Stinger REPORT Skinny!
Strong sunshine was met by an equally strong attendance, and views at the latest in the UK industry Open Day gathering. The beginning of June saw the cream of the UK trade gather to see new products, discuss views and spread gossip! In this comprehensive coverage we have compiled a report of what was shown, said and speculated on – including the launch of a new Taito game, confirmation on new Namco titles, ‘Player-Power' at work, changes at Global VR, InterGame Expo developments, and the reality of the Credit Crunch on coin-op.
The time had come again for the great and the good of the UK amusement trade to make the trip to North London and the annual Park Avenue Open Day. The event has become an important milestone in the health of the UK industry, but this year the impact of financial conditions were held up to the sunshine of the gathering.
The two areas of the Open Day offered an interesting contrast. In the Electrocoin Sales area, visitors were greeted by a Champagne Reception – thanks to Games Warehouse. Other sponsors worthy of a big thank you also include H&W, Bell Fruit, CoinSlot, AMG, Suzo, GameSoft and TAB.
Within the warehouse portion of the venue SEGA had brought the deluxe cabinet of ‘SEGA Rally 3' (Europa-R Hardware). Some heart attacks were caused by the price of the deluxe, though this sticker-price shock soon passed when players got into the game – a group from Taito was seen to find the game very compelling. Another release on display was ‘UFO Catcher' with the ‘Pure Skill Game' tagline emblazoned on the cabinet.
Breaking Stinger News – The impact of various cost-cutting and financial restructuring came home to roost, it was revealed during Open Day. In conversations with the assembled trade, some behind- the- scenes information was revealed with momentous implications for the UK division for SEGA. It was revealed that the Preview'09 London exhibition in November will see for the first time in many years a no-show by SEGA – the operation lost their booth space due to last-minute changes. The failure to exhibit begged the question: how will they show any of their new releases -including ‘RAMBO', the new shooter currently on loctest in the UK? Either distributor partners ‘Crown and CVA' will have to make up the difference on their already ramp booths – or we are about to see a major change in the power struggle.
The representation of the big names through their distributors was evident at Open Day. While Cosmic Video Amusement had brought their SEGA products, they also had representation from Global VR. The company's WWII air-combat title, ‘Blazing Angels' (PC Hardware) was given a showing after its launch at ATEI'08.
Breaking Stinger News – The appearance of Blazing Angels at the Open Day was a mixed blessing – it was reported that a major backlog had appeared, as the games obvious popularity had affected the supply lines, the UK being on the end of it. Sources close to the Stinger had revealed a few days before the Park Avenue Open Day that the first victim of this backlog had been the Chairman and CEO of Global VR – having been brought into GVR in 2005, pressure from investors had forced this latest change in management. It was expected that another series of management changes will be in the works as the company prepares to support the backlog, and establish a new structure.
CVA also had at the event the very popular poker table top system ‘Head-to-Head Challenge' (PC Hardware). Showing the diversity that greets events of this kind in the current climate, Harry Levy brought two of the new releases they had off their ATEI booth – the IntePark developed ball throwing game ‘Pang Pang Paradise' (PC Hardware) and the Costal Amusement developed ‘Sea Wolf' (PC Hardware). The importance of video redemption was keenly identified at this years' event.
Also in the crowded warehouse area was Namco / Brent Sales – bring their own Namco UFO style catcher, and the Raw Thrills ‘Big Buck: Safari' (PC Hardware). Sources close to the team at Raw Thrills suggested that Gala in North America will see the rumored new driver and racer from the Chicago developer.
The Stinger representative was able to have a few moments with well placed executives at Namco Bandai Games, regarding the desert of new video and the future of the operational division. Speculation had come from AOU'08 that Bandai had decimated the AM operation of Namco in recent months – but this was placed into perspective by the candid comments from the executive at Open Day.
