Fruit Machine Chat

I thought I would suggest to the forum an annual award 'The Nobby' awarded to those in the gaming industry who are screwing up the SWP industry with missed opportunities , dodgy software or just through plain stupidity--a giant phallus should be posted to the winners for being total dicks.
nomination 1- GAMESTEC (missed opportunity)so long the bridesmaid never the bride until Itbox (Leisure Link) went tits up.If the company had any ability it would have taken over the Wetherspoons 800+ pub chain , but no, every Tom , Dick & Harry has muscled their way into the pubs, The Microsofts of the gaming industry such as the AUSTRALIAN 8 Ball CO.Gamestec was no match for such a colossus.As a result of this Weths gaming income has taken a nosedive thanks to its patchwork quilt of quizzers.I have my own idea to turn around their fortune,although its dependent upon how long they are locked in to their contracts.To bolster their nomination is a mind numbingly boring selection of games on their terminals-more life in a corpse.
nomination 2 - FAT SPANNER (plain stupidity) Around 100 games on the terminal , 90 are garbage the other 10 you cant find.If there is a company that kicks itself in the nuts this is it.A good idea gone bad.A miniscule hopper,games that dont protect themselves(except through not transferring winnings) a screen that even those that designed it cant understand how the hell it works,and the coup de grace the introduction of £1 games with no increase in winnings or chance of winning, that will do more to damage the gaming industry than anything else.The bright spark who thought of that is a twat.Whilst pubs up & down are offering drink and food deals to keep the trade going (You can get a roast dinner for £3.25 in a Crown Carvery),these muppets have doubled the stake'that should bring the punters in'
nomination 3 GAMES WAREHOUSE- totally unscrupulous ,in my opinion crooks!Change the software , instead of a big IOU on the screen the machine is programmed to wipe the credits replacing it with a big cross and Hopper Error & Call engineer.They think by putting on a disclaimer on the front screen,its perfectly acceptable to rip off punters.This sort of attitude will put punters off gaming machines for life, it sucks!How can they justify it?It was difficult at the best of times to get monies owed , now its impossible.
other nominations and possible award winners welcome.
Ive got over 20yrs of experience of playing the machines, have any of the MD'S ever played one?

Hard to disagree with any of that. The Fat Spanner/Open tactic of "s**t, you're too good at this, I'm not going to credit the prize", which you alluded to, is clearly fraudulent too.

the sooner swp is subject to the same laws as awp the better. although this would outlaw the wiping of bank/credit it would'nt stop rogue programming.

Would I attempt to remove an inflammed appendix with a dull spoon? No, because I'm not a surgeon.

Nomination 4 - whoever designed, created and released the "Big Four" new games for 2009:

- Rocket Ronnie
- Family Guy
- Play Your Cards Right
- Cash Smasher

You know those things that you can't polish? - well there are four big ones right there!

Yes, a lot of sense there from Cool. GamesTec definitely missed a big opportunity when ItBox went to the dogs, but it's Paragon who've reaped the benefits - they seem to have got as far as London, finally. And Cool's quite right to highlight the pretty lousy games selection on up-to-date GamesNets at the moment - I played one outside of London on Saturday and found very little to occupy me.

And Cool's quite right to criticise the new Paragon revamp - an unfair and unjust sledgehammer here; whilst I understand they are trying to combat crooks (a.k.a. pluggers) they should do that by ensuring their software doesn't reset itself (or whatever) when someone plugs the machine, rather than by potentially penalising honest players of hard-earned cash.

I've long felt Cool's a bit harsh on the Open per se (I still get a frisson of excitement finding one, which is not the case for any other cabinet at the moment), although he is right to say it's not very user-friendly, and the protection mechanism (which I'm not good enough to get to see) sounds like a total disgrace.

I'd add to Cool's list the various manufacturers that have got stung recently by buggy or badly-programmed games, but particularly Paragon given the number of problems they have had lately. Amazing that companies still get the basics wrong like that.

to be fair to Fat Spanner , I did make them aware of the software problems before xmas & they have addressed the problem so that the later updates should be ok.The critiscism over this was fair in that it wasnt a glitch, it was initially a deliberate policy & fair play they did own up to it when I phoned them.There should be ample scope for games with high payout percentages to vanish into the ether only to surface very irregularly.The current critiscism I will level at the owners of the units who must be fully aware of the problems , have been offered the updated software but choose to continue to rip off the punters.My critiscisms are levelled at the companies , not individuals although the buck stops at the highest level,whether or not this is fully justified.