A tiny ray of light?

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 4:33 pm

I was interested to see my first example last night of what may be a general innovation or may simply be an experiment by one machine company. In one of my locals the standard Paragon had had a flatscreen TV attached to the top of it in order to play the 'attract modes' from a few of the newer games and the tournaments to try to attract interest. I remember some other machine trying something similar a few years back, but then the second screen actually displayed whatever game you were currently playing (old age has removed the details - can anyone remember what I mean?).

The machine company in question was Recaf, but I couldn't find any mention of this new concept from a quick scan of their website. Whether this is their own idea or comes from GWHL, it is nice at least to see the light finally dawning from somewhere that the only future the industry has is in attracting back ordinary punters to play their games and hence increase turnover, rather than seemingly wasting all their time and efforts in worrying about how to make things harder for the tiny minority able to win reasonable amounts of money consistently. If that penny has finally dropped then maybe, just maybe, things will start to improve.

As a good example of the way things are otherwise heading, I 'treated myself' to a day's playing in London on Saturday. On a route of 12 pubs that all had machines in the last 12-18 months, I found 6 with no quiz machine - they either still had fruit machines or they had no machine at all. A 50% loss in that time span in busy (but mainly 'non-touristy') areas of London tells you all you need to know.

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:14 pm

Interesting. What would be really useful, of course, is knowing how the number of machines in circulation has grown or shrunk. In the past, I've always put a positive spin on things i.e. every time a pub which has always had a machine loses it, another pub somewhere else (which maybe never even had a machine before) gains one - you just have to find out where it's moved. What would be really worrying, of course, would be that machines which vanish in the current climate are vanishing for good...

Northern Monkey · Post by **Northern Monkey** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:44 pm

Out of interest, which part of town was this in NS?

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:44 pm

For me there's a definite trend for pubs to be (I can't think of a better word) 'gentrified'. There are any number of good reasons for this - a much higher concentration on food sales (which seem to have a considerably higher margin than drinks), being more appealing to women, the smoking ban means they can actually have a chance of succeeding, just generally becoming more comfortable and attractive places. Part of this trend seems to the belief that machines of any sort - quiz, fruit, pinball, juke box etc - are not part of the required image they want to portray. This was certainly the case in 3 of the 6 'lost venues' in London on Saturday, where there were no electronic games of any sort.

Thinking of Oxford, there are several examples of just this sort of gentrification - the Chequers, St Aldates, the Oxford Retreat, the Cowley Retreat and I'm sure there's others.

These pubs are unlikely to ever go back to how they were, for the reasons I stated, but equally as worrying are the places that have had quiz machines for years and no longer have them, but still keep their fruit machines. I'm thinking of places like Harvester and Wetherspoon's. The Harvesters clearly have a general policy that some of their pubs are being gentrified in exactly the way I describe, but even some of the unrefurbished ones have replaced their quiz machines with things like those toy grabbers for kids. Wetherspoon's is even more surprising - I know of several that have had one (or more) quiz machines from the day they opened that no longer have one, but they are still usually full of fruit machines as anyone on here will realise.

The assumption that quiz machines will simply be moved may not be a true one - machines will only be moved to a new location if the operators can convince the pub chains, or individual landlords, that they will pay their way. If a chain the size of Wetherspoon's can no longer see the financial viability of siting even one quiz machine alongside as many as eight fruit machines, that's not an assumption you'd feel sure in making.

There is of course the parallel issue of pubs closing and disappearing for good, meaning fewer sites are available for any relocation, and there a few other types of venue - arcades, service stations and to a lesser extent bowling alleys - that were once possible sites but where quiz machines have all but disappeared.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:50 pm

Northern Monkey wrote:Out of interest, which part of town was this in NS?

Waterloo and surrounds, over the river to The Strand, plus Paddington station. Two old venues (one at each of the stations) had either closed or physically disappeared but I didn't include those in the count of lost machines.

I did leave a magnificent (well, higher than Northern Monkey's) score on one of the Word Soups on what was otherwise a pretty dismal day... ;-)

paragoon · Post by **paragoon** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 8:59 pm

There's a Yates up here which has had one of those for a while. I find it pretty off-putting that the whole pub can sit and watch how freakishly good I am at certain games!
You're right about the amount of pubs closing or dispensing with machines - I keep meaning to do a survey walking round one of the city centres I'm most familiar with and noting down how many pubs or machines have gone. Never seem to get round to it though.

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 10:08 pm

Our local Ember Inn (Mitchell and Butlers) which has had a quiz machine since the 1980's has given up the ghost being replaced by a potted plant.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:45 am

paragoon wrote:There's a Yates up here which has had one of those for a while. I find it pretty off-putting that the whole pub can sit and watch how freakishly good I am at certain games!

Unless I've misunderstood you, that sounds like one of the old machines I was trying to recall, where the second screen actually displayed the game currently being played. I only saw a few examples of those and at a guess that was at least 5 years ago, but maybe someone has decided to reintroduce the concept or perhaps it's just never gone away in that particular pub. The extra screen on the machine I played on Tuesday didn't display the current game; instead it just kept playing the attract modes from Whack a Wabbit and Wizard of Oddz plus an additional loop highlighting the tournaments.

paragoon wrote:You're right about the amount of pubs closing or dispensing with machines - I keep meaning to do a survey walking round one of the city centres I'm most familiar with and noting down how many pubs or machines have gone. Never seem to get round to it though.

I do keep records of venues, machines and most recent visit dates so I don't have to guess these things. I've seen similar 50% loss rates over a year or so in various places around the South East. It is by no means everywhere and I accept that I don't know anything like every pub in the area but it is definitely a trend in certain locations.

messiah · Post by **messiah** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 1:00 pm

Nil Satis wrote:Waterloo and surrounds, over the river to The Strand, plus Paddington station. Two old venues (one at each of the stations) had either closed or physically disappeared but I didn't include those in the count of lost machines.

I did leave a magnificent (well, higher than Northern Monkey's) score on one of the Word Soups on what was otherwise a pretty dismal day... ;-)

From the lack of information, presumably you failed to beat the top scores in the Wellington or the HITW.... ;-)

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:04 pm

Unless my memory is failing me I managed to post decent (for me) Wordsoupery scores in both those venues, although to be fair I can't claim for certain that I made top spot in either - I'm really not in the top division on that fine game. However as both machines in question were the really poor Opens with virtually nothing else worth playing I suspect it will be a long time indeed before I revisit either pub in order to confirm this.

On this subject, can anyone else suggest a pub more deserving of its name, in London or elsewhere, than 'The Hole in the Wall'? ;-)

messiah · Post by **messiah** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:11 pm

To be honest Bob was with me in both places so my contribution will have been minimal.... although that won't have stopped me taking my share of the profits*

* profits recently are actually losses....