Betson Enterprises hosted its first-ever Team Sales Summit earlier in September in St. Charles, Ill., coinciding with the AAMA’s Annual Gala and Trade Show. Betson sales, marketing and finance staff gathered for two full days to learn, discuss and share new strategies to better service and meet the needs of today’s evolving customer. “With 14 offices nationwide, we don’t always have the opportunity to have our entire team in one place,” said Jonathan Betti, VP of Sales and Marketing. “The AAMA Gala afforded us the opportunity to meet as a group as well as introduce more of our organization to…
Author: Casey Minter
George Smith’s Family Entertainment Group has added a gem to its FEC bracelet by acquiring the GameRoom from arcade industry veteran Ron Mogerman. Ron operated the facility located in the Sawgrass Mills Mall in Sunrise, Fla., for over six years (he once boasted running the largest number of games under one roof at a different arcade years ago). The 21,000-square-foot GameRoom FEC is in the “Oasis” section of the mall, which is one of the largest outlet shopping centers in the U.S. With over 140 amusement games, rooms for birthdays and parties, four lanes of mini-bowling and a co-located Johnny…
Injoy Motion Corp., a company that specializes in mechatronics engineering and tech, displayed their unique virtual reality and motion simulators at the recent Tokyo Game Show. Injoy worked alongside partner company Futuretown, a content provider, to augment their motion platform by adding a heightened sense of realism through VR. The company’s motion platform caters to a variety of games and play styles, including some of the VR games that were available for play at the show: Whiteout (skiing), Infinity Rider (motorcycle racer), Wave Breaker (surfing game) and Stallion Adventures (which simulates horse riding). All the games are enhanced with immersive…
Intercard has completed the installation of its iGuardian system, i3 Readers and more at V-Yard, a new indoor FEC located in the Khalda district in Amman, Jordan. The location is owned by Durrah Leisure and Entertainment and opened in August. V-Yard’s attractions include Shakaleeb, a supervised two-story space for kids with a maze, ball pit, trampolines and tree house. The attraction uses Intercard’s security iGuardian system to pair the child’s wristband with the card of their parent or guardian to help prevent the child from leaving with a stranger. V-Yard also has two areas for cosmic bowling, a four-lane area…
That popular free-play attraction called MotionMagix you may have seen at some kiddie-oriented museums and other locations is now available in a pay-to-play version for FECs. This clever attraction projects games and visual “experiences” onto walls or floors, and the kids hit various projected images with their hands or feet to either run up scores (e.g. by kicking soccer balls) or just dancing for fun. Now tweaked for the FEC market, it will offer customers a choice of four games, “coined-up” on a card swipe panel. Around 100 different programs are available for the operator to buy and plug in…
The 32nd Annual Pinball Expo is just around the corner, running from Oct. 12-16 at the Westin Chicago North Shore. Stern is also hosting their 30th Anniversary Extravaganza (offsite at Viper Alley) on Friday, Oct. 14 (however, that event has sold out). Attendees of the Expo will get a chance to see the newest pins on the market, from Stern’s Can Crusher collaboration with Pabst Blue Ribbon and out-of-the-vault Batman ’66 to Jersey Jack Pinball’s unnamed third creation designed by Williams, Midway and Stern vet Pat Lawlor. Heighway Pinball will showcase their Aliens game, American…
AMI Entertainment has teamed with Betson Enterprises to co-host several technical seminars on AMI’s lineup of jukeboxes and services. There will be four seminars hosted throughout October in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, N.Y.; lunch will be served at all locations. * Betson Philadelphia is hosting a seminar on Tuesday, Oct. 18, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Hampton Inn. To RSVP contact Gene Kelly Jr. at [email protected]. * Betson Baltimore is holding its program on Wednesday, Oct. 19, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Contact Nick Sarioglou at [email protected] to RSVP. * Betson Pittsburgh is doing theirs on…
September 23 marked the 35th anniversary of one of the most popular and iconic games in arcade history: Galaga. To celebrate, Bandai Namco Entertainment hosted a birthday bash for their classic game at Level 257 near Chicago featuring Galaga, World’s Largest Pac-Man (which has the Galaga game on it) and their new ticket-focused Galaga Assault. The less popular Galaxian preceded Galaga, and both games spawned numerous sequels and iterations, including Galaga Arrangement, Gaplus, Galaga ’88, Galaxian 3 and more. Beyond the games themselves, their impact on popular culture cannot be understated. Some fans have even gone so far as to…
This month marks the four-year anniversary of the passage of the Illinois Video Gaming Act, which legalized licensed video gaming terminals within the state. (A solid number of coin machine operators have secured licenses to participate in this business.) According to the state gaming board, since September 2012 when the gaming terminals first lit up, the machines have produced an estimated $785 million for the state, making the industry number one in terms of five-year growth. There are more than 24,000 machines in more than 5,000 bars, but experts say there is plenty of room for continued growth since 150…
IAAPA will move its global headquarters from Alexandria, Va., to Orlando, Fla., in the second quarter of 2017. The decision was made during a two-day meeting of the association’s board of directors held in Spain earlier in September in conjunction with the Euro Attractions Show. While the move seems obvious considering that Orlando is the usual site of IAAPA’s fall expo, the decision was based on a nine-month study conducted by a 12-member task force. The group found that Orlando was, as expected, a “global epicenter of the attractions industry,” and would provide an enhanced gathering place for members large…