The World has Turned. Club SEGA has burned.

 But nobody is to blame!

Somebody fire the hundred gun salute, burn some incense in your SEGA room, and pour your generous libations as your traditions and various religious observations allow, do whatever you feel is necessary to mourn the passing of what was once known as Club SEGA. Thus is the consequence when a storied part of gaming history fails to survive past it's struggles under the COVID pandemic, inflamed a vastly shifting landscape of gaming interest, and topped off with mass layoffs and an eventual sell off. It's been 50 years since SEGA laid their roots in the arcade club world, and since then their particular brand had become an icon of Japanese gaming. Even as someone who has never been to Japan, I will truly miss the sight of those red doors with the white letters, a sight that no one will get to see once those keys are turned in and the ownership is officially passed on. We've just had word that SEGA's brand will be removed from all previous locations, so those doors are likely due a repaint, and what a sad way to lose a piece of history.

Now of course I had actually covered this little situation once before when I wrote a blog about the troubles falling upon the door of SEGA Sammy, the parent company who rode some tough waters a year or so back in the face of everything that had changed in the world. Back then it was just downsizing, but the writing was on the wall even from that early stage and I don't think anyone was truly taken for a loop once the coroner's final prognosis was delivered. The place was being held together by a shoe string for a while now, and with the rumours that SEGA proper was somehow suffering some finance trouble in early 2021, it only made sense for the extra bulbous fat to be cut. And for a section of the company totally dedicated to hosting and maintaining a workable series of video game arcade bars that most people are medically advised not to visit, offering games that most can play from the comfort of their own homes; yeah, that feels a lot like excess fat. Doesn't mean I have to like it, but the reasoning is sound.

SEGA probably dates as one of the oldest running games companies in the world today, so any seismic change to their business model is going to elicit thoughts on the wider industry as a whole. And unlike Nintendo, theirs is a history not marked with collaboration with the Japanese mafia- publicly. I mean, come on: you can't be making an extended series of great games featuring the Yakuza without being in bed with them to some degree, although SEGA's early years aren't quite as hand-in-hand with that part of the criminal underworld as Nintendos is. Both companies probably wouldn't exist today without ties to illicit gambling back when that was more regulated on the islands, but Nintendo are the only guys looking like they owe some long due royalties back to their old business partners, SEGA paid back thta respect with gusto. As I understand it, the locations that SEGA bought in order to host their gambling dens back in those early years in Japan would go on to become the future Club SEGA arcades, so that's the kind of legacy we're putting to bed right now.

And of course, though it's rarely discussed, SEGA is as much of an American company in it's founding as it became a Japanese one over the years; such that it's surprising how Club SEGA never made it in the states. In fact, SEGA was born in Hawaii when a man set up coin-operated 'amusement machines' (see: Gambling) for military personnel in the bases to unwind with. Known back then as 'Service Games', their expansion into Japan and what they would become from there on in would be all down to their entertainment club routes. (As well as a little bit of running away from regulators to avoid heft fines and/or prison time) The heart of the company was based in that business, and as gambling become more frowned upon and difficult to run, the transition to arcade machines, basically legal gambling because there's no chance of payout or reward, was a natural step. It took all the time that has passed since then, almost half a century, for SEGA to truly leave their home behind and strike out on their own, and in the end they had to be literally kicked out of the house by a global pandemic.

Now of course, this huge development for the company is going to be seen as a sign of weakness, just as it was when SEGA Sammy's financial issues became apparent at the tail end of 2020. Maybe that was why the rumour began that Microsoft was looking to buy out SEGA and incorporate their brand into the Xbox family, although most at the time discarded that as idle speculation boasting little to no tangible merit. I think that the recent Activision purchase will have swapped some opinions on that little matter, as now it seems to be a given fact that any wounded games company limping around the industry plains is at risk of the Leopard know as Microsoft swooping in for the kill. Those guys are provenly ready to toss around billions, and at this point if Microsoft doesn't make a pass at weakened SEGA, I think they would probably take it as a personal insult. "What, Activision is worth the money but not us? What the hell do they have that we don't?"

But let my comments not be misconstrued as me insinuating that SEGA as a whole are on their way out, I'd never claim to be as tuned in to the inner workings of SEGA's economics. Although, casually, I'd say that SEGA are doing much better than just struggling to get by. What with their upcoming Sonic television series, also upcoming new mainline Sonic game that proposes to revolutionise the series and the recent explosion of popularity for the Yakuza series; I'd say that SEGA are doing enough to get by more than comfortably. I think that if I had the sort of spending power that Microsoft had I'd still be interested in them for their properties and reach, but SEGA isn't waving for an SOS whilst drowning on a sinking ship. This selling-off of their arcades was a mechanically cold exorcizing of a now-vestigial limb. I suppose there's only so long you can support a financially stretching venture before you snap and just dump the baby out of the window, bathwater and all. (Hmm, I feel like I got that saying both wrong and absolutely right in the same breath.)

Still, I have to come to the single most important question left dangling off of this whole affair; how is this going to affect the Club SEGA minigame hubs in the Yakuza games? The only reason I have any nostalgic feelings towards these arcades whatsoever is because the long-running Yakuza game franchise featured them heavily as locations you could visit in order to play chronologically accurate SEGA games emulated within that particular Yakuza title. Games like 'Out Run', 'Virtua Fighter' and 'Space Harrier' snuck into those bigger crime titles to provide that extra little bit of spice to an already packed-with-content franchise. How are those Easter eggs going to immersively litter the game world in the new status quo? I mean a lot of these arcade games have competent home releases in big packs nowadays, so within the fiction of the game our protagonist could theoretically just go home and play them on the consoles, but that doesn't even nearly capture that some wonder of entering a gaming paradise world. We won't get to see Kiryu, Yagami or Ichiban climb onto that full-sized arcade bike whilst the non-existent air whips back their head and slaps them into the race. Truly, this is the greatest casualty of the arcade apocalypse.

So we bid farewell and goodluck to Club SEGA as it transcends this soggy, battered plane and becomes something beautiful and intangible in the cosmos. Maybe the time of brick-and-mortar arcades has passed, along with much of physical shopping on the wider stage, but the memories may never abandon us until we let them. Now the only gaming companies out there with the courage to diversify are Microsoft, literally one of the biggest companies in the world, Atari, a company that isn't even really a gaming company at all anymore, and Konami, guys who are actively trying to cannibalise their own good will for a quick buck. At least arcade machines will forever linger as a rich hobbyist collectors item enjoyed by all those old enough to remember their heyday. Rest in Peace, Club SEGA.