It’s funny, I was just thinking today about House of the Dead and if it was actually possible to beat the game on one credit. It seems like there’s a lot of sections that a player could not possibly aim and shoot fast enough to get through. I realize there’s no actual prize in those games like the key master games, but I still think it should be possible to beat an arcade game on one credit if you’re skilled enough.
Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
151–160 of 238 posts
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#152Is it even possible for a "game of skill" arcade machine that dispenses high value prizes to be profitable? Seems like any such game would just breed expert players that clean house and win all the iPads with their skill. If not, surely it would invite some hacker or tinkerer to invent a device to augment their skill and (again) clean house and get a bunch of cheap iPads. Maybe you could have arcade machines where yo…
It wouldn’t be so bad if the operator were required to print the winning odds on the machine somewhere. I think it’s just that the odds are secret that makes it problematic.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#153Shameful, but common knowledge.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#154While I think Sega has effectively sold a gambling machine I'm not sure if they should be liable in these lawsuits. They sold a tool that could have been configured correctly to comply with local regulations.
The owners manual explains to the operator that they can configure this probability, which they could simply set to 1 to bypass the entire gambling mechanic.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had pretty much the exact same experience recently. What also annoyed me when our child was much younger was how many of the toys people bought him were cheap plastic with flashing lights and sounds and how much these reminded me of slot machines.
> cheap plastic with flashing lights and sounds To be fair, kids don’t care about cheap plastic, and they love flashing lights and sounds. Expensive plastic toys have the same flashing lights and sounds. Though I’ll admit that even more expensive wooden toys don’t, they generally still try to incorporate play with light and sound into the toy somehow.
Funny, I’ve found the most expensive toys are the wooden ones that are made in Denmark or something.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#156Is it even possible for a "game of skill" arcade machine that dispenses high value prizes to be profitable? Seems like any such game would just breed expert players that clean house and win all the iPads with their skill. If not, surely it would invite some hacker or tinkerer to invent a device to augment their skill and (again) clean house and get a bunch of cheap iPads. Maybe you could have arcade machines where yo…
Unless you're Jonathan Schrantz, who famously beat stockfish on the hardest difficulty as black by playing the Stafford gambit. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27829913 That being said it doesn't work with Stockfish 12. But yeah dressing what is essentially a pure con (I don't think these even count as games of luck given the payout is not fair from game to game) as a game o skill is terrible.
Your link goes to this current page, I assumed you were linking to an article about that anecdote.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#157Here in Asia/Taiwan, the claw machines by-law must display the money required to be spent to Win the prize. These are a good example because they are also skill+gambling.
All claw machines Trigger a win if X dollars a spent in a certain duration. I suspect these key machines are based on a similar logic. AFAIK Poker Machines in Australia at licensed venues aren't required to display winning odds :/
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#158Oh, I thought this was known. I'm not even joking... A few years ago, I was at a local comic shop, and I watched someone (a kid) play the machine and appear to get a "perfect" shot, key went exactly into the fucking hole... but then it just pulled back. No prize! I was stunned when the kid asked an employee essentially "WTF?" and the employee replied "there's a chance the key may not turn even though it's lined up."…
Back when we had a claw machine with plush toys in nearly every grocery store, it was generally a well-known fact that it's a game of chance much more than it is a game of skill. When it didn't want you to win, it just didn't grip as hard as would be necessary to hold the toy. It would either not grab it at all, or it would but then would drop it due to an abrupt stop when it hits the top while lifting the claw.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#159Oh, I thought this was known. I'm not even joking... A few years ago, I was at a local comic shop, and I watched someone (a kid) play the machine and appear to get a "perfect" shot, key went exactly into the fucking hole... but then it just pulled back. No prize! I was stunned when the kid asked an employee essentially "WTF?" and the employee replied "there's a chance the key may not turn even though it's lined up."…
Gambling is illegal in Japan so there are many forms of gambling disguised as other stuff. Notably pachinko parlors, gashapon, trading card games, loot boxes in video games. https://www.serkantoto.com/2012/05/05/japan-social-games-reg... And other than gambling, there are auctions... for the weirdest stuff... koi fish, mango, etc. https://www.kodamakoifarm.com/shop/live-koi/auction/
So, what's the business model of koi auctions? I mean, ok, for the seller side it's obvious, for the buyer one, not so much.
Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine
#160I built a raspberry pi powered machine to press the button and time the game and then slow motioned it in action: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=79hE-vf2tzs
Basically it would delay the release to just miss if you happen to time it perfectly.
I complained to the Metreon theater in SF and they had the machine removed the next day. I also read of lawsuits years ago so I’m surprised I still see this machine worldwide.