pros v semi pros v fun players

[Barry Trotter]

when i did it seriously there were some profitable word games which would give me £200 a day, if i'm honest, were these games still around i would be probably be playing them now instead of sitting at a desk.

And that, i'm afraid, is why there AREN'T any games like that around any more. They may be called Skill With Prizes, but in order to control the percentage, there has to be an element of computer control in there. Which means that no game can ever be truly skill. It would be too difficult to implement a game based on the ASSUMPTION that the payout will average out to 30%, because manufacturers would have to assume what the average player would be like. And this, obviously, is impossible and open to abuse. Therefore, it can't be done. And it won't be.

Games of skill will always be controlled - too many operators have lost too much money by them not being. Being able to manipulate a game because you're good at it still exists, but being able to BEAT it because you're good at it is never going to happen. Unless some dodgy fellow at Bell Fruit decides to build in a way of doing it... (for legal reasons, i'm not inferring anyone at BFG has even done it on purpose, and merely that they have all been very bizarre coding mistakes!!

Maybe we should all just realise that what we should really be discussing is how good a game is in its own right, rather than discussing what we can empty - although we all want to make money off them, do we not still play them because we enjoy them? Or am i sadly mistaken....

BigEd probably plays them cos he likes the pretty colours - at least, he probably does when his parents let him out of his cot lol

[Guest]

Maybe it feels better to "win" something than "earn" it.

You're such a square, Fotherz.

[Guest]

Maybe we should all just realise that what we should really be discussing is how good a game is in its own right, rather than discussing what we can empty - although we all want to make money off them, do we not still play them because we enjoy them?

I expect to lose, but 2 mins gameplay for 50p really isn't worth it.
Part of the challenge is to make a profit, or at least come away with more than the 30% payout.

[cool]

I am in total agreement with unknownpsedonym. There is a perception that playing machines is a lonely activity , that is a perception and not a fact. Everybody is different and anyway every day IS different being out on the road. You can not put a value on freedom . I left my job in 1990 without any regrets.How many people can just walk ? Jealously is not a defence its a fact. As I said before there was a student at Southampton Uni who was a genius when it came to playing Every Second Counts. I was so hacked off I didnt go back there until the machine had changed , so we are all guilty of it.

[Guest]

I am in total agreement with unknownpsedonym. There is a perception that playing machines is a lonely activity , that is a perception and not a fact. Everybody is different and anyway every day IS different being out on the road. You can not put a value on freedom . I left my job in 1990 without any regrets.How many people can just walk ? Jealously is not a defence its a fact. As I said before there was a student at Southampton Uni who was a genius when it came to playing Every Second Counts. I was so hacked off I didnt go back there until the machine had changed , so we are all guilty of it.

How much do you honestly make on these things (after travelling costs, drinks etc.)? If you genuinely make a decent living, fair play. Just can't see it myself..

[Nil Satis]

Excellent thread guys - very thought-provoking. I've never been a pro in the sense of relying solely on quiz machines for a living, although I may have come close a few times, but I have played through all the 'eras' of the machines from Give Us a Break to Nuts (although archaeologists of pre-history do tell of a game called Tic Tac Triv which apparently pre-dated even Give Us a Break :wink .

As for the "pros = parasites" debate, I'd say that you could probably group all games into three categories in terms of their 'winnability':

A. Cash Cows - those games where with a certain level of skill/knowledge/inside information etc you can win a decent prize (Jackpot or close) more than once without the game changing its playability radically. These have always been few and far between obviously and they are often a personal thing - I have witnessed people winning successively on games I wouldn't even have got £1 on myself. This category would include the original Quizmaster, Silver Falls, Word Up, Spelvin, Pepsi Quiz, Spot the Difference, Triple Towers, ...

B. Cyclical Payers - these games are set to follow a pattern of getting relatively easier to win on as more money goes into them, until the point when the Jackpot becomes attainable for those with the required abilities. After the JP has been won, the game resets itself to become very difficult but the cycle starts up again straight away. Real Millionaire was the classic example of this but think also of Treble Top, Gold Digger, Top of the Pops 2, Ant and Dec, Hangman, Every Second Counts, Guinness Book of Records, ...

C. No Hopers - these are games where the prize structure, the length of games and the early appearance of spoilers make them 'non-cyclical'. They are often set so that £1 or £2 is relatively easy to win with a bit of practice but they seem never to get close to making anything better than that realistically achievable, no matter how many losing games are played. Many modern games are like this - Monopoly Deluxe, Bullseye, new Cluedo, Mousetrap, Risk, the two Mike Reid games, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Pink Panther, Hex Appeal, ...

Clearly pros will be looking to identify and exploit Type A games, and we can all see how those games will be frowned on by pubs and the SWP industry.

