Print Club (プリント倶楽部) is a photo sticker arcade machine developed by Atlus and released in Japan in 1995.
History[]
In April 1986, Naoya Harano joined Atlus, who were diversifying their portfolio by creating karaoke booths. Whilst pitching for ideas later, Harano had proposed an arcade machine that was able to make stickers of the users photos. [1]
Atlus was at first unsure about the demand for such a concept, but greenlit the project regardless and teamed up with Sega to develop the machine, with developer Miho Sasaki at the helm, someone Naoya Harano had requested join the Atlus team in 1987. Sasaki agreed with the idea, recalling her love of cute stickers she'd place on her notebooks during college.[2]
At the time of development, the only prizes in arcades came from claw machines such as Sega's UFO Catchers, but they cost ¥100 with no guarantee. Sasaki suggested that female arcade goers may feel okay with paying ¥300 with the guarantee of something they could take home with them at the end.
After the machine was made, they performed a location test, but there was little reaction to it at all. This was in the mid 1990s, where fighting games were the focus and arcades were male dominated, so an arcade machine that printed cute stickers didn't get much traction at first.
However, in February 1995, they exhibited it at the AOU Amusement Expo, and it attracted more attention from the hostesses who would visit it in their free time, even queuing up to use it.
Atlus mascot, Jack Frost, was chosen to be used as a cute guide to explain how to use the machine, which ended up with the character briefly being known as "Purikura Taro", due to a lack of crossover between Print Club and Megami Tensei's fanbases.[3]
Print Club's popularity grew when a TV program called "Ai Love SMAP!" aired, featuring popular boy idol group SMAP. A giveaway was announced handing off Print Club stickers of each of the members, which caught the eyes of young women and girls, and they started phoning in to find out where they could take Print Club photos themselves. Print Club's popularity grew steadily and peaked in Japan in 1999, before waning by 2001.
Atlus attempted to replicate this success outside of Japan, in both the United States of America and China, but the fad didn't catch on.
Trivia[]
- Print Club had several spinoffs exclusive to Japan including:
- Stamp Club: a rubber stamp of your face in the frame of your choice
- Name Club: A business card version that would allow you to print your name and telephone number
- Movie Club: Six photos for an animated image
- Calendar Club: Printed 1 sheet for a desktop calendar with the users face on it
- Aura Photo Club: Takes a picture of your 'aura' around your head and shoulders
- Aroma Club: Dispenses a vial of perfume based on the users answers to health questions
- Voice de Holder: A machine that records the users voice into a keychain
- In 1999, Nintendo and Sega collaborated to create Print Club Pokémon B.
- Print Club features as an arcade game in Yakuza Kiwami, where Kiryu can pose and collect stickers of himself in a sticker album. Goro Majima also appears in the first photo set taken as part of the Majima Everywhere side game.