battleships lives on.New variant on games media interesting although not particularly profitable.mostly reasonable questions.need to attain score to shoot the battleships with sum attached in second section.high score board.bonuses can be immediately taken or improved upon.New bonuses not seen before together with old.
hit or miss?
hit
summary: good fun will have longetivity but unlikely to mint it from this game
games media
They are clearly spending quite a bit on games development but I don't think any of the new games will be of interest to more serious players. The most recent ones (Buzz, Battleships, the new version of Cluedo) all look very impressive but seem to have a top prize of at most £5 and I suspect even that will disappear after it has been won once. The question is how long will punters be distracted by the bells and whistles enough to want to keep playing.
I've had a pretty grim week in terms of the restricted time available I've had to play a few machines, albeit not on the Ind:es - in four separate locations in different areas of the country virtually every decent game on each machine has not been worth playing. Maybe I've been unlucky and followed after a really top level player in each location but I'd say more likely is that the machines are simply getting insufficient throughput from ordinary punters who must get incredibly disheartened at how hard so many games are to win anything on. That intermediate area that used to exist in games to allow keen punters to pick up the odd prize of £2 or £3, which would encourage them to play more, seems to have been programmed out of the games.
Plenty of games are either embarrassingly difficult or just plain embarrassing. In seeking to create games that deter the better players, the games companies seem to be ensuring that eventually the only people who will keep playing their games are the tiny number of really top players. That is what I believe is called Unintended Consequences:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
I've had a pretty grim week in terms of the restricted time available I've had to play a few machines, albeit not on the Ind:es - in four separate locations in different areas of the country virtually every decent game on each machine has not been worth playing. Maybe I've been unlucky and followed after a really top level player in each location but I'd say more likely is that the machines are simply getting insufficient throughput from ordinary punters who must get incredibly disheartened at how hard so many games are to win anything on. That intermediate area that used to exist in games to allow keen punters to pick up the odd prize of £2 or £3, which would encourage them to play more, seems to have been programmed out of the games.
Plenty of games are either embarrassingly difficult or just plain embarrassing. In seeking to create games that deter the better players, the games companies seem to be ensuring that eventually the only people who will keep playing their games are the tiny number of really top players. That is what I believe is called Unintended Consequences:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
'in four separate locations in different areas of the country virtually every decent game on each machine has not been worth playing'
I followed in your wake around the Gatwick area during the last few days and they were even less worth playing after you! Also there is a guy nr the M25 Surrey area who leaves one sipped cokes by every every machine he plays.puts 'T' on high score.anyone know who he is?
I followed in your wake around the Gatwick area during the last few days and they were even less worth playing after you! Also there is a guy nr the M25 Surrey area who leaves one sipped cokes by every every machine he plays.puts 'T' on high score.anyone know who he is?
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QuizMaster
- Senior Member
- Posts: 1254
- Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 12:40 pm
Surely the GM games that only have a Top Prize of £5 by definition are introducing the intermediate area of £2 and £3 wins again which deter hard core and encourage repeat play from casuals winning the odd £1 and £2.Nil Satis wrote: That intermediate area that used to exist in games to allow keen punters to pick up the odd prize of £2 or £3, which would encourage them to play more, seems to have been programmed out of the games.
I just don't see punters playing any of the games that have the capacity to pay out big wins. Mostly they just seem to play Monopoly and Pub Quiz. I've never seen anybody apart from me win anything more than £1 on Pub Quiz, which is eminently achievable for most players.
I'm with you on the fact that games aren't getting throughput which is why they are always in a dog state, but that's as much to do with there being 40+ games to choose from as anything else.
Most of my runs are now on 6 month cycles (used to be 3) to try and give the games time to recover. Only problem with this is that if another guy wanders in during that 6 months, then you are back to square one.
No idea. Maybe BA Baracus is a quiz machine fiend?cool wrote:I followed in your wake around the Gatwick area during the last few days and they were even less worth playing after you! Also there is a guy nr the M25 Surrey area who leaves one sipped cokes by every every machine he plays.puts 'T' on high score.anyone know who he is?
Good points, QM, and I realise I was mixing two issues really. The Games Media 'flashy' games are probably more likely to give a few prizes of £2 or so early on but I suspect from seeing the progression of similar games from them that even those will soon disappear once the game has paid out its limited top prize. Their previous Battleships game, the current Monopoly Streets Ahead game and the latest Trivial Pursuit version are all examples where the end game prize can be absolutely pathetic.
I think you are also right re punters not playing the 'more serious' games, which basically means Paragons plus one or two of the last tranche of Open games if you get there first. Here I'd say the problem is that they are simply set too difficult in terms of the early appearance of ridiculous spoilers (particularly those dreadful Entertainment/TV & Film/Music fiascos on the Paragon games) for most punters to stand any chance of even a small win. Obviously it's a tricky balance to pull off - making games appealing to the majority of players without leaving them too open - but more and more it seems to me that the games companies are locked in a vicious circle - not taking enough on their games so making them harder and with prizes that aren't worth bothering with, hence not attracting players, so deciding to make the next version or new game harder and with poorer prizes...
I know a pub landlord in Abingdon who has watched me playing his machine for several years, back to 2004 when Pepsi Music Quiz was out and he thought at first that I was cheating by knowing so many of the answers. He plays a few games himself and knows all his regulars that do so and he said the same to me when I popped in last week - people just get deterred when they get some ludicrous question that no one could know, or even hazard a guess at, before they've even got close to winning a prize.