I personally mourn the virtual disappearance of Type B games as those are the ones for me that are 'win-win' for nearly everyone, even those dastardly pubs and SWP companies. Good prizes are available and with hard work and dedication you can get to the level where you can exploit the games when you realise they are at the top of their cycle but once you have won the big prize the game will be reset to ensure the machine still makes a profit. The point with these games was that non pros would sometimes see the machine in the high end of the cycle, at which point they could often win a nice prize of £4-£5, which made their experience of playing the games more enjoyable and was much more likely to encourage them to play again on the same game, and maybe in the multi-game world to check out one of the other games.

For me it's the type C games that are wrecking the SWP experience. Pros realise how futile the games are but because they are set so that the higher prizes are always unattainable, NO ONE one ever sees a large win happen and NO ONE one ever gets close to one themselves, no matter what level of ability they have. They rapidly become ignored, and are removed from the machines only to be replaced by some other waste of time.

Now it may be that it's the very small number of true pros that have over the years caused the SWP industry to move further and further down the line of just making Type C games, but personally I'm not so sure. For a long time pubs were generally happy to see a large win because (a) it encouraged other players as they could see it was possible to win and (b) they knew that the games would soon claw back the money paid out (in truth the games would usually only pay out once the required cash had been taken in the first place)

As for whether we can all contribute to a forum like this, I'd say that we surely can. There may be 'lurkers' who come on simply to read messages and hope to pick up information but who never actually post themselves (although maybe the removal of non-posters at the weekend has helped with that) but on the whole I'd say that most people on here have something useful to contribute and that this forum is refreshing free of the inane swearing, name-calling, pointless gossip and so on that most similar sites get swamped by.

Keep up the good work guys!

[Guest]

I've won 4 quid on Bullseye twice recently, and got 3 quid off Mousetrap yesterday. I don't really see a distinction between some of the games you've listed as Type B and as Type C. It's pretty obvious to me that Bully & Mousetrap get easier the more cash you pile into them. Mousetrap can be as low as 700 pts for a prize, but I've seen it at 1500. Obviously Bully can be 101 to 701, depending on how it's feeling...

(The trick on Bully is only to aim for the 4 quid if you think it's wanting to pay out; otherwise it will just cheat you. If you think it's not likely to pay a decent prize, aim for the 1 quid...).

One game I feel was a definite Type B was Football Crazy. Prize was never more than 500 points - well designed game, and you got a good run for your money.. Shame they took it off.

[Nil Satis]

I've won 4 quid on Bullseye twice recently, and got 3 quid off Mousetrap yesterday. I don't really see a distinction between some of the games you've listed as Type B and as Type C.

Obviously the placing of games in such categories is a personal opinion - for example there are people who have won fortunes on Spot the Difference whereas I think it is a complete waste of time and a con. However the main distinction I'd make between B and C is that a game can only be counted as a B game if someone somewhere is winning the Jackpot relatively regularly. I may be proved wrong but I'd be astonished if anyone on here has EVER won the Jackpot on Hex Appeal, Monopoly Deluxe, Bullseye (i.e. winning a cumulative £20 from the end game) etc, whereas I personally won that much (with varying frequency) on all of the games I listed as Type B at the time when they were prevalent.

Clearly the bigger prizes (by which I mean £10 and above) are bound to be difficult to win on any game, particularly for the recreational player, but I would just like to see more games around where such prizes were actually made available once enough cash had gone in. As I stated in my original message, I don't think that having such games makes it impossible for the pubs and SWP firms to still make money so surely everyone benefits.

[grecian]

What do these terms mean? Pro? Semi-pro? Fun player?

I clicked semi-pro but suspect on reflection that fun player is nearer the mark. I have a demanding and well-paid job (sadly only occasional breaks to surf this and other sites!) and that's where I make the overwhelming proportion of my income from. Like someone else said above, I enjoy playing quiz machines in lunch breaks and (more often) after work or at the weekends - it's relaxing; it keeps the brain in good fettle; and one can turn a small profit from them. I've been playing machines since 1996 and probably lost money overall in the period 1996-99 as I learnt questions and knowledge. 1999 through to about 2002 was a good era when I had a lot of free time and a lot of knowledge of the various machines and I probably turned a fair profit, though definitely never enough to live on by any means. Since then I've been working and playing less regularly, but I still enjoy playing and take SWPs, and indeed all forms of quizzing, pretty seriously.

Along with (I suspect) many players who hover somewhere between the "semi-pro" and "fun player" status I find myself being pretty cynical about so-called "pro" players. I'm aware of certain periods when particular games have been introduced which have been too generous and I do know players, including myself, who've milked those games over very short periods of time before the games have been withdrawn. But I must admit I do find it difficult to believe that anyone would be able to live off these things in any sort of decent fashion other than in such unusual circumstances for a very short period of time. For starters, where are these players? I probably play machines four or five times a week and at times have played in areas all over South of England and I can count on the fingers of one hand the times when I've seen another player who was either playing notably well, winning notable sums of cash or acting in some other way like a professional. If there are professionals, there must be very few of them. Why aren't they on scoreboards setting unbeatable scores on e.g. Haunted House, Hangman, Q or other games with a scoreboard? That said, I fully accept that I may simply never have crossed path with professionals, and I must admit I'd dearly love to see them at work, if only to give myself something to aspire to.

