Combine the fruit machine and the quiz machine

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:51 am

This already happens to a small extent on the paragons,but I don't suppose anyone looking for a bit of a gamble in the hope of winning a decent prize plays them.Why not have a cabinet where as well as a standard digital bandit,quiz games are available? That way,a pub could still have the number of bandits it wanted,but also pick up a bit of income from the people who have no interest in playing bandits,but would pop the odd quid or two into a quiz machine.The machine would have an AMLD licence (or whatever it's called),so the game designers would have more scope in making sure the games were protected from superpro play.

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Sat Apr 11, 2015 12:52 pm

Sounds like a good idea in principle. One of the few times I've had to wait to get on a machine recently was because a bloke was playing from the gambling screen on a Paragon. To be honest, I was quite happy waiting, on the grounds that a cabinet which is taking money from gamblers is considerably less likely to turn out to be unable to pay out prizes. I'll admit my ignorance on all things fruity-related - are serious players not interested in these games, at least when there are stand-alone machines to play?

bubbles · Post by **bubbles** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 12:06 am

doubt that would interest hardly anyone from a financial point of view. a fruit can, and does take £50 off one person in 5 minutes....

Sloach · Post by **Sloach** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 5:26 am

The problem is that you'd be playing Match of the Day for 10 minutes for 50p while proper gamblers with 50 quid stand behind you waiting to get on the fruit machine screen. If they even wanted to play digital AWPs which they don't appear to.

There is one machine like this, and if it has £1 Hex then it would worth playing (once), but I have never seen one.

http://www.entnet.co.uk/games.html

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:41 am

Thanks for the link,Sloach.I think I have seen one or two of those before and assumed they were purely gambling machines.I take both your and bubbles' points - I'm not suggesting that such a machine would be a good idea for a pub that only has space for one or two bandits,but perhaps somewhere that has 6-8 (yes,you Wetherspoons).Nearly all of the time,at most 1 or 2 of them are in use.(And quite often at least one is by someone who has the air of a pro fruity player!)

paragoon · Post by **paragoon** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 5:59 pm

Topical2009 wrote:Sounds like a good idea in principle. One of the few times I've had to wait to get on a machine recently was because a bloke was playing from the gambling screen on a Paragon. To be honest, I was quite happy waiting, on the grounds that a cabinet which is taking money from gamblers is considerably less likely to turn out to be unable to pay out prizes. I'll admit my ignorance on all things fruity-related - are serious players not interested in these games, at least when there are stand-alone machines to play?

Considering that "Hopper Empty" sign pops up when you win £4 or something why bother gambling £50 notes for £100 that the machine won't give you?
Only real solution is better games with bigger jackpots.

Sloach · Post by **Sloach** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 6:20 pm

paragoon wrote:Considering that "Hopper Empty" sign pops up when you win £4 or something why bother gambling £50 notes for £100 that the machine won't give you?
Only real solution is better games with bigger jackpots.

But, given that that is clearly not going to happen, the only other solution is to enjoy the few that are left while they are there. The real (ex) pros have stopped posting in here so it's clear what's going on. It's over!

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 6:59 pm

Sloach wrote:But, given that that is clearly not going to happen, the only other solution is to enjoy the few that are left while they are there. The real (ex) pros have stopped posting in here so it's clear what's going on. It's over!

Well yes you're right about enjoying the few that remain - even if the industry comes to a juddering halt,there's still going to be a few knocking about I would have thought.I am intrigued by your comment that the real pros have stopped posting in here,who do you mean? And also,why would that have a correlation with the SWP situation?

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 12:10 pm

I think,paragoon that your comment that the 'Only real solution is better games with bigger jackpots' sums it up completely in the proverbial nutshell.What made them think that 'jackpots' of 60p were a good idea? Inspired by Sloach's comment about people not posting anymore,I found an old thread where cool had made a point,and QuizMaster (he may be one of the people Sloach was referring to) responded to it.To paraphrase,cool was saying that they should go back to the old days where it would sometimes be basically impossible to win the jackpot - a pro would realise this and move on,but your average punter wouldn't,and this situation worked well.QuizMaster pointed out that this was no longer possible with the 2010 SWP regulations.That's correct,but I absolutely agree with cool.That,combined with paragoon's point,makes me think that they should have such games but either under AWP regulations,or bend the SWP rules a little more.With the latter,I'm thinking something along the lines of the jackpot always being winnable but either requiring a level of speed in answering the questions that isn't consistently possible,or it being so time-consuming to win the jackpot that it wouldn't be worth it.
Your average punter who'll chuck a quid or two in a quizzy probably knows he only has a small chance of winning,but he'll be more enthused about that small chance meaning he wins 10 or 20 quid rather than 60p.

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 12:28 pm

Further to above,re making the jackpots unwinnable while technically winnable,I think they could do a better job with the spoiler questions too.Either change them more frequently,or perhaps something along the lines of putting in the first 10,000 digits of pi,and writing a bit of code that generates a question that asks what the nth digit of pi is.A bit grim that but it would do the trick (well apart from the odd Japanese and Chinese guy I suppose!)

cool · Post by **cool** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 12:45 pm

You're thinking on spoilers is exactly what we should be getting away from. Machines in the heyday (80's / early 90's) used to block by the sheer number of easy questions but not actually giving out any money. At least the mug punter had a good length of game for their money and weren't made to feel like a plank. Interestingly one fruit machine in the early 90's was developed where u could gamble your winnings for a better prize by answering 3 questions I believe. Unfortunately it didn't catch on and didn't last long. Perhaps there is an argument for trying it again as much time has elapsed.

muddle · Post by **muddle** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:21 pm

To be fair to myself,cool,I'm not advocating that,my thinking is along the lines of what you describe.I have already used the term 'spirit-crushing' to describe some of the spoilers elsewhere on this forum.I was merely illustrating that should the style of a game need protecting from being emptiable,it should be within the wit of the designers to do it.For example,The Chase could be tedious to play but it was popular with the punters and I was winning a bit of money on it as I'm sure you were too.We'd still be doing that now if it weren't for some people killing that golden goose.

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:27 pm

Back in the day there was a bandit that asked you quiz questions as one of its features. The memory is going and I cannot remember what it was called-late 80s-ish

cool · Post by **cool** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 8:53 am

Tonkarentino Im worried about you as two posts in the thread earlier I made exactly the same observation effectively making your point redundant! The reading skills may be going too!

JG · Post by JG » Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:46 am

Screen Play - Early 90s though.