It was exclusively revealed that NBG proposes to have on their new look ATEI'09 booth upstairs, three new video products to present to the trade, marking an increase in amusement investment for the international scene. For this year, it was also revealed that NBG will have some surprises in the redemption and SWP scene. Regarding ‘Tekken 6', the jury was still out as to whether there would be a reversal on the no-release policy, though sources at the Open Day stated that, like America, a number of Grey Import kits had appeared in certain venues under the radar of NBG.
Breaking Stinger News – Just as the Stinger was wrapping up this coverage, a chance meeting with the leading Tekken game team revealed some amazing news. Since the beginning of the year the Tekken 6 machine that caused so much fuss at the ATEI'08 event has been located at the famous London Trocadero site. It has been revealed that this single machine has become one of the highest earning video pieces at the site, breaking all records Sources confirmed, linked to this fact that the local players will be working with the venue operators to capitalize on this popularity and as seen in France, could help install machines in a site they play at. This is the beginning of what TSR has charted as ‘Player-Power' taking control of the reins of amusement.
During the visit to the Trocadero it was obvious that the site was still incredibly busy, with good tourist traffic playing the games. The group of intensive players on and around the Tekken 6 machine spoke volumes of the loyal player- following for the machine – this also includes the secondary spend on IC cards to play on the machine. The team was adamant that they had plans to buy a second T6 machine to support their moves.
An interesting piece of news into why the arcade operators at the Trocadero may be keen to elicit player support in shaping their site is the announcement that the venue will be gaining a major new competitor. It was revealed that the American ‘Ripley's Believe it or Not!' museum franchise will being opening a 25,000 square foot venue inside the Trocadero venue. Scheduled for August 2008, the site will be operated by London Bridge Entertainment Partners LLP, franchisee of the Ripley brand in the UK.
Regarding T6, all this continues to question the validity of distributors trying to ignore the popularity of this game. How this will impact the next big fighting game release for 2008 is another question.
The Stinger Report was able to contact Capcom UK and learned that ‘Player-Power' had forced the operation to demonstrate the one Street Fighter IV cabinet that they have had hidden away from the general public, in their company head-quarters. The ‘Battle of Destiny' player tournament taking place in London during July will see the machine that had to this date been locked away, only used to entertain consumer games media. This latest example of how player- power can force even the most intransigent divisional manager, shows the need to keep on the good side of the player hardcore with the consideration of future consumer release.
And if another example of ‘Player-Power' was needed, TSR was informed of an American Loctest of the brawler ‘BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger' (Type-X Hardware), from ARC System Works. The game received high praise from players at AOU'08 (though slightly overshadowed by the clamber for Street Fighter IV). The game will be available to fans during the ‘Anime Expo' to be held in Las Vegas during July. ARC System Works told sources that they would be carrying out a North American full test of the game. This being an example of abandoning conventional distribution routes and looking to place games directly to a specialist and neglected audience.
The question has to be, if more and more companies join Capcom, ARC Systems Works – and even rumors of Taito – in supporting ‘Player-Power', then a two-tier industry could formulate, and then we will find ourselves in a very interesting situation!
Returning to Open Day, and located around the factory was a ‘Virtual Pinball' (PC Hardware), running the latest pinball table software update. Inside the sow room at the London event was ‘Chase H.Q. 2' (Type-X+ Hardware), both the flatscreen deluxe cabinet and the sit-down compact standard unit with a small 17'' screen. Electrocoin's relationship with Taito has spanned many years, and the importance of this link was self-evident as Taito chose the Electrocoin event for the first showing of their prototype concept.
‘Space Invaders: The Beat Attacker' is an unusual concept. The redemption machine comprises a BeMani style dancing stage, three button stage and a large slanted LED display. The player controls and fires the tank, blasting the oncoming aliens - the player awarded redemption tickets on the number of hits. The machine was scheduled to be placed on test – reaction at the Open Day was mixed, though the use of a physical style game play would see interest from the seaside trade. Though the lack of scoring and the simplicity of the action was questioned. The omission of a score and highscore chart seemed highly unusual, especially as the 1978 original was the first game to have a highscore chart and made the concept popular.
