It’s All About Fun Coin Crew Keenly Focused on Delivering a Fun, Social Experience with Battle Bowling by Key Snodgress If you’re born into the house of Bushnell (Nolan, that is), chances are you’re going to tilt towards the amusement business with a heavy emphasis on creating fun. Such is the case with Wyatt Bushnell, son of the Atari founder, who partnered with Mike Salyh and Louis Kaufman to start up Coin Crew Games. It’s currently a five-man, bootstrap endeavor based in Los Angeles where terms like “labor of love” and “passion” flow as freely as the laughs. After…
Author: RePlay Editor
The Polycade Brand Sleek, Multi-Game Street Machine Entices Operators, Players Alike by Matt Harding After some successful testing at a half dozen bars around Los Angeles, Polycade is expanding its footprint by opening up a beta program for their pay-to-play machine, which will give early operators discounted machines and a higher revenue share. To date, the company has spent its time tinkering with the machine to get it just right, and building Polycade into a name brand – collaborating with artists like Snoop Dogg and Ludacris, and growing their Instagram following to 27,000 people and counting. They even developed…
Newberry’s Venco Business Solutions Company Continues Innovation in Games, ATMs, & Street Operations by Hank Schlesinger Although John Newberry’s Venco Business Solutions is well known as a sprawling amusement game operation and ATM ISO, the beginnings of the company are actually quite humble. Just out of high school in 1966, Newberry opened a service station and in 1968 wanted a pool table and games.With a $2,500, 90-day-loan, he was in the games business. However, it wasn’t long before he began to branch out. Starting with that single coin-op pool table he installed in the convenience store section of the…
Triotech Sees Success With Coin-Op VR Company Says New Machine May Outdo Typhoon Get ready and grab your umbrellas … there’s a storm coming. After making its debut at IAAPA Expo 2019 in Orlando, Triotech’s new interactive coin-op virtual reality game Storm is ready to make landfall. “This has been our most successful launch to date,” said Ernest Yale, founder and CEO of Triotech. He said the new machine got more than 200 purchase commitments in just a month and a half, and is in full production now. From “morning to midnight,” Triotech is working on fulfilling orders. While there…
Boxblaster VR Fun for the Whole Family Launched in 2018 with the intent to go into the home market, Boxblaster VR saw an opportunity in location-based entertainment instead, where they’ve been able to create bigger and better experiences for families. About a year into business, they first showed their 4-player VR platform at Bowl Expo 2019. The Miami-based company currently has five games on the platform – Dino Rush, Gold & Mace, Eclipse, Arcania and Cyberblast VR – and plans on having another four by the close of 2020. But they say the existing games are already diverse enough to…
Locked & Reloaded! Big Buck Gets Big Upgrade for its Birthday New cabinet, new games and new animals – Big Buck Hunter: Reloaded is everything you’d want and expect from Raw Thrills and Play Mechanix as they celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary. Operators started receiving upgrades for existing Big Buck HD machines at the end of February. Each got the USB stick update and a new marquee. New cabinets, automatically loaded with Reloaded and branded as such, will be in production at the end of March. George Petro, president of Play Mechanix, said a prototype will be at Amusement Expo…
The Wild West Online Transactions Reinforce the Need for Integrity Over Price by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com I have been selling online since late 1999 and RePlay called me the “online ambassador” in a 2002 article. Who knew about the internet(s) anyway? Today, there are so many places to buy and sell online. Recently, I saw an ICE Super Chexx game listed locally for $995. I know the game must be worth more than that, so I asked the seller if it’s available. Yes, comes the Facebook marketplace reply. Okay, I’ll buy it. I ask the seller…
Build Your Group & Party Business Four Important Moves to Make Now! By Beth Standlee, CEO, TrainerTainment Building group and party business is an “all the time” job. Planning, consistency, prioritization, and focus are four key moves that create business on purpose rather than relying on the phone to ring. 1. Planning: Zig Ziglar challenged audiences with a great question that went something like this, “Do you want to be a wandering generality or a meaningful specific?” I love the clarity of the question. It’s easy to be all over the place and simply react to what comes your way.…
Fundamentals Are, Well, Fundamental By George McAuliffe, President, Pinnacle Entertainment Group Mine is a basketball family. Having played the game, refereed for 25 years, and watched tons of my son’s games, I am a huge believer in how great teams have great fundamentals, and how great fundamentals win games. Watching March Madness? See how many games are lost because of a bad pass, not squaring up on a shot or failure to box out on a rebound. Fundamentals for a redemption merchandise supplier include understanding what customers need, being product innovators, having a wide selection for FECs to choose from…
Reflections on a Busy Year Q: Last year as you were taking office you said your goal was to increase member engagement. Were you satisfied with the progress you were able to help make? A: Yes, and we’ve done a number of things to accomplish that. One is on-demand education. We’ve increased our amount of online educational opportunities and also have an online library for members because we know it’s not always cost-efficient for them to attend our meetings or the Expo. Our membership is made up of operators both big and small and everyone’s time is precious. Our on-demand…