to create home versions, and the few games lucky to get that privilege are expensive to play. It doesn't help that we're in a subscription-based hellscape where you have to pay monthly AND THEN play more on top of that if you want a 1:1 arcade-accurate experience.

Which leads me to the modern day. April alone has been a massive turning point for the rhythm game landscape, as I think it's a very stark contrast from the speculation everyone online was having 3 years prior. For a quick outline of events:

April 1-3: 3 day weekend where a good portion of BEMANI Pro League SDVX players lined up a rotating stream schedule

April 5: BPL SDVX grand finals available for public viewing (was previously PPV-only)

April 8 had a lot of events on the same day:

-Bear Cup 6th (IIDX team/tag tourney, comprised of many big name players and top rankers + PHN!X, best US IIDX player)

-SILK HAT Cup (SDVX tourney, featured a number of BPL SDVX players and Leviern, best SDVX player in western hemisphere)

-Project Sekai Championships (y'know. for the zoomers)

April 16th: SDVX jacket acryllic stand... draft???? it was funny to watch at least LOL

April 18th: NORI and PHN!X had a general music game discussion

As you can see, April hosted a lot of different events and community discussions that allowed for some very interesting questions about where the scene could go from here. I talked about my thoughts on more events in a Youtube video, but the idea that we are starting to have more inter-community discussions between JP/KR and US/EU players is ground that can make for some incredible changes within the scene. Not only do I think we can learn something from the insights that JP players have on their respective games, there's also a precedent with how the FGC has fostered similar interactions in the past that can definitely grow attention for games over here too! A lot of players have asked for more streams, more events, more engagement between different scenes, and seeing a potential development of that begin to emerge has shown how far we've come in the last few years.

Of course, this only really applies if people actually take notice. JP players and scenes have been incredibly open to talking with EN-speaking players for a good while now, but attention on the other side has been very slow by comparison. I talked about this in the same video discussing my thoughts on recent rhythm game tourneys and what lessons to improve on for future events, but a friend of mine sums up the overall feeling much better than I could:

"the general brainspace is very hyperfixated in being good/competitive [...] doesn’t really help that everyone is very snowflakey about their game sometimes"

It leaves a lot to be desired when people desire change, but are also rather uninspired to manifest it. My frustrations with rhythm game scenes in the western hemisphere, particularly within the UK community, make me wonder whether trying to involve a more global outlook on the genre is something of an impossibility. A lot of discussion surrounding EN-speaking spheres is concerned more with cliques or in-jokes, rather than a broader talk on how we could make arcade rhythm games appealing to those who want to try them out. Much of the arcade scene here loves to play a certain air of superiority when someone more familiar with client-based games like osu wants to take a step into this part of the genre, without giving much thought as to why outsiders see the hobby as largely inaccessible to a casual audience.

Perhaps I speak from a position of relative optimism for the future of rhythm games. As some may be aware, I tried my best to cover (almost) the entirety of BPL SDVX this season, and despite it receiving little fanfare outside of my friend circles, I made it clear that someone here was covering the event in English. Other attempts to do so, but on a wider scale, have been running in tandem. People on Twitter or Facebook complain that there's too much drama, and not enough coverage of what should be major events like these. But they're there! The coverage exists!

That leads me to the following question.

"How much effort should we, as a community, be exercising to bridge the gap between JP and overseas players?"

I have some faith that the efforts of figures like NORI, PHN!X, and Leviern will be the start of a closer global arcade rhythm game scene, because it shows that EN-speaking players do have the drive to make that effort a reality. While it's unfortunate that a lot of players in the US and Europe have closed themselves off from the wider discussions at large because Konami refuses to give us support, I still don't want to give up on the chances that JP players are giving us, to grow the scenes into something much bigger than they are now.

Many people seem to have given up on trying to make the scene appealing for everyone. But I think there's still a little spark left that gives me faith. I'll keep covering events and discussions in the Japanese scenes until I quit playing rhythm games, but until then, or even past then, I implore people to do their bit in their own way, rather than succumb to the social media machine that feeds us all regurgitated outrage. We can stand to learn something from each other together, rather than isolate ourselves to maintain the social media clout.

[believe in yourself]