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Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

polygon.com

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Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#191

Post by jeltz »

baseballdork wrote: post #186
jeltz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not even gambling. Slot machines are regulated and not allowed to be rigged.

> not allowed to be rigged I guess I don't understand what "rigged" means in this context. I thought slot machines could essentially be "tuned" for payout by the owner (e.g. pay out 0.96x of what's put in on average), much like these toy machines.

Rigged in my mind means that the game cares about previous wins and losses. Slot machines do not, the 0.96 us just the statistical average and not something the game tries to enforce.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#192

Post by krapp »

lostgame wrote: post #188
suction wrote: post #164

When I lived in Japan, I was really surprised what the average Japanese person thought about Arcades. There are Sega-, Taito-, Konami- and other branded Arcades in the bigger cities, but "normal" people wouldn't go near them, because they are run by the Yakuza or Yakuza-owned front businesses. With the ongoing rumours that Konami itself is a Yakuza company (see the news around the Hideo Kojima firing scandal) and Nin…

There are similar rumours - and have been for years, before the creation of the actual 'Yakuza' game; about SEGA as well. The launch of the game did nothing to help those rumours, but certainly made it a bit more difficult to find information about online. :P

Guru Larry's channel covered one such rumor that "A certain Japanese game publisher" hired the yakuza to kidnap a developer's sister[0]. Covered in "The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Vol. 2."

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K2muFAuJsg

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#193

Post by laumars »

skhr0680 wrote: post #173
laumars wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish modern arcades were banned. They’re nothing more than fruit machines that target kids. There’s no thought about enjoyment, it’s literally about the fastest way to hook a child. I know the arcades of old weren’t exactly innocent either, with many being optimised to consume the players coins, but at least there was some game play involved. At least the player got something out of the experience. I feel the ethic…

Console games were so polluted with arcade bullshit design (see: Battletoads) that Super Mario World was instantly notable for being designed to be fair .

A lot of the problem is longevity. In the 8 bit, and to some extent the 16 bit era too, the memory constraints were so great that games were often pretty short. So the difficulty bar was set as a method of ensuring longevity.

There was an actual slang term for this used by western developers, the name of which I’ve forgotten, but it directly talks about how games should take longer to complete than your average rental loan.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#194

Post by Caylio »

nkrisc wrote: post #184
Caylio wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The machine can only "decide to let you win" if you have the skill to get close, otherwise no chance.

If the very last step of the process is that the machine decides if you won or not, it's not a game of skill. It takes a degree of skill and coordination to pull the lever on the slot machine, yet we don't call them a game of skill because of that. If you're 100% accurate and you still lose, it's a game of chance.

Every winner will have made a skillful shot, hence a skillful shot is required to win. It's a combination of both therefore you obviously can't claim no skill is required at all. Nobody says that a slot machine is a game of skill because nobody considers having the coordination to pull a level to be a skillful attribute.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#195

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

taneq wrote: post #171
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be the other way around: people win it so frequently that they can only afford to stock it with obsolete computer hardware…

I'd have thought it would be harder and more expensive to find an unused 10 year old iPad now than to just buy a new low-end one. Give it a few more years and that one in the machine will be a collector's item!

> Give it a few more years and that one in the machine will be a collector's item!

Just drive-off with the entire machine in the back of yer truck, heh

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#196

Post by namelessoracle »

laumars wrote: post #148
rubyn00bie wrote: post #63

Oh, 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."…

I wish modern arcades were banned. They’re nothing more than fruit machines that target kids. There’s no thought about enjoyment, it’s literally about the fastest way to hook a child. I know the arcades of old weren’t exactly innocent either, with many being optimised to consume the players coins, but at least there was some game play involved. At least the player got something out of the experience. I feel the ethic…

Alot of modern arcades actually have unlimited play models or "play as much as you want for X time". They make their money off food/drinks/alcohol.

At least the last few I have been too. I guess people for the most part had decided if you were gonna drop 50 bucks you might as well buy a new videogame and play it at home. The scummy part is the "ticket" games, where you have a chance to win below dollar store grade prizes and exist to waste your game time away from games that have actual game play in them. (ski ball is still fun even if its a ticket game)

Last one I went to it was kind of neat to finally be able to beat one of those old school 90s arcade games that in retrospect had their difficulty tuned to do nothing but eat all your quarters.....

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#197

Post by namelessoracle »

laumars wrote: post #193
skhr0680 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Console games were so polluted with arcade bullshit design (see: Battletoads) that Super Mario World was instantly notable for being designed to be fair .

A lot of the problem is longevity. In the 8 bit, and to some extent the 16 bit era too, the memory constraints were so great that games were often pretty short. So the difficulty bar was set as a method of ensuring longevity. There was an actual slang term for this used by western developers, the name of which I’ve forgotten, but it directly talks about how games should take longer to complete than your average renta…

Didnt the designers of popular rpgs like Dragonquest and Final Fantasy admit they added leveling grinds so customers would be outside the allowed return window if they beat it too soon?

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#199

Post by laumars »

namelessoracle wrote: post #196
laumars wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish modern arcades were banned. They’re nothing more than fruit machines that target kids. There’s no thought about enjoyment, it’s literally about the fastest way to hook a child. I know the arcades of old weren’t exactly innocent either, with many being optimised to consume the players coins, but at least there was some game play involved. At least the player got something out of the experience. I feel the ethic…

Alot of modern arcades actually have unlimited play models or "play as much as you want for X time". They make their money off food/drinks/alcohol. At least the last few I have been too. I guess people for the most part had decided if you were gonna drop 50 bucks you might as well buy a new videogame and play it at home. The scummy part is the "ticket" games, where you have a chance to win below dollar store grade pr…

Those arcades you mention (where you pay a flat rate and get unlimited playtime) are sadly the minority. What you see in most places these days are ticket machines, claws and other pseudo-gambling machines.
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