As always in the special demonstration area at Elecrocoin during Open Day, there were demonstrated games from Incredible Technologies, including the latest software version of ‘Golden Tee Live 2008' (PC Hardware). It was revealed by sources at Electrocoin that contrary to doom and gloom, the tournament business was alive and well – so much so that a UK July live tournament competition was in the works, soon to be announced to the loyal fan base for big cash prizes. This news counters those that had commented at ATEI'08, who said IT's distributor had lost interest in the tournament element of the video.
Also on display was ‘Silver Streak Bowling' (PC Hardware), Incredible Technologies revealed in a recent media statement that there are nearly 10,000 games found in bars and restaurants – Electrocoin are keen to build momentum in the UK for the bowler. The network version of the game had just gone live in the USA, and IT announced that 32 finalists have won a trip to Las Vegas to face off in the Kingpin Suite of the Palms Casino Hotel. The top prize is a whopping $10,000, to be distributed among the top 800 players'. IT also revealed more details on the shape of their player base; while women only make up 10% of the consumer video game playing population, that number approaches 50% for Silver Strike.
Breaking Stinger Report – Just as the UK saw the current distribution range from Incredible Technologies, the US company held their annual End-of-May Operator Summit, with over 120 representatives of the US operating trade. On show was the new ‘Golden Tee 2009' (PC Hardware) machine offering enhanced courses and player features. The Golden Tee brand was reported to have generated an estimated $3billion during its life, looking towards a Guinness Book of Record placement regarding its success.
IT took this occasion to show much of what they will be headlining at coming amusement trade exhibitions – first off was a brand new cabinet configuration for the track-ball series of titles. The new slim cabinet offered a low profile with a LCD monitor – separating the playing kiosk from the monitor for better hospitality application (even more radical that the previous TLC design). The first game on this cabinet will be ‘Mini Golf Master' (PC Hardware), a miniature golf take on the Golden Tee playing style –a move by the company to fully embrace the Casual Gaming style across their new range, hoping to draw in a much broader new playing audience.
This new casual game style is best illustrated by the Target Toss Pro system – previously housing ‘BAGS: Target Toss' (PC Hardware), the machine series will see a new game at the end of 2008 with ‘Lawn Darts: Target Toss' (PC Hardware), based on the popular 1970's garden toy. These new games confirmed what the Stinger reported during ATEI with an explosion of new Casual Games to match an increase in development spend through new studios. IT has pushed the Golden Tee brand in the toy scene, and will continue to push for a great market penetration, with a new investment in tournament and league support.
The Open Day would not be complete without Stern Pinball showing their latest release, an ‘Indian Jones' table was revealed in all its glory.
Breaking Stinger News – STERN has recently been the recipient of positive media coverage (part of that orchestrated by association PR resources), along with a spot on FOX News, and MSNBC News decided to visit the pinball manufacturing, revealing that from 27,000 machines manufactured in 1992, the company now manufactures 10,000 machines a year.
There was a little complaint from some sources that recent coverage felt too much like a nostalgic report (rather than the promised rebirth of the industry slant), the MSNBC piece making the error of calling STERN the ‘only' pinball manufacturer. Though STERN pinball may want to perpetuate this observation, this coverage ignores new start-ups such as Pinball Manufacturing Inc (PMI) – and their ‘Big Bang Bar' pintable that went on sale this year. While the toy manufacturer Zizzle has also had a successful run of home pinball tables.
Again, STERN may stubbornly want to ignore the issue, but video pinball development has mushroomed with TAB Austria and Global VR, and new start-up 21st Century Entertainment who showed their Sponge Bob new video table at ASI'08; or the Spanish Recreativos Presas and their ‘Sensitive Pinball Pro' cabinet. One source questioned that trade association publicity budgets only seeming to be employed to publicizing the 25th anniversary of STERN; a company who has an agenda to obviously promote them selves above the industry. Coverage that came across like ‘a stalwart company in a collapsed industry' – rather than more showing the sector re-insurgence angle, as was the intention of the effort.
