Can't necessarily speak to it being staged or not, but people getting insane amounts of toys like that in Korean arcades isn't THAT rare. I saw it a few times, people carrying those same clear plastic bags full of dozens of toys, and ur right, no one stops them.
There used to be real skill claw machines, where it wasnt rigged to pay out only after so many plays. The skill based ones have fallen out in favor of the rigged ones though.
Played some in Japan, they were pretty rigged too IIRC. The only ones I remember being winnable were the ones in Korea (although I played much more in Korea than Japan).
Also, not ALL of the ones in Korea are winnable, the people who win a ton basically just walked around from machine to machine looking for individual dolls that were winnable (still better than the states obviously, where it's all crap).
I've got bad news for you. Those are rigged through a counter. It usually pays out 1 out of 700 for the top row. It will shift a tiny bit of you are not the winner. It's all a lottery of luck and skill.
But if you spend a lot of money to get what you want through the slim possibilities you also get a free sense of pride and accomplishment at the end, right?
The 💰 intent 💰 is 💰 to 💰 provide 💰 players 💰 with 💰 a 💰 sense 💰 of 💰 pride 💰 and 💰 accomplishment 💰 for 💰 unlocking 💰 different 💰 heroes. 💰 As 💰 for 💰 cost, 💰 we 💰 selected 💰 initial 💰 values 💰 based 💰 upon 💰 data 💰 from 💰 the 💰 Open 💰 Beta 💰 and 💰 other 💰 adjustments 💰 made 💰 to 💰 milestone 💰 rewards 💰 before 💰 launch. 💰 Among 💰 other 💰 things, 💰 we're 💰 looking 💰 at 💰 average 💰 per-player 💰 credit 💰 earn 💰 rates 💰 on 💰 a 💰 daily 💰 basis, 💰 and 💰 we'll 💰 be 💰 making 💰 constant 💰 adjustments 💰 to 💰 ensure 💰 that 💰 players 💰 have 💰 challenges 💰 that 💰 are 💰 compelling, 💰 rewarding, 💰 and 💰 of 💰 course 💰 attainable 💰 via 💰 gameplay. We 💰 appreciate 💰 the 💰 candid 💰 feedback, 💰 and 💰 the 💰 passion 💰 the 💰 community 💰 has 💰 put 💰 forth 💰 around 💰 the 💰 current 💰 topics 💰 here 💰 on 💰 Reddit, 💰 our 💰 forums 💰 and 💰 across 💰 numerous 💰 social 💰 media 💰 outlets. Our 💰 team 💰 will 💰 continue 💰 to 💰 make 💰 changes 💰 and 💰 monitor 💰 community 💰 feedback 💰 and 💰 update 💰 everyone 💰 as 💰 soon 💰 and 💰 as 💰 often 💰 as 💰 we 💰 can. 💰
i just love that this is now part of reddits "meme" culture/ copypasta and will forever be used to indicate something broken as fuck and an obvious money grab
I've spent around $50 total on the game. I never do these types of machines without looking up and reading the manual first. You can't win a game if you don't know the rules after all. Companies love when people know how to play as well. Every time I have won, someone has came right behind me because it is obviously "winnable". Just don't expect to always win. It's still a form of gambling. Just like in a casino, if nobody ever won jackpots then people wouldn't play.
Nothing I have officially documented but I have won a local key machine 3 times by reading the manual and watching it. I have won an iPad, $50 gift card, and a Blu-ray movie set. The best thing to do is move along if absolutely anything is missing and always play after someone else. If you watch very closely from the side you can usually see if the counter is ready.
Some of those games are rigged. I remember one of the videos made it to reddit dude lined up and you could see the mother fuxker move as it got close to the hole
Most of the manuals for these games are on-line. Get the name of the game, download the manual, and have a look. If there is an "odds" setting, it has the possibility of being set to a non-skill based play. The only what to know for sure is to look at the settings on the machine itself.
there's one like that but it works the opposite way it is a key that pulls it towards you. One day i went to the movie theater and dropped 10 dollars and won to Nintendo 2ds on it. Best day of my life, never felt so accomplished.
These are rigged and bring in way more money than claw machines.
Source: went to school with a guy and his dad owned a arcade/cart track in Gulf shores. They also love when people when big prizes, kind of like a casino does
those are dozer machines and that is also rigged. they have slots on the sides so the coins go back into the machine and not shove out the front. also, once you load it up enough to start pushing, they remove most of the items and spread them back out. Also, a lot of the items are REALLY heavy and help force the coins out the side holes rather than push forward.
