It has been announced this week that Green Arcade is Seoul, South Korea is now closed. It’s was a sad announcement for veteran Tekken players but at the same time, the news does not come as a surprise.
If you’re not familiar with Green Arcade, it was a well known hot spot for Tekken in Seoul for a little over a decade. If you were to go inside of the place, you would find rows of Tekken cabs along with some music games on the side sprinkled in. I went to the place one time and was thinking about going back but hearing this news all over social media obviously made me reconsider.
While it sucks everything is being taken out, what really sucks is pro players Knee and Chanel had their trophies compromised. As of this video, both players are out of South Korea for a tournament and can’t do anything about it. Thankfully as of this video, their sponsors ROX Gaming are doing everything they can to protect their prized possessions until they get back.
People may think the arcade scene in South Korea is dead and this is anything but true. There are a number of arcade chains and arcades ran by individuals that operate and do good business. Many of these arcades have redemption games, music games, and Tekken Tag 2 or Tekken 7. The problem is most arcades that focus strictly on Tekken 7 have struggled. South Korea and Japan got the game in arcades years before it was released on consoles and PC so folks had a head start. The problem comes with the fact that most players in South Korea have the PC version of the game and since the arcade version won’t have season 2 until 2019, it made no sense to go to the arcade.
PC gaming in South Korea is big business. With a PC Bang on every street corner, one could spend 24 hours inside of one for roughly $20. You get comfortable seating, can play what you want when you want, and you can walk over to a convenience store or restaurant to buy your food and game some more. I had a chance to play the PC version of the game and I loved it so much, it made me want to sell my PS4 along with my account and build my own PC so I could play this game!
On a personal note, it sucks to see this place go down. In my hometown in Texas, we used to have an anime store/arcade that had new and old stuff. The place is gone but it was filled with great memories. As for Green, I went there only one time but I had pleasant experience. It was during the location testing for FR. I remember traveling over an hour and a half from where I used to live just to try this out! I was welcomed by Green Mom and she let me go ahead of people! I recall being the only foreigner in there and she was a sweetheart to me. And other people will back me up on how much of a sweetheart she was. Also had a chance to meet Pro gamer Cho Rang who plays a MEAN Jin! Inside of the place was old looking but that didn’t matter because there was a community of gamers that wanted to play this game and it was heartbreaking to see it all go away at the snap of a finger.
So my question for you all is if you had a chance to visit Green, what was your experience like? If you’ve only heard of Green and saw the live streams from there, what is your favorite memory? Share in the comments down below!
Many thanks for watching this and i’ll see you guys in the next video!