ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the evolution of game centre spaces in Japan from the 1970s to the 2010s while identifying key events and technologies that have acted as significant paradigm shifts during this process. It begins with an overview of the self-regulatory measures taken by different business associations in the face of criticism and social tension towards videogame arcades, leading to the reform of the Law Regulating Entertainment Businesses of 1984. The chapter traces the impact of the reform on the standardization of arcade spaces and the subsequent consolidation of the game centre operation scene. It also identifies the emergence of online technology as a more recent source of fractures that, in individualizing arcade play, undermines the sense of place in favour of interconnection and centralization of game centres and arcade game systems through different networks.
This chapter also discusses prominent academic discourses that have permeated scientific narratives around game centres. These discourses are broken down into several waves: personality psychology focusing on the positive and negative effects of videogame playing, anthropology and the symbolic repurposing of videogames as texts, and social studies centring on arcades as sites of communication.