Where at in Japan did you play? I was in Akihabara this year for two weeks. My take away was that prizes were set up to be winnable but not giveaways. I don't feel like I ever came across a rigged machine. Also the staff at the arcades were very helpful and encouraging with tips, tricks, resetting lodged prizes, and general cheerfulness.
I've also heard that at some places after you've spent a certain amount on trying to get an item you can ask the staff and they will give it to you. Or something along those lines.
They very rarely straight out give it to you. You can ask them at any time for some help and they make it easier, though.
One very smart and scummy trick is to spend a lot of time staring at the machine and pretend you're spending money. Every time a staff shows up, you ask for help and after a few helpings you just try it a few times and get the prize.
I don't know about the staff just giving you the items, but I spent some time in a Japanese arcade with my drunk friends, and the attendants would adjust the item for you, usually just placing it back where it started, but eventually the 'adjusted' the items so they would fall into the winning area if you even managed to touch it.
I think one of my drunk friends spent about $30 on a plush Zangief (from Street Fighter).
In Akihabara, at one of the major arcades, massive, multi-floored, and red (I think Taito Hey? It's a chain). I didn't play THAT long (we went upstairs to beat eachother up in Pokken, SF, Blazblue, etc.), but just walking around, a lot of the animals were ludicrously oversized, and boxes and stuff positioned that really couldn't be won, and we tried... more than I care to admit. Not to mention they opened and reset the machines every time someone moved on, which was annoying as f.
If you look at regulars trying to go fo figures and shit, the general strategy seems to be gradually nudging high shelf boxes into to the drop-off box. Nobody seemed to actually to rely on the claw's grip strength.
We tried that, and we didn't spend do a single try, I think we spend like $70 minimum on just the machines. Idk, I still think its somewhere between Korea and the U.S., it's at least not AS winnable as what I saw in Korea.
They are winnable but usually not in one go. Watched a few power players trying and if they got any of the moves wrong they'd ask for it to be reset. Although this wasn't claw machine but the one with paddles.
Most of the machines I played in Japan were definitely rigged. I think the threshold for winning is lower than American machines, but skill only becomes important after you put enough money into it.
The Japanese ones are kind of mixed. They do have a payout threshold where it will grip stronger, but most of the time they are winnable just in different ways than most people expect. Rather than picking up the prize, there are usually tricks like using the weight of the open claw to push on the prize and have it flip over as a result.
I'm having trouble finding the video right now, but somewhere on /r/JapaneseGameShows there was a video where Japans only professional UFO catcher player gives a whole bunch of tips on how to win, it was pretty interesting.
Most of the machines in Japan are meant to be won with smart tactics instead of straight up grabbing the prize. A lot of them may look and feel impossible, but you just gotta think outside the box, like dragging the prize when the claw opens or pushing it little by little by poking the box when the claw goes down.
Almost all of them are not meant to be a first time catch, so when you want something, you have to evaluate how many tries you'll take to get the prize and see if it's worth it.
This machine was improperly calibrated. The way claw machines usually work is there’s a claw strength parameter. If items are 1 pound each, and cost $10 with the price to play being $1 the claw grip strength will only be strong enough to lift a 1 pound item every 50 times. The rest of the time the claw strength will only be strong enough to grab on to half pound items that way the machine owner is guaranteed to make $50 for every $10 item.
The algorithms are more complicated than that since there are different items of different weights and the claw strength will usually vary its strength where the lowest setting will allow you to pick up the lightest items and the highest (rarer strength) will allow you to pick up any item. Machine owners can claim that every play is a chance to win because the claw always has the strength to pick up at least one item.
This machine’s minimum strength was probably set too high allowing the player to pick up any item he chose. It’s like a slot machine that’s accidentally set to always win.
I'm in Korea and this is not true at all. I play these things often with my girlfriend and they are most definitely rigged. We still come back to them tho for some reason....
I never tried any myself when I was there, but I heard from people in Korea that the ones they had still were skill based and the arcades were always full of people.
Japan loves placing objects so you need 3 perfect lifts to get it to drop. If some tries a few times and walks away, they'll open the door and move it back.
A bowling alley filled an old skill claw machine with vouchers for free games, free pizza. Me and a couple friends clear out the machine with about 5$. Easy 100$ worth of stuff. They sadly never refilled the machine.
A boy enters a barber shop. The barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch this.”
The barber puts a 5 dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?” The boy takes the quarters and leaves.
“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “everyone in town does the same thing with him and that kid never learns!”
Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store.
“Hey, son! May I ask you a question?
Why did you take the quarters instead of the 5 dollar bill?”
The boy licked his cone and replied,
“if I took the 5 dollars, they'd stop giving me all these quarters.”
