Return of the arcade

摘要

Two people in home-made sleeping bags, heads stuffed into makeshift boxes, wriggle around on the floor. By twisting left and right they each move a caterpillar on a screen. A small crowd cheers them on. This is ROFLpillar. Welcome to the future of the video game arcade. "Games aren't just about the things happening on a screen, they're about the people playing them," says Iain Simons, director of the annual GameCity festival in Nottingham, UK, which celebrates video games by setting up public game spaces across the city. "In ROFLpillar only the players can see the screen. But they're creating a performance that you watch."