It would be nice to think some company would be brave enough to break this cycle but maybe the other factors - too many alternative ways to spend that spare cash, fewer pubs, fewer machines in those pubs that are left, the money being split amongst too many games, £70 JPs on fruit machines etc - are all too strong now to turn back. Whatever the case, it certainly seems more and more to me like the end of an era.
Old quiz machines players don't die, we just run out of answers...
I think you are also right re punters not playing the 'more serious' games, which basically means Paragons plus one or two of the last tranche of Open games if you get there first. Here I'd say the problem is that they are simply set too difficult in terms of the early appearance of ridiculous spoilers (particularly those dreadful Entertainment/TV & Film/Music fiascos on the Paragon games) for most punters to stand any chance of even a small win. Obviously it's a tricky balance to pull off - making games appealing to the majority of players without leaving them too open - but more and more it seems to me that the games companies are locked in a vicious circle - not taking enough on their games so making them harder and with prizes that aren't worth bothering with, hence not attracting players, so deciding to make the next version or new game harder and with poorer prizes...
I know a pub landlord in Abingdon who has watched me playing his machine for several years, back to 2004 when Pepsi Music Quiz was out and he thought at first that I was cheating by knowing so many of the answers. He plays a few games himself and knows all his regulars that do so and he said the same to me when I popped in last week - people just get deterred when they get some ludicrous question that no one could know, or even hazard a guess at, before they've even got close to winning a prize.
It would be nice to think some company would be brave enough to break this cycle but maybe the other factors - too many alternative ways to spend that spare cash, fewer pubs, fewer machines in those pubs that are left, the money being split amongst too many games, £70 JPs on fruit machines etc - are all too strong now to turn back. Whatever the case, it certainly seems more and more to me like the end of an era.
Old quiz machines players don't die, we just run out of answers...
I saw a Pub Quiz with a £10 Jackpot on a Games Warehouse/Paragon the other day. First time I have ever seen this. Is this common/old news/a new style or possibly even a test.
And Pub Quiz is one of the few playable quiz games for a bit of fun, as the hard questions tend to be just that. Hard questions rather than unfair spoilers. You feel a lot less gutted being done out of a win by lack of knowledge than by not knowing which act was placed 13th in the charts in March 1963 or whatever Channel 4 top 100 they have copied the results of.
And Pub Quiz is one of the few playable quiz games for a bit of fun, as the hard questions tend to be just that. Hard questions rather than unfair spoilers. You feel a lot less gutted being done out of a win by lack of knowledge than by not knowing which act was placed 13th in the charts in March 1963 or whatever Channel 4 top 100 they have copied the results of.
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QuizMaster
- Senior Member
- Posts: 1254
- Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 12:40 pm
Pub Quiz is full of spoilers and 'Who was number 63 in the Channel 4 Greatest Kid's TV Shows' type questions.
It's just cleverly done because it kills most players with its hard questions before you even see those.
Mainly because you only get 1 Try Again. The YW£20 game technically has about 8 Try Agains which is why it's littered with inane spoilers.
It's just cleverly done because it kills most players with its hard questions before you even see those.
Mainly because you only get 1 Try Again. The YW£20 game technically has about 8 Try Agains which is why it's littered with inane spoilers.
Stupid punters. Telly all the week, screw the wife Saturday
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Matt Vinyl
- Senior Member
- Posts: 7198
- Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 6:56 pm
- Location: Lost in the outback, Bryan
Ten quid jackpot PQ is common round these parts. I can snaffle a few fivers now and then. And have had a couple of tenners when it has done the 'easy streak'... Which is certainly a lot rarer now. But other than that I bomb out far too easily now.
Still miffed that PLD has removed itself from most units around here after one win generally...
On the topic of battleships though (the GW variant),a week or back a chum and I answered upwards of 40 questions to get to the 'cash' round.
Made 10p
Between us...
Still miffed that PLD has removed itself from most units around here after one win generally...
On the topic of battleships though (the GW variant),a week or back a chum and I answered upwards of 40 questions to get to the 'cash' round.
Made 10p
Between us...
"And do you ever contradict yourself, Minister?" "Well, yes and no..."
Au contraire, mon ami. Pub Quiz has, as just one example, a list of what could well be all the films ever made whose title begins with the word 'The'. There is also a similar list of books. You are asked to say which was released/written first, which for me is about as Spoily as it gets in Spoiler Land.messiah wrote:Hard questions rather than unfair spoilers.
The genius of Pub Quiz is how well the questions are graded so that you always seem to get so close to a prize every time, or maybe just to £1 if you are doing well, before this sort of questions kick in. Its longevity is evidence of how well it controls its payout percentage. Personally I have always looked for something more worthwhile to play first, but other opinions are of course available...
Well, we seem to be agreeing, that at my level of quizzing the questions are hard rather than spoilers.Nil Satis wrote:Au contraire, mon ami. Pub Quiz has, as just one example, a list of what could well be all the films ever made whose title begins with the word 'The'. There is also a similar list of books. You are asked to say which was released/written first, which for me is about as Spoily as it gets in Spoiler Land.messiah wrote:Hard questions rather than unfair spoilers.
The genius of Pub Quiz is how well the questions are graded so that you always seem to get so close to a prize every time, or maybe just to £1 if you are doing well, before this sort of questions kick in. Its longevity is evidence of how well it controls its payout percentage. Personally I have always looked for something more worthwhile to play first, but other opinions are of course available...
That may however be putting down my level of quizzing....
harsh but fair