full time

[Cardinal Sin]

nice post mr hop.

[grandslam88]

ive been at this longer than most, and ive said this before in another thread, but when it all comes crashing down, (and i for one firmly believe 2years max) to the point where it simply isnt worth going out any more, then it wont just affect me financially, it will affect me mentally aswell ,,,, now before all the cries of bullshit start flooding in let me explain

like many others, ive known nothing else but this life, having never had a conventional job,
it will be far more than a financial upset, (that alone will hurt, im not gonna pretend it wont ),but for me (and im sure i speek for other life term players) the psychological upsets will be far greater ,,,,,, no1 no other skills to speek of (i cant even wire a plug or put a shelf up lol),. so this means the bottom of the employment ladder, no2 no qualifications (see no1 lol).,,,,,,,,,,, no3 and perhaps the biggest mental stigma is that because we have lived to our own devices for so long, i have no respect for authority ,,,, (no i dont mean the law) i mean, i wouldn't be able to take orders from a boss of anykind, let alone be told ive got to be somewhere at 7am every morning, or sweep up (fuck off you sweep up lol)
im just saying that this lifestyle has spoiled many of us and mold'ed us into the personality traits we have now ,

here's a question for you to ponder ,,,,,, you see a brand new tv costing a grand in a shop window you quite fancy, do you A save up for it like a regular 9 to 5 joe, or B just buy it on a whim because your a rich slotter...???? exactly

im not asking for sympathy lol, im loaded lol but that wouldn't last long sitting on my arse doin nowt ,,,,,,
im just saying people should realise the massive psychological personality change that will come when its all over ,,,,,, trying to blend back into normal society sounds a nightmare to me, of course i know a few of us might try to open businesses, and be our own bosses but thats easier said than done

i dont expect thoughtful intelligent reply's of people in this game short term/part time, you haven't developed the mind set yet and probably will just see me as a spoilt whinging twat, and the sad thing is your right i most probably am.

but im definitely not the only one who's riding this train, and its the other passengers on it with me that id'e be most interested in hearing reply's from.

well said is that.

i was playing between 1991 till around 2005 full time , was very easy money, but hard work work. i would say 2003 /4 was the most profitable period with the golden games when only around 6 people in the uk knew how to do them properly, it was the time of the vivids and while every tom dick and harry were fighting over them the GG were easy money as u did all 3 in one go.

it was the vivid period that started to kill the industry off. im going to stick my neck out here but im sure many of u will agree that alot of new players started via the vivids. that was the period it started the rot.

there were also loads of slams around then, now all u can see is video style vegas machines. the same goes with the awp market. if you go into a quicksilver now its all mainly lo techs with video style, within 2 years i would say it would all be like this, and changing a game would be very easy in those cabinets.

it took me till 1 year from 2005 to realise we have to move on. when u start losing that advantage over the machines thats when u have to re-think. how many times have u been stung on a machine nowadays compared with 10 to 15 years ago.

yes there will be always tricks around but they dont last 2 mins now. ultimately threre will be like vegas style where its all pot luck. i didnt really want to play forever and thought when im 50 do i really want to be going out looking for machines ?

i got out at the right time, made hay while the sun shined but now took 2 years to get to where i am now, good job and a house. put it this way with a regular accountable income it does your credit report wonders.

initially it was hard taking orders from people at work but got used to it after a while, only makes u determined to climb to the top. however no one knows anything about the past.

i still play once a week still some old stuff around . i few other people that i know of also got out same time as me and they seem to be doing ok now. however i dont regret any minute of it and wouldnt change it for the world and would defo do it again but staying off roulette tables.

[redlinesman]

Disagree with a lot of that to be honest. Would hardly say 2005 was the right time to get out and certainly don't think vivids spelt the end at all. Been some great machines out in the last few years and when ziggys, cabin fevers and panthes were out for the first 18months-2years hardly any of the playing population were onto them, and Im not bothered who says they've played them from the beginning, because most simply were not. Supose on the positive side, you've got a job and it might work out better for you in the long run.

[trayhop123]

gotta agree with grandslam that vivids were the start of the end ,,,,,,, think about it ,,,,, out came a series of machines that required no skill whatsoever ,,,,, any chav in a baseball cap could play em ,,, only cost you a board to find out if it was worth going for or not,,,, this spread with the huge impact mobile phones were having and suddenly there were a million more players , and landlord awareness went through the roof overnight ,,,,,,,,,, dont get me wrong , i made a packet on them aswell , but the wheels of decline were def set in motion...

[PMK]

Grandlsam - Seen as tho its yonks old now is there any chance you(or anyone else) could pm me the GS method? I know where there are a couple of £250 ones(or at least they were there a couple of months ago)

With regards to things dying away after Vivids? Not in my opinion, YES that era introduced a whole new bunch of players but things have been pretty good since. Extremes? Zoomas? The odd bearded one letting us all make a few extra quid? £35 GGG's were absolutely HUGE before the nasty chips. Numerous other lo-tecs are still good earners. Still lots of current stuff around that your, wait for it.....Vivid Pro.......can't get on with.

[trayhop123]

nobody's saying things have died since vivids ,,,, quite the opposite, im still at present making great regular money, im just saying that vivids have definitely played there part towards the direction the industry is taking ,......
there's stil a cpl of years left yet
im more interested in what people are going to find to do all day with their lives ,when the end finally arrives ?

i can envision myself sitting on a park bench having a long hard think (and perhaps a few tears ) about what to do with my life, im sure a lot of us picture opening arcades to try to keep our hands in, but even if you have the funds, thats easier said than done, requiring a whole new skill set, business nouse, planning, bylaws, health and safty regulations, etc etc the list goes on, plus turbulent times for the industry, how many of you would honestly gamble everything you've earned from the last 15years on such a risky venture,

ive mold'ed to far to ever work for somebody else, a job is simply out of the question, my mrs does ok trading gold on ebay, so maybe something along those lines, i dont know yet .

like i said, would honestly love to hear thoughts off others.

