Cool - not really, I think the first two games I review (i.e. Battleships / By Any Means) will be being released over the next month or so, but it may be a bit longer for the others.
All very fair points made by Fotherz and wires74, of course. In this instance, I'm not *too* worried. Without naming names, my contact at GWHL is himself a very experienced former player who has a very good idea about the abilities of top-level players to exploit badly-protected games without needing me to come and visit to demonstrate (and as Cool delicately points out, fundamentally I'm only a part-timer who is a long way below the standards of some of the very best players). Of course, though, I'm not naive enough to think it's of no utility to GWHL to have good / experienced players giving their games a test run.
For me, it's (as Istenem says) a bit of fun: not something I see myself doing massively regularly (despite the two recent visits), but a good opportunity to meet up with some like minds and a bit of an insight into a world in which, like Nil Satis, I have dabbled on the margins for many years but only had a deeper look into in the last couple.
New visit to Paragon
I think Grecian and Nils are doing a good job.They are able to inform the forum of changes to the formats before they occur as well as give us a preview of new games.Im sure that they are not working for the other side and I found gw very approachable and friendly although the person I spoke to seemed a bit baffled by what I was on about.The Fat Spanner contact Ive got is very knowledgeable and Games Media and Gamestec welcome feedback.
My two penn'orth:
As grecian says, and again without naming names, the people we meet at GWHL are not stuck in ivory towers with no current (or historical) experience of playing quiz games. They also know a lot more about other companies' games, who the top players are and so on than some might realise, but to be fair this shouldn't come as a surprise - when you work full time in a business like that your networks will inevitably be deep and wide.
The value of the two visits for me has been just as much in 'chewing the fat' with like-minded people as in terms of the upcoming games we have seen. Playing SWPs has always been pretty much a solitary experience for me so these visits have been an interesting variation.
I am certainly not a mouthpiece for GWHL and in fact I'd find it hard to say anything positive about anyone's current or recent products, other than the smaller entries to the market like KUDOS and DICE. As I've stated elsewhere on here I think the current state of all the market leaders in terms of providing good games for non-recreational players to be as poor as I can remember and there isn't a single game released in more than 12 months that I would miss if it disappeared overnight. We all have different reasons for playing SWPs, different levels of commitment and skill and different expectations for what a good return would be for a day's or night's playing. Measured against my own levels of those variables I think things are looking very bleak and I can't see myself putting anything like the same amount of time into the activity in say 6 months' time as I have been doing but I will keep an eye out just in case things change for the better.
As grecian says, and again without naming names, the people we meet at GWHL are not stuck in ivory towers with no current (or historical) experience of playing quiz games. They also know a lot more about other companies' games, who the top players are and so on than some might realise, but to be fair this shouldn't come as a surprise - when you work full time in a business like that your networks will inevitably be deep and wide.
The value of the two visits for me has been just as much in 'chewing the fat' with like-minded people as in terms of the upcoming games we have seen. Playing SWPs has always been pretty much a solitary experience for me so these visits have been an interesting variation.
I am certainly not a mouthpiece for GWHL and in fact I'd find it hard to say anything positive about anyone's current or recent products, other than the smaller entries to the market like KUDOS and DICE. As I've stated elsewhere on here I think the current state of all the market leaders in terms of providing good games for non-recreational players to be as poor as I can remember and there isn't a single game released in more than 12 months that I would miss if it disappeared overnight. We all have different reasons for playing SWPs, different levels of commitment and skill and different expectations for what a good return would be for a day's or night's playing. Measured against my own levels of those variables I think things are looking very bleak and I can't see myself putting anything like the same amount of time into the activity in say 6 months' time as I have been doing but I will keep an eye out just in case things change for the better.
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rogerthymes
- Senior Member
- Posts: 232
- Joined: Mon May 07, 2007 10:42 pm
So do you say that to them? And what is their reply?Nil Satis wrote:My two penn'orth:
As I've stated elsewhere on here I think the current state of all the market leaders in terms of providing good games for non-recreational players to be as poor as I can remember and there isn't a single game released in more than 12 months that I would miss if it disappeared overnight. We all have different reasons for playing SWPs, different levels of commitment and skill and different expectations for what a good return would be for a day's or night's playing. Measured against my own levels of those variables I think things are looking very bleak and I can't see myself putting anything like the same amount of time into the activity in say 6 months' time as I have been doing but I will keep an eye out just in case things change for the better.
