Fruit Machine Chat

Right now I'm finding games that I used to find ok such as Pints Make Prizes totally dead. Played one this morning that had the £1 up at number 9 - the first "question" offering satellites, explosives and clouds or something like that - each for a totally empty pint. Lost first round.

1 v 100 still proves to be fruitful - getting to endgames much more often than usual although finding it very painful when it usuallly always leaves £5 and £20 only to always give me the £5.

Buckaroo - used to be plenty of low hanging fruit round my way - by no means the case anymore.

Spot the difference - £1 if im lucky these days and thats me getting to puzzle 7/8.

Deal or No Deal - targets round my way were 68000ish all the time for about a 4 month period - recently though I've had most boards less than 34000.

The Phrase That Pays - my main cash cow at present. Usually get £6-£8 as any pub ive been into hardly anyone plays it.

Trivia for Dummies - spoiled what used to be a good game.

Nuts - still an 'entertainment value' favourite although I'm seeing MANY more exits than ive ever seen before.

Guess who? - Just crap.

Bullseye - still a good moneymaker.


Also most machines round my way are now Paragon. Itboxes are virtually non existant and the only Opens I know of are in train stations - although I do like the change in games on them.

Just finding that a lot of my favourites are playing a lot lot tighter than ever before. Dont know if that means they're being "done" or if the manufacturers are deliberately making popular games tighter. Thoughts?

I've seen lots of deal or no deals at around 30,000, shame i aint good enough to make it pay, i've played TPTP several times but never properly so have no idea how the game works.

Funnily enough there's only a couple of those games you list I'd cross even a quiet bar to play regularly! However I've posted on the other thread about the general dismal state of affairs... (for a change )

Anyone playing for 'low hanging fruit' is always going to feel the pinch as if you keep taking it from the same old pubs then the punters soon get sick of never winning and go back to their usual favourites. It can't be a coincidence that you're all seeing DOND's in better moods.

From my point of view, apart from the bunfight which went on recently, in which I didn't partake since it was largely the AWP boys muscling in and freaking gaffers out, it's business as usual.

I don't buy the 'all the new games are toss' argument. All the new games have been toss for a long time if you're looking for long term income.

'Money doesn't come out, money doesn't go back in', as a wise old sage once remarked.

i have still got a working tptp :P

As I said on the other thread, I'm finding things tough but just about bearable, mainly because of playing on the same old ten or twelve central London spots about 80% of the time because of work. When I manage to go further afield, generally I do well - I recently cleared £150 profit in a six-hour stint in a town out of London, and I suspect / know others here could do quite a bit better than that. And even in the same old venues, you occasionally get lucky - a £10 on DOND and an £8 on "old" Trivial Pursuit on a nearby Ind:e of the most jaded kind recently brought a smile to my face.

Of the games you mention, 1v100 is tough, and I think reflects the fact a lot of good players play this now. A number of other games are in that pot too, of course. DOND I do concur has got better lately and I think I've speculated elsewhere that's because the big boys have got a bit distracted elsewhere, and allowed those lower in the food chain to take DOND cash. And of course as QM says it still gets lots of punter play. There's one game I think you have missed a trick in your appraisal of (which I won't identify), but generally I'm not a big fan of the games you mention.

I agree with QM that one shouldn't write new games off on principle, although I am still to be convinced by any of the recent ItBox additions I must say. I can see that Rocket Money should in theory be a goodie, but in practice it's bl**dy hard, and isn't appealing to punters.

grecian wrote:I agree with QM that one shouldn't write new games off on principle, although I am still to be convinced by any of the recent ItBox additions I must say. I can see that Rocket Money should in theory be a goodie, but in practice it's bl**dy hard, and isn't appealing to punters.

Rocket Money is simply too hard.
I hope that Ronnie got his money up front as I can't see this being around for long. But then what do I know as I hate Deal or No Deal, Noel tidy beard, and the school boy graphics, but it has been around forever?

QuizMaster wrote:I don't buy the 'all the new games are toss' argument. All the new games have been toss for a long time if you're looking for long term income.

'Money doesn't come out, money doesn't go back in', as a wise old sage once remarked.

If I understand what you mean, I think you are agreeing with one of my long-term gripes, namely that when games are set up too tight for ordinary punters they will simply not play them enough to make them profitable for better players to take advantage of, and far too many games are now programmed to be like this.

