I spend a lot of my time nowadays going over to a nearby barcade.

This specific one drew me in because it’s a combination of pinball and REAL arcade games. I say that because it has very few normie games that you would find at Dave & Busters — none of these oversized phone games or stripped down ports of actual games. The best part is that it has a bunch of newer Japanese games with some real classics like Crazy Taxi. It’s not at the level of Round1 but let’s be real: Round1 for as great as it is, is SHIT at opening locations in the US. They tend to just go for locations where the price of rent is low enough (read: bad neighborhoods or areas with high crime rates) and if it goes to hell, they’ll go “oh no people in the US don’t like arcades guess we’ll stop trying.” C’mon now.

I’m getting ahead of myself though, so back to the place I frequent. When it was first starting out it had Jubeat and Pop’n and I was already floored that these games actually existed near me. The place ended up getting a DDR machine too and I think that was when I started to understand the meme about DDR players, or just dance players in general.

I think it’s a combination of it being the only option some people have for their cardio, and it could also be a combination of all the adrenaline it has, but fuck em’. I’m not referring to the average or above average player, I’m referring to the people who go all fucking out with this shit, as if this game is their entire fucking identity. They’ll have their rival codes or difficulty range in their socials (bonus if they’re life4.) Another thing is if they don’t have an arcade near them, they’ll just fellate the fuck out of stepmania and ltek pads because it’s THE way or the highway.

“Hey guys I have a PS2 and a Wii, those are good for starting out with a cheap $15 pad right?”
“NAH BRO JUST GET STEPMANIA IT HAS EVERYTHING EVER.” Fucking fuckers, can’t stand them. I should know because I’ve seen that behavior so many goddamn times on the ddr reddit and I already can’t stand how circle jerky reddit is to begin with.

Also, I’m sure a few people know about Zenius, the site that catalogs arcade games and is mostly user run in regards to information. I remember that I was the one who started the Zenius page for this place and as soon as a DDR cabinet was announced and confirmed, some guy I’ve never known (I still have not seen him in person in this day, and this was 3 years ago) hauls his ass and adds that info in. Here I am doing actual work, putting all the details for every single game — not just rhythm games, and then here comes random nobody to swoop in and go “I’m helping but only for the things I care about.” Like seriously, who the fuck are you? For real, I don’t think anyone who frequents this place knows who you are. Enough vitriol though, because hey, does it really matter? I still hate dance game players though.