Kenichi's Omni-Arcade
Written by: Coupe
So with Raleigh getting its own Local Grid a couple of years back, it was only a matter of time before we started seeing businesses that operated exclusively through the Matrix. After all, you don't have to worry about floorspace when hosts can be much, much bigger on the inside than out. Kenichi's is the first new business to interact with customers exclusively through the Oak-City grid. As you'd pick up from the name it's an arcade, but it's also a karaoke/virtual-band bar, nightclub and streaming-host, a sort of all-in-one hangout, if you will. It's actually already got another place opened in one of Japan's local grids, but this one's the first to open in the CAS to try and get into that international market.I hear they started considering it when a gaijin started streaming his experience in the Japan arcade and stirred up a bunch of hype for it with his huge audience. He also got arrested for illegal grid-hopping and streaming in subscriber-only sections, but that's just how it be.One of the biggest draws about Kenchi's is the arcade - no duh - but here's the thing: there's real prizes to be won! Winning any of the games nets you tickets, which you can exchange for prizes that'll be delivered to your home by way of drone, and there's several rows of crane-games that actually control a real set of crane-game machines kept in the same place they keep the physical merch - you can actually watch the toy you just won get picked up, boxed and shipped to your address. Pretty whizz, huh? So back on track: Why are we talking about an arcade? Turns out the founder and namesake, Kenichi Tanaka, is one of us. He's one of those mythical Shadowrunners who actually 'made it', scoring an ungodly amount of Nuyen in one last job and retired into the simple life of a virtual barkeep, without so much as a single corp gunning for him. Some of you might have even heard about his exploits under the monicker 'Umibozu'.
I met the guy once, back in the CAS. He's every bit the master the stories make him out to be, but he's modest about it to say the least. Doesn't much like to talk about it these days, to the point that his old alias is pinged as 'strong language' in the Arcade.Now old Umibozu's out of the game for good. He's got a husband and kid now, and likes his retirement plan. But he's still on good terms with the rest of the shadowrunning community, and doesn't mind helping them out in his own passive way: Far as he's concerned, the host is neutral-ground, and his private rooms are rigged not to record any conversations that go on inside, provided you pay the rental-fee first, of course. His small number of meatspace employees are also aware of this little arrangement, and unless you really make things obvious, they tend to consider any conversations in their presence as being none of their business.
Purpose / Function
Honestly, it'd be easier to list the things Kenichi's can't accomodate. On top of being an arcade it's also:
- A karaoke and virtual-band club, where you can sing and jam to your favourite tunes on virtual instruments
- A traditional-games club, where folks less inclined towards skeeball can go play some billiards, throw some darts or play randos at Go
- A matrix-bar, for drinking some simulated liquor, and if you like it enough you can arrange to purchase a bottle of the real thing
- And a nightclub, so you can show off your yerzed out avatar's dancing skills to the latest J-Beat music!
Architecture
The virtual architecture's pretty dang impressive, if a little old-school for my tastes. Kenichi's gone through a lot of time and money to give the place what he calls a 'Cassette Furturism' vibe, making it look like the 1980s' vision of the future. Lots of white and gray plastic panelling, big CRT screens and chunky buttons an all the interfaces, even the icons look like tape-reels from really old computers. There's even an optional visual-filter to put a bit of wear and dirt on everything, to give it that lived-in look.
History
So as I mentioned before, the founder and owner of the place, Kenichi, was a former shadowrunner under the nickname Umibozu, and he was kind of a legendary hacker in his day. Retirement wasn't his first choice, but when the latest changes to the Matrix were made in '75, he came to the conclusion that it was time to let the next generation of crackers take the spotlight, and so he settled down with the monumental amount of cash he made from his last gig, bought a fresh new SIN and called it quits.
Figuring that he'd need something to pass the time in his golden years, Kenichi put his cash towards commissioning a matrix-Host, and starting a little online business. Not only would this give him something to do, but it also let him keep in contact with his old running-team, or at least what was left of them. The host started off as a dive of a virtual-bar, but much to everyone's surprise Kenichi actually began to legitimately enjoy hosting an online social-hub, and so he started to expand in almost every direction, sculpting and coding space for all sorts of games and online activities, eventually putting a couple of his old drones back to work delivering prizes and merch.
Before Kenichi knew it, his host became an overnight sensation in his home-turf of Akita, to the point of having visitors coming abroad to take a look at the place. Feeling the need to expand but not saturate the local markets, Kenichi took a look abroad and decided to open a sister-location in Raleigh NC, where he'd once been as a Shadowrunner and evidentally liked the place. The Raleigh branch naturally boomed, being an already well-known online establishment and one of the first online-only businesses to open in Raleigh's new local-grid.
Type
Arcade
Parent Location
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