Back at Open Day; the rest of the Electrocoin premises was alive with a mix of SWP, AWP and redemption, along with spares from other exhibitors at the informal gathering. One new surprise in this sector was an AWP called ‘Gold Street' from Electrocoin themselves - the first such machine in 12 years from the operation.
Beyond Electrocoin, and the second part of the Open Day was at United Distributing Company's offices next door. Inside the warehouse area and on display along with some refurbished cabinets was ‘Pump It Up: PRO' (PC Hardware), the latest in the Andamiro release. The physical screen-hitting game launched at ASI'08 ‘Hammer 2' (PC Hardware) was released, with the previous ‘Hammer DX' (PC Hardware) – the original one-player concept – on display.
Breaking Stinger News – As the final details where being added to this crowded report, we received news of a brand new BeMani platform to compete directly against the erosion of the Andamiro alternative. The new system is ‘Dance Dance Revolution X' (Proprietary Hardware) and proposes to have a new layout to the dancing stage and totally new game elements. This will be the biggest change in the Dance Dance Revolution series, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. More information from Japanese loctest expected in the coming days.
The UDC line-up, this year, was redemption heavy; along with traditional machines UDC had a redemption ticket prize center system offering an automated way to run machines. Focusing on redemption - a lack of any gaming systems on display was noticed by attendees to the show. UDC management felt that they should offer alternatives for operators to buy, following the purchasing trends of the real market. Concerning business, one observation outside was that UDC had not gone all out to put the best foot forward with their broken signage still in disrepair since last year!
Back outside of both venues, thanks to the glorious weather that Electrocoin's deal with the devil has graced the Open Day with for the last few years - the location was the natural gathering place for those savoring the famous Greek barbecue sponsored by Preview exhibition organizers H&W and others. – Also, though, they were deep in discussion on deals, observations and rumors. This years' Open Day, against all speculation, was graced by large numbers – including a very large European attendance, with 41 companies represented (a new record… in a depressed market?)
One of the biggest topics being discussed at the event was, as previously covered in the Stinger (#637), the threat of a new show to compete with ATEI that had materialized the day before the amusement Open Day. The announcement of the ‘InterGame Expo' caught some by surprise, but was greeted with a strong if not whole-hearted interest.
One of the instigators of the BACTA revolt against what ATEI had achieved by moving the industry upstairs, Harry Levy, had a prominent two booths of the 40 booths in the Enterprise Suite, 1,260sq.m expo floor. Some wags renamed the event as the ‘Harry Levy Expo'. A recent date change will now take place from Tuesday, January 27 to Thursday, January 29.
Those skeptics that seem to outnumber optimistic thinkers in the amusement scene were quick to point out that much of the interest that the new show would generate would be from wavering ATEI exhibitors. They will use their possible abandonment to InterGame Expo as a means to beat down their ATEI booth price.
All recognized that the InterGame move towards establishing this event is a monumental act of defiance, and faith that the amusement industry deserves better. The rumor had already started to circulate after Open Day of a possible black-balling of the InterGame group of magazines from the ATEI/ICE show floor – some felt that in naming the event such, they left themselves open to ostracize some possible exhibitors.
The big question left unanswered was: what would the BACTA trade association's position be regarding this event?
Breaking Stinger News – Just as we went to the wire with this report, Clarion-Gaming played their first cards in defense of the new competition, their parting shot to regain the initiative over the 2009 show plans. It was announced that the Earls Court (1 and 2) ground floor International Casino Exhibition (ICE and ICEi) will be re-branded as the ‘International Gaming Expo' (IGE). Clarion underlined that this would be a wholly ‘gaming centric' event, stating that the focus on this would be made "…above-and-below-the-line" in an intensive media offensive.
