At this point someone should be pointing out that this thread has veered wildly from the original topic (cool's assertion that Fat Spanner would take over from GWHL as market leaders, in what actually sounds like a very dodgy way) but as so many posts have now been added it would seem picky in the extreme. So ... erm ... I won't.
In terms of the issue that has taken over the thread, if I had my Worzel-Gummidge-style Optimistic Head on I'd suggest that the legal changes will encourage reversion to straight Q&A games with little or no bells and whistles and properly graded question sets that allowed punters the encouragement of regular small wins while making larger wins available (on a necessarily cyclical basis) to those who were capable of pursuing them.
My Worzel-Gummidge-style Pessimistic Head has however been seeing a lot of the current machines recently for various reasons and can't shake the thought that there are teams of people (designers, programmers, sales people) working today in the SWP industry who can look at something like that KUDOS Famous Five edition (spotted another tonight), or the fiercely cautious set of Fat Spanner games that are the current Open offering, or that godawful Ind:e release, and actually think 'Yes, this is a good idea'. My Pessimistic Head really struggles to understand those minds and can only foresee such teams of people releasing endless sets of trivial games with tiny jackpots - this is the only way I can see them thinking they will still make money in the new environment.
As for cool's original point, all Fat Spanner needed to do to be real stars in the market would have been to take the Open releases from a couple of years ago and fix that bloody menu system. With their current set of releases - where the only passable game offers a £5 JP for a £1 stake, and the "50p screen" is like a jumble sale of worthless tat - there's no chance of them taking over.
Right, must go and dig out that rarely used Worzel-Gummidge-style Trying In Vain To See The Northern Lights Head...
.where the only passable game offers a £5 JP for a £1 stake, and the "50p screen" is like a jumble sale of worthless tat - there's no chance of them taking over.
A couple of years ago the menu system was shocking and I was the main critic of it.
Yes the latest offering isnt the best and it does seem odd that their policy is not to emphasise the amount of the jackpot on a game*.Ater all, if the size of the jackpot offered didnt matter publicans wouldnt spend so much time banging on about the jp of fruit machines being so low.But the difference is (1) in the main (not pro's) thickos play fruities who thick they can win and believe in luck forgetting the percentage and the pro's mean their chance of winning is virtually zero. (2) the minority of Fruit Machine thickos who play quiz machines know they are going to lose,the casual player knows but little wins along the way keep them happy.There are also no swp's with monster jackpots in casinos or bookies so there is no pressure on pubs to compete. *that is not supposition but fact
of course sometimes its easy to forget that the machines are constructed in order to thwart us and not for us. If somebody posted about a company with nothing but gushing praise the company would wonder what the hell was going on.But having said that there has not been a single time that I have had a feeling of resentment from anybody in the gaming industry and that includes Games Wrehouse.Their collective attitude is if you can win fairly good luck to you.
'Jackpot' is not allowed to be associated with SWP anymore... ...No idea why, but apparently the concept of 'Jackpot' inheres in the doctrine of gambling...
"And do you ever contradict yourself, Minister?" "Well, yes and no..."
The ones who you said Brewis was associated with who had the website, who compiled questions sets for SWP games. This was a few years ago or did I dream it?
No, but as I said at the time, to my knowledge they haven't ever done any setting for SWPs. Brewis' Big Match "talents" were down to his own skill rather than any underhanded involvement in question-setting etc.
grecian wrote:
The ones who you said Brewis was associated with who had the website, who compiled questions sets for SWP games. This was a few years ago or did I dream it?
No, but as I said at the time, to my knowledge they haven't ever done any setting for SWPs. Brewis' Big Match "talents" were down to his own skill rather than any underhanded involvement in question-setting etc.
I just seem to remember that at the time they adverstised that very service on their website. Anyone remember the URL?
Ha. I see BFG and JPM have had questions off them. There's also a picture of Brewis playing Big Match with his tart.
Maybe they should have a tab which shows Brewis and his mountain of £ coins from 'The Sun' with a tagline of 'After we've written your SWP questions at a competitive price', we'll go round the country and shaft all your games.
Genius. Wish I'd thought of it.
QM
Stupid punters. Telly all the week, screw the wife Saturday
QuizMaster wrote:Ha. I see BFG and JPM have had questions off them. There's also a picture of Brewis playing Big Match with his tart.
Hehe, my bad - didn't know they'd written for those two. Still don't think it had anything to do with Big Match though - Brewis definitely learnt them from scratch in the traditional manner.
