Laser Tag and Redemption?
Yes, and It’s Coming This Fall to Laserforce’s Gen8
The debut of a new Laserforce feature that’ll be out this fall was on full display at the company’s Bowl Expo booth in late June. The company’s business development officer Chris Epstein reported that showgoers who stopped by were in for a real treat.
“With one swipe of the card, the world-famous Laserforce Gen8 Battlesuit lit up with its beautiful infinity lighting,” he detailed. “The suit activated and began glowing green. ‘Battlesuit online,’ the familiar voice informed the inquiring spectators. But then a new prompt came over the suit’s speakers: ‘You can win tickets during this game.’”
The Laserforce team showed Bowl Expo attendees the phaser screen with its new golden ticket icon. They demonstrated what happened as the player zapped a beacon target, blowing it up and collecting tickets in the process.
“The Battlesuit’s audio informed him that he had earned five tickets and his phaser screen now had a ‘5’ next to the stack of tickets icon,” Epstein said.
The laser tag-redemption tie-in will be fully integrated with the game cards operators already use for redemption. (This is an extension of last year’s entitlement integration development with Embed, Intercard and Semnox, which allows entitlement sharing between third-party debit card systems and Laserforce Gen8 Battlesuits. The company says it has secured an 8-year innovation patent –– AU patent 2021100682 –– on this technology.)
“I believe that this novel development will shake up the laser tag industry and place Laserforce in a prime position to cater to our clients, who are increasingly being geared towards cashless play and ticket redemption, while being squeezed for productive floorspace,” said company COO Rohan Kelly.
Just like all of Laserforce’s new features, they’ll be available to existing operators in the SUP program at no additional cost. “We are constantly innovating and creating new ways for customers to enjoy their experience while simultaneously helping our operators generate more revenue,” Epstein touted.
He said some onlookers at Bowl Expo started brainstorming on the show floor – talking about using the innovation as an upsell feature or using it to sell memberships.
“All sites are different, and the ability to customize your laser tag attraction to exactly what you need to maximize your business is exactly what the redemption feature was designed to do.”
Epstein described laser tag as an anchor attraction, a “tried-and-true” mainstay of many FECs. However, he added, “One weak spot has always been its inability to synchronize with the redemption counter.” This changes that.
“Some sites and providers have tried to incorporate very primitive versions of ticket winning and laser tag, with little to no success. These experiments were doomed to fail –– the technology didn’t exist. There was no system in place to make the experience feel rewarding and fun, nor a way to automatically load tickets onto a preloaded game card in real time. It was extremely underwhelming.”
For the past year, the development team at Laserforce has been working on the technology to make it work. Now, customers can simply tap their debit card or game card on a Gen8 Battlesuit, play a game of Laserforce and win tickets. Just like with many arcade games, the tickets are automatically awarded to the game card.
“With Laserforce’s redemption model, players will now be rewarded based on their individual performances during the laser tag match,” Epstein said. “Now customers will view laser tag as another viable option to win tickets. This has never been an option until now, and the synergistic possibilities for operators are endless,” he declared.
“This will increase the appeal of laser tag for casual players and allow operators to generate more revenue with their existing Laserforce laser tag attraction.”
Learn more at www. laserforcetag.com.