That's all folks!

[paragoon]

Good news for anyone working the north of england machines - I'm officially retiring/giving up. It's not going to be easy and I'll sharp find out whether I was addicted to playing them or 'addicted' to making money. Fact is, though I've seen lean periods many times before this feels pretty final. I'm making chuff all and I just don't know which TV programme was the 12th most popular in some random poll taken in 1972.
My last three excursions have seen me get home with less money than I set out with which I'm finding hard to believe but facts is facts.
The final nail in the coffin came when I chanced upon an Itbox this lunchtime. My heart soared and I thought here we go! But then - oh no! - a new menu! Full of all the old tut on the Opens - 'Classic' Pub Quiz, that Tug Of War one, Take Your Pick blah blah blah...
I'd already put a quid in so I thought I'd chance TOTP which sometimes is good for the odd fiver. The new Itbox one was 50p a go. First disc - £1, fair enough. Second disc - £1 - wha? Third disc - £1...aha, I geddit! So you can basically trawl through this ludicrously tedious game and maybe, just maybe, 'win' a quid. No thanks.

Finally, I'm fully aware there's no reason these machines should supply any of us with free cash and I've certainly made hay while the sun shone in the past, but now every variety of machine is pointless to me. £20 JPs moved down to £10 then £5 JPs and now it appears the £1 JP is seen as carrot enough. I hope it works out for them.
RIP DOND
RIP By Any Means
RIP Wacky Races
RIP Eliminator

Feel free to post any witty abuse and well done to anyone who's still making coin out of the current crop.

It's been a blast!
Ciao ciao

[QuizMaster]

Shame to see you go. I'd be joining you if it wasn't for Pub Quiz

[grecian]

Sorry to hear this Paragoon.

I can't say I'm entirely surprised. I consider myself a reasonably good player, albeit not "top boy" standard, and I've been finding it very very tough lately. I'd imagine that most other players of my sort of standard are likewise finding things difficult. I went through a stage over the last couple of months of playing just a couple of hours a week. I've stepped up my play a bit since then and been pleasantly surprised by some of the results, but it's clear to me that wide travelling would be needed to make any reasonable sums at the moment.

Paragons have been tightened massively and some of the other cabinets are a real joke. The response to HMRC's luck/skill distinction seems in almost all cases to have been negative for the skilled player - we've seen "flexible" jackpots down to as low as £1; an increasing use of auto-removal including in some cases mid-game; a very considerable acceleration of the point at which spoilers are being used (as well as an increase in the objective difficulty/boringness of those spoilers); withdrawal of some titles; and so on. All of which has made play very much less enjoyable.

I'll keep dabbling but it's been a long while now since SWP was a key component of my quizzing regimen. I'd really rather read a book than play an SWP nowadays; at least that will feed in to other quizzing that I do. SWP question sets nowadays are far removed from what any reasonable person would consider "general knowledge".

[Nil Satis]

My favourite 2011 Quiz Machine Moment so far came this weekend, when I won a massive £4 prize (one step off the mighty £5 JP) on that new version of Millionaire that is on a few of the Ind:es. It's the one that no one has mentioned on here, mainly because it's such a poor rip-off of the classic Millionaires that to compare the two would be like confusing the dreadful American 'Budweiser' with the Czech real thing.

Anyway, on the next go - I had a look just to see what its response would be to this outrage - I think the third or fourth question in was something like this:

Q. Which of these four artistes was at no. 26 in the Dutch Top 40 on 28.10.06?

I'm making up the date but I'm pretty sure it was no. 26 in the charts that it wanted. Naturally I was able to whittle it down to two answers using my huge knowledge of the Dutch pop charts but I went for the wrong one on my 50/50 guess...


More seriously, paragoon, I can understand why you would do this, and I'd find it hard to argue against your decision in the face of the utter incompetence of people whose best attempt at producing worthwhile games seemingly now has to involve shenanigans like this.

[ob]

U know that end game is true skill jg now! You just watch where the low amounts finish when they end dappling! Very easy! The local pub that Im in alot late on 100/1 is the only game anyone ever plays, its actually fairly reasonable not too many spoilers and if you have a good general knowledge you've got a fair chance of getting the end game! Also the minimum prize ive seen it do on the end game is 4 quid and seen the end game hundreds if times!
[/list]

[cp999]

U know that end game is true skill jg now! You just watch where the low amounts finish when they end dappling! Very easy! The local pub that Im in alot late on 100/1 is the only game anyone ever plays, its actually fairly reasonable not too many spoilers and if you have a good general knowledge you've got a fair chance of getting the end game! Also the minimum prize ive seen it do on the end game is 4 quid and seen the end game hundreds if times!
[/list]

It can do lower when it is under pressure. Have seen £2.

[tonkarentino]

U know that end game is true skill jg now! You just watch where the low amounts finish when they end dappling! Very easy! The local pub that Im in alot late on 100/1 is the only game anyone ever plays, its actually fairly reasonable not too many spoilers and if you have a good general knowledge you've got a fair chance of getting the end game! Also the minimum prize ive seen it do on the end game is 4 quid and seen the end game hundreds if times!
[/list]

It can do lower when it is under pressure. Have seen £2.