The foul stench of the spoiler question bubbled with aplomb, effervescing with alarming rapidity into the dark outreaches of the cave.
Dirty great globules of slime of varying viscosities, slid down the sides of the stained cauldron, on top of the Nudgestove, hitting the baking metallic surface.
"One final stir Robin, and then, we have it! The biggest stinker spoiler question of them all!"
The final stir and then an almighty explosion, a pressurised gurgle of slime, Nudgeman stabbed the USB memory stick into the side of the cauldron and the slime vanished, the evil almost translucent gungey goo, converted to a fraction of a megabyte.
Could this be a spoiler good enough to destroy the evil Brewis? Could this be used in round one of pub quiz to thwart Quizmaster?
Hi everyone: I'm posting here in response to the allegations that QuizQuizQuiz writes quiz questions for SWPs then sends people out to win money from said games. It is quite a long post, but I wanted to give a full response.
I'm the managing director of QuizQuizQuiz, and happy to speak to any of our customers (or indeed anyone else) who read this forum, and may have been alarmed by the suggestions of dodgy behaviour on our part.
Having said that, I can see why the allegations were made, so I shall explain:
1. David Brewis, our technical director, did indeed win large amounts of money from the Mazooma game "Big Match" between 2003 and 2006. This culminated in the game being removed from terminals, and the subsequent featuring of David Brewis in the Sun newspaper.
At the time, QuizQuizQuiz had only one line of business: running pub and corporate quiz nights - which is still the main source (approx. 70%) of our revenue.
We set our first quiz questions for SWPs in March-May 2007, although these were all for the US market. The first questions we set for a British machine was not until 2008, when we formally launched, and started pushing our question writing service.
At the time of the "Big Match" coverage in the Sun, we had never set a single question for a SWP.
At the time, it helped our business to show that we were quiz addicts, which is why we put it on our News page. Now, the presence of that story is counterproductive as it (quite understandably) indicates a possible conflict of interest since we are in the question writing business now.
2. Only three people in QuizQuizQuiz have access to our question writing databases (plural as we have to keep separation when customers want unique and exclusive content). David Brewis and his wife (she works full-time for us) do NOT have access. They only work on the quiz nights side of the business (and in David's case, only very occasionally as he is too busy with his main job).
3. People who write quiz questions for QuizQuizQuiz, including the two full-time question writers, sign a confidentiality agreement that includes the following wording:
"Under this agreement, you may not reveal anything about our work, or the work you are doing on our behalf (either to discuss it or show it) to anyone outside QuizQuizQuiz without first obtaining the written permission of a Director. Specifically, you may not reveal – either in a social or professional setting – your role or the role of QuizQuizQuiz in any work directly for QuizQuizQuiz or on behalf of the clients of QuizQuizQuiz. The above applies both to the content and the nature of the work. It does not apply to any situation in which your role is, by its very nature, made public, which may include any role you may have in hosting a Quiz Night. It does specifically include any question writing, question editing, or question compilation that you may do on our behalf, including question compilation during a quiz night.
In addition, you may not use the information gained through your work with us to benefit in any direct or indirect manner. This applies specifically to any circumstances where you have had access to Quiz Questions. This includes, but is not limited to, attempting to participate in or influence any event, show, or competition, which uses QuizQuizQuiz questions."
4. Of our clients in the SWP world (nowadays most of our clients are actually in the mobile gaming world), none have ever told us which machines/databases we are writing for. They all have multiple sources of questions. They generally require evidence of question security at our end, and usually require us to sign various confidentiality agreements.
5. Unrelated to the main allegation, but since it was posted as if it was something we had done wrong...the suggestion that we have now somehow worked our way into the rectal passage (metaphorically or otherwise) of Bamber Gascoigne... Well we do know him and have worked with him. We did not know that he was going to name-check us in the article he wrote for the newspaper. I found out about it from Google News Alerts. And anyone who runs a business who gets a positive mention like this is going to link it on their website, which is exactly what we did.
As I say - please get in touch if you want any more information on how we do things.
jackwcohen wrote: (and in David's case, only very occasionally as he is too busy with his main job).
Jack Waley-Cohen
Which is dicking quiz machines, no doubt.
QM, what would you say is your "main job"? i happen to know that Brewis does a mainstream, socially-productive job.
i have no link to QQQ or any other industry scion but surely it is counterproductive to grumble indiscriminately. especially about a medium which pays for your new kitchens. and yes, i am just jealous of your beyootiful, shiny pans whereas mine are all covered in jizz.