Their reply was to bring out a silver tray full of sandwhiches and a bowl of crisps. I'm not sure if this is sensitive but there were chicken and stuffing sandwhiches in wholemeal bread and they had tuna and cucumber sandwhiches, in quarters, in white bread. No doubt there were also some ham and tomato sandwhiches. I think the crisps, errr, the crisps were a mixture of flavours perhaps some ready salted, some salt and vinegar, which is a way of saving money as the ready salted crisps acquire the vinegar from the salt and vinegar crisps although wait they're the same price, you can buy salt and vinegar and ready salted at the same price! In fact come to think of it I think they were curry flavour crisps.
No buttering. At the end of the day, the slice of players on here are a very small % of the SWP playing populus. They've very little to gain by a good or indeed bad write up from our resident SWPists.
I did say a few stupid things myself, trying to get some feedback. I thought I'd had a places category and got asked a question on David Bedkham, aha I pointed out in all eagerness, David Beckham isn't a......before my photographic memory kicked in and I realised it was PEOPLE and places. Oh dear. No wonder I don't play those things for money.
I was just the bandit boy out on a jolly, whilst Nil Satis and Grecian where top feedback pros with notes on various cabinet/software faults all pre-jotted to the meeting.
The people we met seemed quite open minded and receptive to new ideas, so even very negative comments such as Quizmaster talking about Dr. Who may be appreciated, although whether he gets an invite is entirely another matter!
I did say a few stupid things myself, trying to get some feedback. I thought I'd had a places category and got asked a question on David Bedkham, aha I pointed out in all eagerness, David Beckham isn't a......before my photographic memory kicked in and I realised it was PEOPLE and places. Oh dear. No wonder I don't play those things for money.
I was just the bandit boy out on a jolly, whilst Nil Satis and Grecian where top feedback pros with notes on various cabinet/software faults all pre-jotted to the meeting.
The people we met seemed quite open minded and receptive to new ideas, so even very negative comments such as Quizmaster talking about Dr. Who may be appreciated, although whether he gets an invite is entirely another matter!
In answer to the questions above, we did discuss our views on current games both at their offices and in the pubs of Nottingham afterwards. As for the new games, it is very hard to judge things on first or second sight and you do try to be positive but I also try to be realistic - I did identify Track and Field, for example, as an absolute shocker the first time I saw it on our previous visit and have hardly been proved wrong there!
As for the current games, the fundamental issue is that we (regular/serious players) and they (GWHL and other companies) look at things from completely different perspectives. If they were able to design such a thing, a perfect game for them would be one that punters play all the time and which occasionally rewards them with £1 or £2 wins while at the same time more serious players can find no additional rewards available, and also are given no clues as to a game's state of readiness to pay out. I haven't found any games released for a year or so remotely successful in terms of what I am looking for but the companies might turn round and say that the average returns, numbers of machines rented and so on are higher than ever and hence I am 'wrong' and they are 'right' in releasing the stuff they do.
The best pieces of anecdotal evidence I have to feel I am at least partly right are:
(a) I almost never have to wait to get on a machine now
(b) games are not 'refilling' at all - once dead they stay dead
We must acknowledge of course that these are difficult times for those involved in all aspects of the pub trade, and the quietness of pubs in general, plus the lack of spare cash punters feel they have, are big factors. The special additional factor for the SWP companies I guess is that they have been hit several times in the last year by losing lots of money to various bugs and faults (whose fault that actually is being a completely different argument).
I think most people who read here would say that bad games will put off both punters and more serious players, and that it should still be possible to provide games that appeal to both. This is of course the games companies' job not ours, and we in the end always have the choice to find some other way to spend our days and our coins, but I do hope that eventually the wheel turns and things get better.
As for the current games, the fundamental issue is that we (regular/serious players) and they (GWHL and other companies) look at things from completely different perspectives. If they were able to design such a thing, a perfect game for them would be one that punters play all the time and which occasionally rewards them with £1 or £2 wins while at the same time more serious players can find no additional rewards available, and also are given no clues as to a game's state of readiness to pay out. I haven't found any games released for a year or so remotely successful in terms of what I am looking for but the companies might turn round and say that the average returns, numbers of machines rented and so on are higher than ever and hence I am 'wrong' and they are 'right' in releasing the stuff they do.
