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Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

polygon.com

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Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#31

Post by megameter »

Cerealkiller050 wrote: post #2

I remember seeing and playing this on a cruise ship. It was a dollar per try, and I shoved in 5 bucks. By the 4th try it was NOTICEABLE that if you press the button at the "right time", there was a lag before it overshot it and you failed. I pretty much could guess that something like the article discusses was at work, and was simply more a game of luck. Obviously I stopped after that, as a pure luck game is not as f…

Like with gambling devices, redemption games all seem to have operator-adjustable payout.

I recall playing "Stacker" for a little while in the 2000's. It used an LED dot display for gameplay, which was a simple timing game where you "built" a tower by stacking up the blocks, with it getting faster at each level.

What it did was exactly as you describe: it had a minor reward level that you could always win, and then a few levels above that where the game would cheat and instantly warp the block ahead to make you lose. I did get a win out of it once(and got an iPod mini), so I think I did come out ahead, but that was it.

Overall, it's better to be good at pinball(replay scores) or DDR(adoration of strangers).

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#32

Post by kube-system »

danans wrote: post #20

As an aside, I had no idea Sega were still making "old fashioned" mechanical games, which is how they started with slot machines and jukeboxes in the 1940s. I thought they had long since become a mobile game and IP licensing company (i.e. Sonic the Hedgehog)

I was curious about what else they make, looks like their parent conglomerate still does make gaming machines.

I think I've probably played some of these in the US... https://www.segasammycreation.com/en/cabinets?office=usa

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#33

Post by Something1234 »

koz1000 wrote: post #8
Something1234 wrote: post #3

State gaming boards really need to investigate arcades in general. They are much worse than the casino with the same kinds of games, but a much worse payout. I once calculated it out when I was on a bus trip I would get back 70% of what I put in (n=$100). At the arcade you're lucky to get 5 cents back, and most of the time the games are not even fun. We need to put together a team of experts to audit all of these mac…

I worked on a redemption device a long time ago, one of those "stop the lights" game for a large manufacturer. There were a few jurisdictions, Iowa and New Jersey come to mind, that were already aware of the nature of these machines and required the manufacturers to have their software audited and validated by (state approved) third-party gaming labs identical to what the slot machine companies do when getting code a…

On the same note could you name any of the third party labs? I'm interested in the topic.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#34

Post by sen »

Bluecobra wrote: post #14
Cerealkiller050 wrote: post #2

I remember seeing and playing this on a cruise ship. It was a dollar per try, and I shoved in 5 bucks. By the 4th try it was NOTICEABLE that if you press the button at the "right time", there was a lag before it overshot it and you failed. I pretty much could guess that something like the article discusses was at work, and was simply more a game of luck. Obviously I stopped after that, as a pure luck game is not as f…

I played this in a cruise casino as well, knowing full well that the odds were stacked against me in international waters. I didn’t win. Near the end of the 10 day voyage the machine was mostly empty, I wonder if anyone actually won or they just removed the cash to make it look like it’s a winner.

My wife won a Nintendo DS on one (when they were new) on a cruise ship, we were absolutely convinced nobody ever won anything on them, but it's still fun to give it a shot... no different to casinos or any other gambling. That's the only time I've ever heard of anyone winning /anything/ on those games though.

In Japan the machines pay out a lot more often due to the strict laws against gambling, but the prizes are a lot smaller. You'll put ~$2 in and get a soft toy that probably cost 50c to make, but it still makes it feel a lot more fun than trying/failing to win bigger prizes.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#36

Post by smoldesu »

I've played it before at a movie theater, I remember there was a noticeable latency between the time when you pressed the button and the machine responded (felt like 250-400ms). I watched some other people play it while I waited for the film to start, and it almost appeared to be buffering inputs at an extremely low polling rate, such that it might be impossible to even line it up in the first place. Very strange game, I guess I'm not really surprised.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#37

Post by dylan604 »

varikin wrote: post #24
barakados wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how you say it’s a guy and not MARK ROBER

Does that matter? Is everyone suppose to be aware of this guy?

What? You aren't familiar with one random guy on the internet that maybe makes some videos in a very niche market that you may have never even heard of before? What? Do you have some sort of life of something preventing from crawling every single crevice on the interwebs?

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#38

Post by 4ec0755f5522 »

barakados wrote: post #22
sethammons wrote: post #4

Reminds me of this one: https://youtu.be/vXBfwgwT1nQ Guy builds a robot to time pressing the button to get the light to land on the winning sections and demonstrates it is not skill but a random number generator.

I like how you say it’s a guy and not MARK ROBER

His full Internet title is actually "Former NASA Engineer And Youtuber Mark Rober".

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#40

Post by annoyingnoob »

There is a local place that has an arcade with machines that give tickets. My kids loves it. I figured out which games work best just by watching other people, over many visits. I became friendly with one of the staff and he told me the top 3 payout games. Now the kids win all the time. We definitely avoid machines like the key blaster.
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