The beginning of the end - what are your plans?

[Mystery_Plum]

You never know though. Astra might deliver some reel great games, they make the best Lo techs, so let's see how their hi techs pan out.

A delicious pun there AMK, intentional or otherwise

[redlinesman]

The thought of reel based being on digital wouldn't be the end but this is now widespread change on the horizon. Previous worries have never materialised, but finally the digital age is upon us, it should of come in years ago or at least that was the plan. Now the major players in the industry are going digital it's finally happening for real, make no bones about it. The gamestec cabinets were trialled, then they were tested in many of gamestec's category A portfolio, the results were sucessfull paving the way for a new era. Digitals are a whole different dimension to reel based and the possibilities of software and program checks means that most of the errors we have seen with reel based simply will not happen. I mentioned new remote analysis being implemented a year ago, but things tend to move slowly in the industry and it will be used with all the new digital offerings, leaving little room for maniplulation. It looks bad, I'm not going to say no one will ever be able to make a penny again but the days of of making a decent living will almost certainly disappear.

If you did find out a method on a particular game can you imagine trying to judge when an individual game was going to be worth playing, sounds horrific.

[silent g]

ill just start mugging grannys outside the bingo hall again if fruits go down the pan!

[eurovision1984]

the first fruit machine in a pub that i ever played & emptied legally, was a £2 jackpot hyper viper.
it was a weird feeling emptying the viper as i was only 16 years old at the time.

[titchno1]

G- just make sure you mug them on the way in, because they are usually skint on way out!

[anfield road]

This could be the start of something even better though? When its over its over, no point speculating!! Until the days of being able to make £300 at least in a week are gone then its still a good job!!!
Lugsy is right, same doom merchants. I bet he drags this thread up in a year and its still all the same

[silent g]

the way i see it is, the programmers are programmers, and when they stop programming pub fruits they will look for a job programming other types of gaming machines, and the bent ones will still put bugs and methods in the programs and we will still do well.
hopefully.

[spa]

Can't see them just binning off tens of thousands of machines, just to put a digital one or more in.

I'm edging towards a much bigger game plan. Very clever too.

Buying Bell Fruit and Gamestec is a clever move. With no competition from the likes of Barcrest, Novamatic will have full control. The likes or Sceptre and Keeday to name a couple will have nothing to buy and Novamatic can then force their way into every pub in the country. Every pub will end up with a Novamatic machine, made by Novamatic.

^^^ If that is the case, they will make stupid amounts of money.

[mr lugsy]

they'll then have a monopoly in every pub lol

hat's off to our monopoly winner!

[trayhop123]

we keep saying as long as they remain percentage based , then there will always be room for us. and that currently their may be a legality that prevents random's being in the pub sector .

but self checking software , could get around this , and make percentage gaming effectively random .


right now , we take a feature that we know for example is a 100% no more than a 5ver ,,,,,,,,,, but a clever self aware program could break and change every features limitations on the fly, so the pro has no idea what that feature is gonna pay ,,,,,, each time different to the last,,,,,, putting us on even footing with average joe munter ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and the machine will still make percentage .


that would leave forcing i hear you say. ,,,,,,,,,,,,, the machine could charge a mandatory 150 plus when it detects forcing ,,,,,, no matter how buzzing its tits off we think it is ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, go flat ,,,,,,, and distribute the extra money between those features again.


so still legally percentage based ,,,,,,,,,,,, but ya mam has as much chance of getting a decent win out of it as you do




could happen

[AMK]

Good on Astra I say. Might make Global draw realise that they need to get their act together, squeezing the licensing conditions on a storm game cost them the Hills contract.

I wonder if Astra will try to compete within the FOBT sector, who knows, A-Serving up Roulette. Catchy :p

Electrocoin were famous for making many lotechs. They went on to make Many playable hitch machines. You all worry too much :p

[redlinesman]

This widespread forecast change is a disaster.

[jeffvickers]

As I've said before on here, digital is bad news due to the vast choice of games the munter can play. If a pub chain such as Wetherspoons has 4 units, its like having 60 different machines in 1 pub, and there are not enough munters around to buzz up 60 games in 3 or 4 days unlike single unit traditional reel based games. The only way a player is going to manage to break over 50% regular profit is to sit in a pub all day hawking an addict on the particular game he is potentially buzzing up.

I've noticed a lot of munters go for these new Roulelette based games on Juice & GT Digital and I couldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

The only hope we have is that a new start-up company with some good programmers sticking with traditional Reel-based games. Its a shame a company like Empire Games cannot pull their fingers out of their arse and bring out something decent, though I expect the big firms hold the patents to all the old stuff, so maybe their hands are tied. I would love to see more Winstepper/Red Gaming/Temple of Treasure/Barcrest/Arabian Nights/Big Brother tried out on £70.
Nearest we got to that was Psycho Cash Beast 2. Sceptre still have a few of these flying around in the North West and they are pretty easy to read.

[jeffvickers]

Even Silent G will have to read that and think, 'That Jeff Vickers isn't so bad after all'..

Until I post THAT photo again! lol

[jeffvickers]

I think we've kissed and made up over a few PM's last year.