50p??

[cp999]

U know that end game is true skill jg now! You just watch where the low amounts finish when they end dappling! Very easy! The local pub that Im in alot late on 100/1 is the only game anyone ever plays, its actually fairly reasonable not too many spoilers and if you have a good general knowledge you've got a fair chance of getting the end game! Also the minimum prize ive seen it do on the end game is 4 quid and seen the end game hundreds if times!
[/list]

It can do lower when it is under pressure. Have seen £2.

50p??

Surely £2 is the lowest the new version can do, assuming there's always four different prizes? (i.e. you get offered a grid with 25p, 50p, £1 and £2). It's the lowest I've seen on the new version. I've seen a 25p win on the old version, and 50p and 75p a good few times.

[Nil Satis]

The final nail in the coffin came when I chanced upon an Itbox this lunchtime. My heart soared and I thought here we go! But then - oh no! - a new menu! Full of all the old tut on the Opens - 'Classic' Pub Quiz, that Tug Of War one, Take Your Pick blah blah blah...
I'd already put a quid in so I thought I'd chance TOTP which sometimes is good for the odd fiver. The new Itbox one was 50p a go. First disc - £1, fair enough. Second disc - £1 - wha? Third disc - £1...aha, I geddit! So you can basically trawl through this ludicrously tedious game and maybe, just maybe, 'win' a quid. No thanks.

I finally found one of these new ItBox menus for the first time yesterday - remember the days when those things were everywhere? Anyway, I had wondered whether or not you were exaggerating about how bad the new menu is but you most definitely weren't! It's irreparably awful, and that revised Pop the Question game is probably the worst of all.

I remember the thread on here when they still used to number each new release. At that point the latest issue was in the mid 70s and we were wondering how high the numbering would ever reach. Obviously Gamestec solved that conundrum by removing the numbering but in any case this latest offering answers the question really - what was the market leader only a few years ago is now officially a goner. If anyone from Gamestec reads these pages - what on earth were you thinking of, lads?

[ggdr]

I have great sympathy for you Paragoon. It must surely be the case that only the very best pros are making decent returns at the moment. I can think of several periods when I felt I could have done very nicely by turning pro – this is emphatically not one of them, but this time it really feels like there won't be a better set of games on the horizon. To add to the general gloom, my home town has also lost three machines in the last few weeks. I'm not quite in the "rather read a book than play" camp, but it would only take the removal of a few games for this to be the case.

[grecian]

I'm not quite in the "rather read a book than play" camp, but it would only take the removal of a few games for this to be the case.

Heh; that's the test for me as well, and like you I've been hovering near the boundary lately. I feel lucky that, unlike full-timers, I have that privilege.

I've now come across the itBox with Open games, too. Dear oh dear; the current Open line up is rubbish but they seem to have focused on the especially poor titles! And the amendment to the prize structure of the pop music game (not a particularly generous title anyway in my experience) beggars belief.

Interesting that whilst the titles are all/nearly all from Opens, the machine remains branded GamesTec/itBox - has there been a merger of some sort, or is this some sort of new licensing arrangement I wonder? I also played a GamesNet recently with a few of the OPen titles on it (and, worrisomely, no By Any Means), so it looks like Open titles may be a cancer which is spreading.

Depressing times.

[cool]

No merger as far as I know.
Barcrest make the bodies of Opens and Dice .
Fat Spanner develop most of the games then flog them to the gaming companies.Presumably the conversions and the games appearing on the Gamesnets, Barcrest have nothing to do with.

[Nil Satis]

I also played a GamesNet recently with a few of the Open titles on it (and, worrisomely, no By Any Means), so it looks like Open titles may be a cancer which is spreading.

Depressing times.

By Any Means has indeed gone but another of the GWHL games has been tampered with on the Gamesnets in a really annoying manner - on Match of the Day there has been some sort of reprogramming of the 'Free Pass' option. Early on it just means that you are quickly shown a question with the answer already ticked when you select Free Pass, but after that there is a bug which means the game either freezes or brings up an error when you select Free Pass. I haven't quite pinned down the exact circumstances but my guess is that it's either:

- during a later round (QF/SF/F)
- after a fixed number of Free Passes in a game
- after a fixed number of Free Passes in a 'session' of MOTD

Obviously you can try to avoid this bug by not selecting Free Pass, although that does make the game trickier of course, but there is then the issue of the final part of each round, when you don't have a choice as to which 'pass' to play.

They also haven't fixed the 'Rearrange the Picture' Challenge, where one of them is still, as far as I've ever been able to tell, impossible to complete.

I'd like to balance this negativity by saying something positive about this latest Gamesnet release but there (for once :wink I am unable to find the words...

[grecian]

I have also had the free pass bug on MOTD . Very shoddy - half an hour's playtesting would have identified that. As it is it basically renders the game unplayable.