Why is it that some things withstand the test of time and others don't?

When I was at the Shore over the 4th, nearly every arcade had replaced its games with those crane things...you know, the ones that a handful of skilled individuals can retrieve cheap plushies out of, but are just pitiless scams for the rest of us.

Granted, there is a token Guitar Hero machine and some air hockey, but no classic arcade games from the 80s or even 90s. Yeah, I know these things wear out over time, but you'd think it would be easy to make ones that allow you to play a bunch of games (because more memory can be stored in less space). And it's supposed to be retro-cool now, right?

There is actually a small arcade that just opened in my town, but when a friend and I went there to play air hockey, they kicked us out because it was a "child safety zone".

There is so much wrong with that. I doubt they'll stay there long, if they specialize in birthday parties during a recession and accuse anyone over 16 of being a pedophile.

And yet, the Transformers movie made a huge bundle of money at the theaters, even though it's apparently even worse than the first. I have to ask...WHY TRANSFORMERS? Yeah, they were popular when I was a kid, but that was because they had a catchy gimmick...cars that turn into robots!!! It was like 2 toys in one!

A lot of stuff from that era was pretty lame. GI Joe, He-Man, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, etc. WE liked it because it was all there was back then. Cable TV had 40 channels, and nobody showed stuff for kids except Nickelodeon. You had to wait for Saturday morning for cartoons, and only 1 or 2 channels showed them.

I guess kids didn't have such buying power back then, or ad execs were just starting to realize it. If a movie based on one of the above was made, it was made by some backwater studio on a shoestring budget. (Ever see "Masters of the Universe"? If you like MST3K and mocking bad movies, you should.)

And yes, I know the recent Transformers movies were primarily made for dads who grew up with the toys as kids. And there's a GI Joe movie coming out at some point for the same purpose. But are dads really interested in fanfic-esque romantic sideplots? Do kids really want to play with clumsy action figures when they have (relatively) realistic video games?

Haven't seen the girlie stuff get the same treatment. Maybe women are just more sensible about how they spend their money?