Some Arcade Entrepreneur:
Posted on: January 13, 2007, at 03:47:05am

Before I got ITG, I had a DDREx and DDR 5th Mix. I keep very close track of my coin income records for each individual machine.

Weekly, Ex would outpace 5th by a ratio of 3:1 (both on $.50/3 songs). I recently upgraded the 5th Mix machine to ITG2 so now I have DDREx and ITG2. I have not seen a drop in the DDR Ex income, but ITG2 now outpaces DDR by nearly 2:1.

Before, the crowd would always gather around the Ex machine. The good players and the new players alike, and 5th got casual play. The trend I see now is that the good players have gone to ITG2 (and are paying more to play, $1.00/3 songs vs. $.50/3 songs on Extreme) and the Extreme machine is free for all the people who are just beginning. Before, the beginners were more reluctant to step up and fail songs on light just after someone AA's TLoM. However, now that the hard core people flock to ITG2, Extreme is free for the beginners. It's a fantastic ecosystem that I highly recommend for any arcade.

As was stated previously, do not get rid of all the Extremes for ITG2. One Ex and one ITG2 is perfect. DDR still has the majority of the name recognition (don't flame me, please, it's true, even though the tide is turning) so it helps get new players into the game. New players are your best customers, particularly if they get hooked.