Recent turbulence in the UK casino scene will also put pressure on the validity of placing all of Clarion-Gaming's eggs in the gaming basket, and whether re-branding of ATEI will also have to be considered. When questioned about industry feeling to the name change – one source stated that this re-branding seemed to follow the relationship established with the European casino trade association this year. The complaints by amusement towards playing ‘second-fiddle' to the casino and gaming sector will be echoed with this re-branding. There was also a question on why the IGE name was selected, as it will now clash with the name used by the Chinese International Gaming & Entertainment Expo in March.
Clarion-Gaming came out shooting with a press statement made days after the announcement of the InterGame Expo. "Although the purpose of commercial organizations is to pursue profits, some observers have identified a whiff of opportunism surrounding this announcement. The view is that it is a divisive move which comes at a time when the industry should be working together to readjust to the challenges presented by the current trading environment." The accusation of ‘opportunism' and a ‘diverse move' underlined how uncomfortable the new show move has made those that had attempted to ignore widespread criticism of the big London event by some exhibitors, upset by the movement upstairs and rising prices.
In a second volley from Clarion-Gaming, a press announcement was made that BACTA and Clarion had renewed their ‘exclusive' partnership, BACTA extending to ATEI'09, their full support. This announcement was timed to pressure the InterGame Expo that will contain prominent membership, and be visited by even more members. The feeling of resentment to the disappearing Olympia evaluation promise was still a bitter topic of conversation at Open Day, along with additional questions on what the association was actually doing for amusement.
What the next move will be in the defense of the ATEI brand, against the appearance of competition, and how heated this battle will become is another question.
What this could all mean:
The big question on all the lips of those that made the trip to Park Avenue, Hanger Lane was – ‘what is the state of the UK amusement industry'? There were clearly two camps – the expensive new motor cars that fought for a parking space in the Hanger Lane locations emphasized this.
In one camp are the ‘unhappy' corporations, companies that have seen better times and are in serious financial condition. Companies that spent a lot of time lamenting the failure of the amusement scene citing Government legislation as crippling their traditional customers; pointing at ATEI and the trade associations for not supporting them. Criticism was also leveled at media for not flying the flag. However, these companies do seem to universally represent older thinking on how the amusement scene should work.
In the other camp are the ‘quietly confident' (not unhappy) corporations – these seemed to be represented by companies that have expanded beyond the more conventional amusement sector - and expanded to embrace the hospitality and out-of-home entertainment scene such as ‘VenderTainment'. But in the same respects, these corporations have also undertaken hard hitting re-structuring, cutting their overheads (and workforce) to the bone. Companies that have traveled to international events in UAE, Taiwan and China to source directly their future releases – abandoning traditional thinking.
One source that forcefully questioned the comment ‘what is the state of the UK amusement industry?' qualified their criticism regarding the structure of the question. They felt that just blanketly asking how the ‘industry' is, misses the point of the current situation – the need to separate the ‘Operators' from the ‘Manufacturers' when evaluating the state of the amusement scene. For forward thinking manufacturers times are difficult, but opportunities exist – while the operators have a troubling situation, those that hoped to run-down their family sites and sell them for flats at a profit have had a nasty surprise with the credit crunch and housing situation. They now all have to either close down and try and salvage some money – or re-invest into their sites and start buying again!
The overwhelming feeling was that we as an industry had given ‘Buyers' (operators) too much control on setting the direction of the market. Ill equipped and in many cases naive of what the market needed, their demands have crippled the original amusement industry – the new industry that will emerge will not be so dependant on ‘the-blind-leading-the-blind!' Also some of the complaints of hard times could not be squared by the number of new top-of-the-range motors that clogged the Park Avenue valuable parking space!
News Story with thanks to Kevin Williams. Please visit
www.thestingerreport.com for others.
