Game Over

[streakseims]

they have options, they can change what games are on there, If you select Tourny games it removes fruit machine and vice versa

some just have quiz section where Tri Towers is........

[paragoon]

Seeing how rigged the quiz games are god only knows what playing roulette on those would be like!!

[cool]

yes

[cp999]

Eggheads which essentially could just have everything correct and even if you were Brain of the Universe you'd be stuck in an endless Sudden Death.

False. Doesn't (or rather, didn't) work like that.

It's not Game Over yet but there certainly aren't many Try Agains left for the business.

If it does come to an end, the business has only itself to blame. Your ceaseless negativity does amuse me: I accept things are not at their best just now, but you were complaining right left and centre during a period where I was making so much money I really should have acquired some disgustingly bad pharmaceutical habits in a desperate attempt to dispose of it

Back to "the business": the industry attitude is shocking. We have one major company indulging in behaviour which is pretty close to outright fraud. Another major company can't write their game loader to function properly, and it's only been like that for about three years, if not more - thankfully the game affected most by it is crap anyway. It doesn't seem to occur to programmers that games don't necessarily port reliably from one terminal to others. Gamesnets are so antiquated they can't animate shuffles properly. Designers appear scared shitless of pros - why? How many genuinely organised and dedicated ones are actually still out there? (I don't mean people who are topping up their wages a little bit and making beer money). Games Warehouse seem to have rewritten their coin acceptor detection software so that it's vastly more prone to coin errors: I've played thousands and thousands of them and only had one coin error in several years until the recent update, since which I've had it regularly. Their terminals often stop taking coins for no apparent reason (as opposed to the stop taking coins after payout fault algorithm). I could go on and on.. it's just laissez-faire incompetence and poor judgement.

[Captain.Tattybojangles]

[quote="cp999"]False. Doesn't (or rather, didn't) work like that.

Well that's fair if it's the case. I've nothing to back up what I said...Just got low expectations of the kindness of games sometimes lol

[cp999]

False. Doesn't (or rather, didn't) work like that.

Well that's fair if it's the case. I've nothing to back up what I said...Just got low expectations of the kindness of games sometimes lol

Oh, it could have worked that way. But in practice it was honest and gave you chances if you kept answering.

[Nil Satis]

I spotted a new low in machine content at the weekend - a 'Paragon Lite' with the following games in the Quiz Zone:

- Million Pound Drop
- Foxy Bingo
- House of Tiny Treasures
- Deal or No Deal (No Questions)

and ... that was it! Four games and only one of them an actual quiz game. It's very hard to believe that anyone at GWHL (or elsewhere) could ever have thought this was a good idea but presumably someone must have done, and they wonder why pubs are removing their quiz machines in droves...

[JG]

They may as well go back to standalone titles with additional peripheral nonsense an optional extra.
MPD could do well enough on its own?

[Cf]

I think that less games is surely a good thing, but they'd have to be good games.

The quiz machine is one way I get the gf interested at the pub. Her favourite game is Word Soup. We also enjoy Hex, PMP, and Monopoly.

But the problem is if we win at any of these games at the local then they're not worth playing again for at least a month. We go and play Word Soup a week later and it wants 1900 for £1.

Less games at least means they'll get some play and can be potentially worth playing again. They just have to be good games. Same idea as all the digital fruit machine nonsense we have to put up with. Loads and loads of games is just crap.

[Nil Satis]

In theory less games should be played more but sadly I think that that genie has long been let out of the bottle, and you just can't go back to standalone machines or similar. People are used to far more choice generally than in the days when the quiz machine in the pub was still a relative novelty and, as has been noted on here many times, there are simply many more alternatives available if you are looking to play some form of skill-based game. Removing people's favourite games is much more likely to lead to them simply keeping their spare change in their pocket.

Of the four games in this example, Million Pound Drop is certainly one of the most popular current Q&A games but it isn't going to carry a machine on its own. The House of Tiny Treasures is also reasonably popular, but on all my travels I have never witnessed a single instance of anyone playing either Foxy Bingo or Deal or No Deal (No Questions) - not even once. Having only those four games available is really just a case of raising the white flag and I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see no machine at all on my next visit to the same location.

[cool]

For somebody who is so negative or realistic the satis and efc footprint still looms on machines. Strange how the keeness to play is still there or old habits die hard.

[Nil Satis]

'Keenness to play' translates as still needing the extra money!

I do still travel reasonably widely and that is why I feel qualified to post on here at all - on many topics that interest people (e.g. politics, most sports, TV) I don't really have much of an opinion, certainly not a strong one anyway, but the fact that several times a week virtually every week I'm seeing the evidence of changes in machines and pub policies in lots of different locations means that I feel able to comment. Only the few remaining pros will have a better idea in the sense of visiting more venues more regularly and their views would I suspect be even more skewed than mine in terms of what they are looking for.

I do wonder what the pros' breaking point will be in terms of deciding to seek out a new 'profession' - I'd estimate I've lost for good about 25% of all my known machines in the last year, with another 10-20% on top of that being replacement machines that just aren't worth repeat visits, like that 'four game' effort I spotted at the weekend. Major chains like Wetherspoon's have clearly decided it is no longer a requirement to have a quiz machine any longer - I've gone from knowing of just one machine-free (non-airport) Spoons in a year to about 30, whereas they were always guaranteed to have at least one and often more. What is the critical mass of machines you need to make all the travelling worthwhile?

Anyway, no one is going to wipe out my Word Soup footprints for a long time, now that the real word mavens have seemingly hung up their thesauruses for good... ;-)

[trayhop123]

I do wonder what the pros' breaking point will be in terms of deciding to seek out a new 'profession'

A good question for the entire board

[GaryChandler]

When i stop making money!

[cool]

Bob Marley said "better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life"

Working for an employer is slavery no matter how much you are paid unless you can honestly say you love the job you do. I have done exactly what I want when I want for the last 23years and it aint going to change no matter how bad the swp's are!