[GaryChandler]

I got a few places lined up for when pubs die out.

[grandslam88]

nobody's saying things have died since vivids ,,,, quite the opposite, im still at present making great regular money, im just saying that vivids have definitely played there part towards the direction the industry is taking ,......
there's stil a cpl of years left yet
im more interested in what people are going to find to do all day with their lives ,when the end finally arrives ?

i can envision myself sitting on a park bench having a long hard think (and perhaps a few tears ) about what to do with my life, im sure a lot of us picture opening arcades to try to keep our hands in, but even if you have the funds, thats easier said than done, requiring a whole new skill set, business nouse, planning, bylaws, health and safty regulations, etc etc the list goes on, plus turbulent times for the industry, how many of you would honestly gamble everything you've earned from the last 15years on such a risky venture,

ive mold'ed to far to ever work for somebody else, a job is simply out of the question, my mrs does ok trading gold on ebay, so maybe something along those lines, i dont know yet .

like i said, would honestly love to hear thoughts off others.

i know exactly how you fell , been there mate. took me the best part of 2 years that yes ive made a lot of money but also lost a lot playing roullette, making 2k on a few machines ina a day only to lose it ona trip down the casino.

also lost quite a bit playing s16 while there were out.

when i didnt play for a year, lost all my contacts , i realised i couldnt do this all my life, as it would end up like vegas machines in the future.

yes i still play maybe once a week , still some old machines in my local arcade that i enjoy playing.

put whatever money i had left ona deposit on a house and managed somehow during the last 2 years to get myself a job, and a mortgage.

only advice to you all is to save whatever money u earn and do something with it .

[redlinesman]

Never touched vivids to be honest, was to busy with impulses that very few people cared about. Must of found about 1 in every 50 that was dead, great times.

[harry13.50]

Never touched vivids to be honest, was to busy with impulses that very few people cared about. Must of found about 1 in every 50 that was dead, great times.

You mean soi and mw's ?

Apart from brute force and the above two machines, i dont think Impulse's were big money makers, there were plenty better machines around in 2000-2002.

[betchrider]

Never touched vivids to be honest, was to busy with impulses that very few people cared about. Must of found about 1 in every 50 that was dead, great times.

You just had it too late mate thats all or else youd've bothered,trust me

[ob]

New bfm's is all you find, this trend getting larger and larger... all very flat nothing you can do with them... I mean out of the last 100 pubs I've checked 90+ have all bfm NEW machines, ie. not win stopper or anything good.

[Spyder]

during vivids, what was there?

lock n load,
snake rattle roll + superholds
just the ticket/special brew

yeah, they were all money makers, but the vivids ment you could hammer every single pub you went in, so even if an emptyable wasnt there you could always rip a few quid from the vivids,

in the start of it, (and i managed to get this very very early on) it wouldnt cost more than a fiver to ten quid to get the machine going... imagine that, 10x your money on every machine, well for the first few weeks, then it got tighter.. but you still made £30 on each one..

i remember going around a couple of towns and seeing 20-30 vivid machines in a day, THEN going back to do the Superholds and some of the vivids being worth it again...

you DEFINITELY would have "bothered" if you had the info early enough


as for spin on it and mortal wombat, spin on it was what? 1999? mortal wombat 2003? dunno if youve got my dates right,

but if you were playing soi whist the vivids were out, then i feel really sorry for you! because you really were missing a lot.

[uber-pro]

In repsonce to Tray, its bloody scary.

I think the few of us who are full time and actually work quite hard have a good work eithic, which will go a long long way towards getting accustomed to working.

Self employment will the a goal for lots of us, but few will make it.

I evnisage a lot of depression and disability claims, legitimate ones too. You know your brain stops developing around about 25 - so what you've learned and the way of life is quiet set byt then. There are other jobs with a similar pattern, that'll suit easily tho, Fishing for Elvers, Driving a Taxi, Theft.

Then the guys without a work ethic, the ones that play full time, but do more drinking that anything else, they are on a slow boat to alcoholism and disability claims.

Then the other guys who've not really got the ability to look to the future, just say "meh", whatever, god knows what'll happen to them.

There will probably be a lot of Computeach type courses being taken up too. And failed.

As for vivids, they were good, but they were trouble. Spawned a lot of players, but if it wasn't vivids it was gonna be something else.

The simple fact is that Joe Public isn't stupid and it was only a matter or time before people realised fruit machine can be beaten, then they realise they are not the ones beating them, so stop playing. It's never been an industry that could last forever and I think its done well for its age already.

I'd say red's have done more "damage" than Vivids anyway.

And yeah, Jackpots are too high.

Dunno what I'm gonna do - Like the idea of New Zeland, maybe try and re-launch JPM style games over there! (See?!?!!!! No escape, we may not be addicted to machines anymore, but we are to the lifestyle)

[trayhop123]

uber m8 your the only one who has touched on the psychological aspects in your reply, its nice to know im not alone in my thinking, ...... but honestly keep em coming guys ,

what are you really planning to do with your lives when its all over






and if anyone sais retire, thats either bullshit or your a tooler :P