When I first heard that Dave & Buster’s was “partnering up” with the Lucra game betting platform, I felt the earth move under my feet. Does this mean that amusement machine players at the industry’s largest FEC chain will be legally able to bet against each other for money or some other prizes on our games? Right now, the apparent answer to that is “yes,” when wagers are placed under the control of the Lucra phone app system. Five to ten dollar bets are supposed to be the norm on this Lucra system, which that company says is already handling…
Author: RePlay Editor
John Wick: From Big Screen To the Playfield Pingame Introduces Stern Pinball’s New AI Combat System Created in collaboration with the entertainment company Lionsgate, Stern Pinball has revealed that John Wick – based on the hit film franchise – is their newest pingame. “Inspired by one of the most iconic and thrilling film franchises of our time, we’re releasing John Wick pinball games with the most advanced technology we’ve ever created,” said CEO and president Seth Davis. “We can’t wait for players to try out our new combat system and experience the action.” In the game, players step into the…
Putting a High-Tech Spin on Pool Former Operator Wants to Boost Player Numbers & Revenue with Gamified System Billiards, aka “pool,” has been around for hundreds of years, but it will take a giant leap forward if former Texas operator Gerald “G.P.” Cole has his way. As president of UCUE LLC, he’s developing UCUE, a digital billiards solution. It’s a playfield viewing system and gamification platform with skill instruction, player connectivity, competition and more for on-location pool. It’s his hope that this technological twist to the classic sport will also bring excitement, drawing new and younger players, reversing a downward…
Throw, Shoot, Score! Quarterback Pro and Double Dribble a Ball of Fun from ICE Innovative Concepts in Entertainment, which launched in 1982 with their iconic Chexx bubble hockey table, is no stranger to great sports games. Their two latest options, Quarterback Pro and Double Dribble, are certainly no exception. Company sales representative Ryan Coppola said it’s been nearly 20 years since ICE came out with the football game 2 Minute Drill and they were due for another. (Ryan, it’s worth noting, was a kid in the 2000s, seeing games like that being built by his grandfather, the late Ralph Coppola,…
TouchTunes Revamps Mobile App; FunWallet Coming Later This Year The innovative jukebox maker TouchTunes unveiled their updated mobile app in time for the recent Amusement Expo. The new mobile app “makes the digital jukebox experience more seamless and engaging, connecting consumers in person through the power of music like never before,” the company told showgoers. TouchTunes CEO Ross Honey spoke with RePlay on the trade show floor, detailing some of the features, including its “Full Queue Visibility,” which allows users to follow their song’s progress with real-time status updates and scroll through the entire queue to know exactly where…
Today’s Pinball Makes Dollars and Sense by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com Pinball means many things to people. For the growing category of “pinball operator,” it’s a way to make money. Return on Investment – ROI – is always top of mind for the operator. How much does the game cost, how much can it make, and for how long, and when do I break even and start to make money? Those are just some of the basic considerations when buying any game, new or used. With a used game, you have the benefit of earnings history, a…
Impressions of Amusement Expo 2024 by Adam Pratt, Arcade Galactic & ArcadeHeroes.com Another spring has sprung and with that, another Amusement Expo has passed. How did the show go? Let me share a few thoughts. As a reporter on the video arcade industry, I try to attend at least two shows a year – Amusement Expo and IAAPA. Often, there isn’t a huge difference between them. IAAPA gives us a taste of what is to come the next year and AEI shows us the final, polished versions of those same games. I can remember a time or two when Amusement…
The Times They Are A-Changing By George McAuliffe, President, Pinnacle Entertainment Group Since the “great recession” of 2008-09, arcade and FEC sales have been on a steady climb with the exception of the Covid interruption, of course. Even with Covid, the industry came back strong with record sales from mid-2021 through the end of Q3 2023 when we saw a softening begin. That softening has become a clear decline in the first quarter of 2024. Sales Our company, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, tracks sales weekly for our clients. The table below includes only those that were open the full period both…
Put a “Power House” in Your Corner Longtime Arcade Operators Offer Services to Newcomers & Seasoned Pros Alike As evidenced by the new faces at the recent Expo, people still want to enter the amusement business. The problem, asserts Stephen Bennett, managing partner of Power House Entertainment Group, is that they don’t know how. They might start by attending tradeshows or reading RePlay, he said, but eventually, they’ll want access to a team of seasoned professionals with decades of hands-on experience running their own locations, and also successfully managing others’, to give them a guiding hand. That’s where his Power…
As I’ve written several times before, the economic data that amusement and music operators really care about is generated in their own territories. It’s the economic equivalent of that other truism “all politics is local.” While this doesn’t render national news uninteresting or useless, it’s those state and city/town developments where the rubber meets the road in business. Nationally, stats for the month of March 2024 from Washington, D.C., showed that over 300,000 new jobs were added that month while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%. Such good news hopefully translated into fatter collections at the places where you have…