Where did DDR go?

Hi there.

Glad to see you could make it.

I have a couple of things on my mind tonight, so without further ado, I just want to jump straight into the gunk. 

First, I want to talk about something that's been near and dear to my heart since I was about 15 years old. If you are reading this in the future, or have never stepped foot into an arcade anywhere between 2002 and 2012, you'll probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Does this stainless steel sweatbox look familiar to you?

Of course, I'm talking about Dance Dance Revolution, or as it is colloquially referred to, DDR. If memory serves, DDR was introduced in Japan (of course) in about the mid to late 90's. It was the perfect culmination of fast-paced music that's easy on the ears... sometimes..., a "dancing" mechanic for people who have the rhythm and dancing prowess of a potted plant (me), and the thrill of "This is a video game, not exercise! Hell yeah!" It was such a huge hit in Japan that, sure enough, it was imported right here in the US of A, and going to the arcade has never been cooler. Or more healthy.

Running tracks, however, took the biggest hit for this. They were quickly

converted to airport runways as the demand for Euro dance music with cardio skyrocketed.

I was introduced to DDR when I was a freshman in high school... more specifically, I was introduced to the PS1 version, when (in my humble opinion) publisher Konami had any kind of interest in publishing quality dance simulation games for home consoles in the United States. It's pretty safe to say that I fell in love almost instantly... I grabbed my own copy of the game as soon as my limited teenage funds would allow (mine was the Xbox classic "DDR Ultramix") and I spent just about every night destroying the $10 dance pad the game featured improving my dance skills.

Before long, my dance skills were so on point, I was

ready to hit the club. Alas, my age prohibited me from doing so.

But the home versions are not what's on my mind tonight. I want to focus on the money-gobbling arcade machines that many of us were more than happy to feed and / or crowd around. 

I had the unusual privilege of living right down the street from one of the only 2 arcades in the one-horse town of Augusta, Georgia... at the time it was called Funsville (when it was actually fun, in an ironic twist of fate, before its name changed). Funsville had something quite unique that, even back at the height of DDR's popularity in the US, I have not witnessed elsewhere: it had not one, not two, but three machines freaking side-by-side, each giving the opportunity for 2-player dance-offs. That's right, those financial genius tycoons at Funsville gave 6 people the opportunity to play at the same time.

"Ha ha ha, I can just smell the money... and

the outrageous amount of body odor... rolling in!"

Needless to say, this is where I spent a lot of my summer days. And living in humid, humid ass Georgia, I would brave 100+ degrees walking for about a half hour to the arcade, where I would proceed to play about $5 to $20 worth of change I manage to scrape together on DDR, than taking my tired, weak, sweaty body right back into the sun on the way home. Honestly, looking back, it's a small miracle I didn't die a lot of those days.

Truly, those were the good old days. Than, around 2007, something terrifying happened. And it wasn't just the previously-named Funsville that saw this disaster.

I went to arcades across different states (being in the Army helped this a lot), and I noticed that either DDR machines just began to break down... I'm talking arrows sticking or just not working, screens dimming, you name it... or machines just removing the machines altogether. Just recently, I went inside the movie theater right down the street from me to apply for a job and one of the last machines I've been lucky enough to play on in town was taken away. This leads me to wonder... what happened? 

I can only speculate... one of my theories is that people just got sick of playing on dilapidated machines and the money started running dry, so rather than trying to repair the machines, they just had them taken out altogether. Maybe it just cost too much money to maintain the machines.

Alternative theory - arcade goers got sick of that one centralized

area that generally smelled of a gross high school locker room.

Whatever the case, DDR machines have all but vanished in most places, at least in the US. Personally, I find this fact a little bit disheartening. All jokes aside, DDR was a highly unique dance game that, for awhile, managed to bring a lot of people together, helped a lot of people lose weight and get into shape, and wowed players and spectators alike. For me, personally, DDR beings back a lot of great memories, and I for one am going to miss the almost seizure-inducing strobe lights, the deafening volume of some of the greatest songs I've ever heard, and the feeling of both pride and noodley-legs at once.

... well, I can at least kind of recreate the experience, as I happen to have in my living room a nearly-indestructible steel DDR pad, a dedicated laptop with Stepmania installed, and the internet to access pretty much all of the songs that my happy feet have the desire to acquire.  

Living in an apartment complex, however, slightly stunts

my experience.

I recognize, though, that not many people have the pleasure.

That's it for tonight though, guys... tune in tomorrow, I have another thought I want to share with you that I'm not going to bog you down with here. Until than! :>