[grecian]

I didn't spot the more recent posts. I've never JPed the recent Monopoly but did come across one where £20 was down at 5 or 6000 points or so. Unfortunately despite putting about £7-8 in rank bad play on my part meant I didn't manage to get it. Definitely winnable though.

[Nil Satis]

Why aren't they on scoreboards setting unbeatable scores on e.g. Haunted House, Hangman, Q or other games with a scoreboard? That said, I fully accept that I may simply never have crossed path with professionals, and I must admit I'd dearly love to see them at work, if only to give myself something to aspire to.

I don't doubt that 'cool' plays the machines for a living, and he made the point recently that if you were good you wouldn't put anything recognisable on a High Scores board as you'd prefer to 'keep your head down' if you were winning regularly. Personally I don't mind doing so, but more of an issue here is that of all the profitable games I've ever played only Hangman has a Top 10 Scores board, but even that doesn't actually show the number of points needed to get on there. Haunted Hangman is a pale shadow of the real thing for me and Q the Music is one that is set to suddenly become very hard indeed after a certain number of stars (equivalent to say 10,000 points) so setting a very high score is pretty tricky.

The more general point is that, unlike the Word Up guys, appearing on High Scores boards isn't the point if you are playing for a living - one or two of the games that a pro is good at may have a board but most of the good games don't.

As for numbers, I'd say pros are spread out extremely thinly, say one in Scotland, one in the North, one in the Midlands and two in the South West/East. This is a rough guess and doesn't relate to any actual people as I too don't encounter pros when playing but I'm pretty sure they are out there and at least two post on here. The only pros I've ever seen while playing were the two Yorkshire guys in the hats and dark glasses mentioned in the 'Quiz machines in film and television' thread (http://fruitchat.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3705).

[Guest]

Clearly the bigger prizes (by which I mean £10 and above) are bound to be difficult to win on any game, particularly for the recreational player, but I would just like to see more games around where such prizes were actually made available once enough cash had gone in. As I stated in my original message, I don't think that having such games makes it impossible for the pubs and SWP firms to still make money so surely everyone benefits.

Actually, I think all the games work like this. The problem is that after about 8 games without paying out the machines force wins on players, who would have to be totally wasted/stupid not to get a prize.

With a 30% payout, for a tenner prize you're going to need 33 quid going in, which is 66 winless games... that's going to put average punters off playing..

So you could then argue that the payout should be increased. But that just encourages so-called pros and puts off a lot of pubs where the machines will lie unused 90% of the time..

So regular JPs don't benefit everyone - neither the pubs nor the average punters.

[Istenem]

you wouldn't put anything recognisable on a High Scores board as you'd prefer to 'keep your head down'

that was the initial reason for my pseudonymity. i figured that if i put ten of the same name on a high-score table (my real name or a standard pseud like HYENA) it would put off other people from trying their luck to get on the scoreboard; without people losing their money there would be none for us to win and we'd feed on the 30% statistical return (as mentioned above by software throwing wins at clowns to balance short-term %ages.)
if seemingly ten other people had been able to crack a given game then maybe they could too; without being boastful, the only people who can hold a torch to me are the Bobs, HULLHULL and DJ none of whom seem to be as coy as myself.

but it is a good point about scoreboards, i have on occasion been guilty of checking the WU table before playing in an alien location to see who is the dominant player before playing myself. if i collect the £2 or £3 i tend to put my name down as whoever owns that machine. only when i get an obviously strong word (11+) or 1800+ do i use my current pseudonym.

[Guest]

Forcing the payout over ridiculously short periods is really primitive programming. Presumably the aim is to pay out close to 30% to every individual player, regardless of their skill level.

[Guest]

There is a perception that playing machines is a lonely activity , that is a perception and not a fact. Everybody is different and anyway every day IS different being out on the road.

I've found my odd days 'pro-ing' it (when I choose to spend a day quizzing I now tend to get £40-£160, mostly because of the arrival of ?????, which is a very nice little earner (which nobody else can bust quite like me )) quite interesting and enjoyable, for the following reasons:

- get to see new towns
- eavesdrop on people's odd conversations whilst standing at the quizzer
- moments of relaxing walking broken up with satisfyingly intense bursts of concentration
- cheap thrills of occasionally being watched admiringly
- pretentious postmodern 'flaneur' aspect - cutting across the social lines of the physical city and the restrictions of the working day
- slaying of dragons in far-off lands
- soiling people's neatly tended scoreboard lawns with giant clearance turds (especially satisfying when a boardful of 1100s by a self-regarding local tyro in a uni grad bar is topped with a solitary 1900+ (beating 'CAP' at UEA))

I wouldn't say it does much for one's social skills, however. The only thing I seem to have gained in that respect is the ability to appear anonymous or unapproachable.