The best pieces of anecdotal evidence I have to feel I am at least partly right are:
(a) I almost never have to wait to get on a machine now
(b) games are not 'refilling' at all - once dead they stay dead
We must acknowledge of course that these are difficult times for those involved in all aspects of the pub trade, and the quietness of pubs in general, plus the lack of spare cash punters feel they have, are big factors. The special additional factor for the SWP companies I guess is that they have been hit several times in the last year by losing lots of money to various bugs and faults (whose fault that actually is being a completely different argument).
I think most people who read here would say that bad games will put off both punters and more serious players, and that it should still be possible to provide games that appeal to both. This is of course the games companies' job not ours, and we in the end always have the choice to find some other way to spend our days and our coins, but I do hope that eventually the wheel turns and things get better.
Interesting thread.......thanks for taking the time to share with us.
From my point of view (as a landlord with an OPEN terminal - which I own its not on hire) - this is interesting.
I have recently foregone one of my £70 awp's and moved my OPEN machine into the place where the fruity used to stand.
Since the £70 jp's my take has dropped on the fruitys and could not justify the rent on the two machines - since losing one of them I get the same slice of the cake as I did before but with just 1 amount of rent to pay.
The OPEN did okay anyway where it was before - but now takings have shot through thru the roof since it has been moved - we get a lot of awp players who still come in looking for the second fruity but once they see the SWP they inevitably drop a few pounds into that instead whilst waiting to get on the AWP - not only that but they return to it again and again.
These are just casual players who play the simplest - quickest games on there - ELIMINATOR - ROCKET RONNIE etc - avoiding the games that take lots of time ie FAMILY GUY - PIRATE SHIPS - CAESARS PALACE etc............the one game that they ALL want to see a new release of is FANTASY FOOTBALL - they all love this game!
Hope the manufacturers are reading this thread - especially OPEN who need to sort the menu system out with the next game update please - there's loads of great games "hidden" that are there one week and gone the next !!
Dave
From my point of view (as a landlord with an OPEN terminal - which I own its not on hire) - this is interesting.
I have recently foregone one of my £70 awp's and moved my OPEN machine into the place where the fruity used to stand.
Since the £70 jp's my take has dropped on the fruitys and could not justify the rent on the two machines - since losing one of them I get the same slice of the cake as I did before but with just 1 amount of rent to pay.
The OPEN did okay anyway where it was before - but now takings have shot through thru the roof since it has been moved - we get a lot of awp players who still come in looking for the second fruity but once they see the SWP they inevitably drop a few pounds into that instead whilst waiting to get on the AWP - not only that but they return to it again and again.
These are just casual players who play the simplest - quickest games on there - ELIMINATOR - ROCKET RONNIE etc - avoiding the games that take lots of time ie FAMILY GUY - PIRATE SHIPS - CAESARS PALACE etc............the one game that they ALL want to see a new release of is FANTASY FOOTBALL - they all love this game!
Hope the manufacturers are reading this thread - especially OPEN who need to sort the menu system out with the next game update please - there's loads of great games "hidden" that are there one week and gone the next !!
Dave
Haven't such games already been designed? Hex Maniac springs to mind, especially having just read the latest thread on it. Mousetrap iirc was another where I can't even recall now what the JP was. In fact, I'm always a bit surprised all game manufacturers don't just copy the Hex Maniac payout algorithm, for want of a better phrase. I'm glad they don't though.Nil Satis wrote: If they were able to design such a thing, a perfect game for them would be one that punters play all the time and which occasionally rewards them with £1 or £2 wins while at the same time more serious players can find no additional rewards available, and also are given no clues as to a game's state of readiness to pay out.
You are right - there are plenty of games that fit my suggested template. Pub Quiz is the one that springs most readily to mind - this is played by punters as often as any other game and yet owing to a huge and regularly updated question bank £1 or £2 is virtually all you are ever going to get from it. You are also right in saying that if that type of game was all that was around there would be no point in anyone playing quiz machines more seriously or regularly than your everyday punter. Luckily this isn't the case just yet but it's certainly heading that way... 