What would it take for arcades to make a comeback?

[Lord N]

Arcades are only dead in North America. In Europe and Japan, they are alive and well.

A lot of it has to do with the social aspect. In America, if you wanted to hang with some friends to play video games, you'd most likely go to one of their houses. In Japan or Europe, you wouldn't do this because for one thing, peoples' houses are a lot smaller, and in Japan anyway, it just isn't socially acceptable to go over to someone's house to "hang out."

There's also transportation. In America, everyone has a car, so when you need to go out, you hop into your vehicle, drive to where you're going, do what you're going to do, come back, and it's over. Far less people in Japan and Europe own cars(I think 75% of the respective populations don't own them), so when they go out, they walk or take public transit which means that they're going to be out a lot longer, so it makes sense that they'd stop and play some games at an arcade in a shopping plaza while they're out and about.