[kistaro]

There's one thing a VR arcade can have that very few consumers can have, in areas where VRcades might be likely to thrive: physical space.

Immersive VR requires at least some space to move around in, or set up a big omnidirectional treadmill in. As the human population grows but Earth stays the same size, personal living quarters will always be at a premium, the rent will always be too damn high, and space to set up this awesome VR rig will be prohibitively expensive.

VR machines could be consumer-grade and still draw an audience, because of the people locked out of the market due to lack of space to set up a rig. Consider what we have now that isn't even VR- I don't have space to use a Kinect.

[ObviousScience]

Just one minor quibble: the reason we have density issues in cities is not that Earth doesn't have enough space for humans to spread out -- even if we only count the nice parts.

No, the answer is that we actually seem to enjoy living in really dense clusters and spend a premium on trying to pile more and more people in to the mess. (Well, there's some argument that wealthy people have had an undue influence on the societal process of urbanization, but that's digressing.)

Other than that, I actually think that arcades are posed to make a comeback, precisely because of the issue you highlight: the only way to have enough open space in a building (in a major city) to really walk around in requires splitting the rent or being really wealthy.

[m_mueller]

I don't think cities form out of enjoyment (although this becomes a factor for many people after a city and its services have already formed). They form because there is some infrastructure or geographical rarity that many people can benefit from, thus they move there. Train stations, harbors, water ways, airports, mines and castles come to mind as a seed. Once people move there, more and more services become available, making the location more and more attractive for employers, people seeking jobs and people seeking apartments. A certain density is optimal for economic productivity, thus cities are usually don't deviate much from that density, except in places where zoning is heavily regulated. East Asia, especially SK and Japan, is a good place to see how cities grow organically.