I have seen Rocket Money give ridiculously difficult questions as early as the second red ball, which would make that game just about the quickest SWP way possible for a punter to lose their 50p (or, worse, their £1). The scoreboard on that one is a very useful indicator in that it shows any scores over the previous 7 days, not just the longer term best scores, and I'm not seeing any significant play on that game anywhere. OK, the scoreboards may all get reset once a week at the same time, but I do tend to play across the week so I should still see any real activity if it's there.

I don't deliberately set out to label anything new as dross, and do occasionally find new games of interest, but there has only been one Q&A game released in the last twelve months that I'd consider worthwhile. Bring back your namesake, that's what I'd say...

It's a shame about Rocket Money. I'd have loved to have gotten my teeth into that but you're absolutely right, it's far too hard for punters and there's no evidence that it's being played regularly by anybody, which can only mean the usual here today, gone tomorrow scenario.

Indeed, and the real frustration is that it's a classic quiz game format stretching back to the early days of Give Us A Break - it's a simple, easy to follow game structure that everyone is already familiar with from real snooker and it gives you different levels of challenge - beat my personal best break, choose which colours to go for, try for a maximum...

But making it too hard in all locations means that few punters will ever bother with it more than once or twice.

There's a fair amount of garbage about, but isn't there always? Tbh, still making plenty money, if not spectacular amounts.

xyz

Are the Pro Players not a victim of their own success?

I am not a pro, and only play for fun, but I do like to win occasionally. So from my point of view any game that is impossible for me to win on I will avoid.

So I suggest the following scenario;

i) New game 'x' hits the streets, and normal players like it

ii) New game 'x' is on every box, because normal players like it

iii) Pros learn how to win on New game 'x' because it is on every box, and normal players like it

iv) New game 'x' is getting harder on every box, but normal players still like it

v) Pros like New game 'x' because it is on every box, they can win on it, and normal players still like it

vi) New game 'x' is getting very hard on every box, and normal players do not like it

vii) New game 'y' hits the streets, and normal players like it because they can win on it unlike game 'x'

vii) Pros find New game 'x' on every box really hard to win on, as normal players never play it anymore

viii) New game 'z' hits the streets, and everyone hates it

ix) Pros find New game 'x' on every box impossible to win on, because only Pro players play it.

x) Pros whinge on http://www.fruitchat.co.uk that it is impossible win on game 'x'

xi) Game 'x' is removed as it is no longer played by anyone

xii) Pros like game game 'y' as loads of normal players are losing on it

xiii) Game 'y' is removed as it never made as much money as game 'x' did because everone really liked game 'x' and nobody could not understand why it was removed

xiv) start back at i)



Just my thoughts.

'There is one in the Conan Doyle pub'

youll have to go there yourself to find out Watson it

I like Big Ed's post above and think it contains more than an element of truth.

I think one big issue for production companies is ensuring games are in the optimum "mood" when shipped. One of the reasons why the last 12-18 months have been good for the likes of us is that a lot of games have been shipped in paying mode - things like, say, Scrabble, the Great Pretender, or Jiggy Bank come to mind. That's great for pros, as they can get a head-start and visit lots of different venues to grab the low-hanging fruit, swiftly, but it does make the game pretty much impossibly difficult for the average punter after that. Result: no-one plays the game, and it gets withdrawn (obviously Pretender got withdrawn more quickly than that).

Similarly, if a game is shipped in absolutely rock-hard mode, that will often have the same result - something like Rocket Money might exemplify that currently. It might very well get easier as money goes through it over time, but is any punter going to be willing to play it to ensure that happens? I doubt it.

It strikes me that the most successful games of recent times have, in addition to possessing features like good gameplay, acceptable presentation, and a solid brand, been shipped with just the right level of win-potential: a few plays off giving anything decent, but enough to convince punters and pros alike that the game has some potential. An example would be something like Celebrity WWTBAM - when it's installed a £5 is a decent win, but if it gets a bit of cash through it without a pro visiting, £20JP should soon become achievable. That said, even Celebrity WWTBAM is now reaching stage (vi) or (vii) on Big Ed's scale now - it's pretty rare I find one in central London in anything other than a pretty vile mood.