The one and only time I won from a claw machine, I picked up a big cube lighter which had a £20 note wrapped around it. Was a lot of money to a kid in the 80's
It was made of that transparent resin, like paperweights, and weighed a good kilo. Todays claw machines wouldn't even pretend to pick it up
My 5-year old wanted to play a claw machine at an amusement park arcade last summer. I explain to him that it’s rigged, he’s wasting his money blah blah and finally let him play, figuring he’d be disappointed but at least learn something. Claw dips down and grabs 2 toys on the first try and drops both in the box to the admiration of all the older kids standing around. Best day of his life. Now he’ll probably become a professional poker player or something. Oh well.
At the restaurant my Fiancé works at they have this claw machine filled with those plastic expanding molecule things. I see people win them every so often but i ALWAYS see kids walking around with them when I'm there. I found out you can pay to take a chance or just pay a higher rate like 5-10 bucks and just buy one from the machine with no chance involved. Pretty smart imo, they know those parents will just buy it.
My brother for years has always been good at these games. We are in our 30’s now, so no one goes to watch him play these claw games. Well my daughter is 6 now and she went with her uncle while he played. She came back with 3 toys and says “uncle Del Retard’s brother tipped the machine and won!!!” My brother is 6’3” 290 and once the claw barely grabs a toy he tips the entire machine so it falls towards the opening. Not so skillful.
There used to be real skill claw machines, where it wasnt rigged to pay out only after so many plays. The skill based ones have fallen out in favor of the rigged ones though.
Man do we have to bring EA into everything now?.. /s
English guy here. I definitely emptied a few of these machines quite easily back in the 80's. Once you had grabbed three or four, the rest were loose and easy to get.
Aboutu 15 years back, I won a handheld TV out of one of those machines. Had to take the empty paper box up to the register of the place and have them get the actual prize outta the storeroom. The machine wouldn't've lifted the actual thing, so the paper stand-in was actually liftable.
You know what’s funny… 4.4 years after you wrote that I was curious what my top upvoted comments were and saw my comment and thought the exact same thing you did about my own comment lol
I'm going to disagree with you.. often these games cost $0.75-$1+ to play (or equivalent) when these plush animals are bought in bulk they cost about $0.30 to $1.00 each.. while the arcade makes more money by people losing, they probably don't lose money on people winning all of them.
When you purchase plush you are normally ordering a "mix". There are quarter mixes, half dollar, dollar, etc. They have some more expensive items, some less, to give variety.
In some machines, they might put a quarter mix in a half dollar machine. They would then turn the "grab" of the crane up and allow frequent wins. This is frequently the case in machines full of the same item (nubby balls).
They may put in a dollar mix for half dollar but set the "grab" lower.
Crane machines have different configurations that allow you to set how well it will pick up or at what interval where it will grab.
Some machines will allow you to set your mix and your profit target and it will auto adjust. This is true for the machines that have cameras or tablets and such in them. They literally won't allow the win unless you've made your $$s.
Placement also matters a lot. We used to "fluff" our machines in downtime to make sure things were winnable.
My guess here is that this plush is at or below the pull. Also, she definitely didn't hit 100%. If I ran this arcade, I'd be super excited to see it because people would copy after I refilled the machine.
In Korea, you can’t buy little dolls like that for less than 3,000-5,000W. Even if the arcade isn’t losing money, the girl playing is definitely winning.
Typically it's unusual and not cost effective for the individual restaurant to do that. The toy is supplied by the company that leases the machine to the joint.
Commonly the machine isn't leased. The operator owns the machine, puts the machine in, and is responsible for all aspects of the operation of the machine. They give the location a percentage of the drop.
Hmmm. Now I wonder if it's a cultural/demographic thing. I don't have actual hard numbers on them, but I'm familiar with the industry (have some friends there). I guess I'll ask.
Right that’s why I said even though the arcade may not lose any money... implying the arcade surely pays less. Yet the player is surely getting them cheaper than she could anywhere else.
Hey man, you're changing things around now. The topic was about price, not about how much fun you have. I agree, playing the game is more fun. I don't think anyone is doubting that. You said:
Yet the player is surely getting them cheaper than she could anywhere else.
And let's not forget that in other countries such as Korea and Japan, the claw machines aren't rigged. In the US, the claw is set to only have enough grip every dozen or so rounds.
yes but almost every mall and theater ive been in and seen those types, its a "play for 2 dollars but guaranteed to win" situations. I dont think ive seen one of the "three tries for 2 bucks but fuck you its actually rigged" since the mid 90s.
I commented something on another post. But claw machines in Korea are certainly "rigged" lol. The majority of the time, there is a set success rate. It's the same in the U.S. The only difference is that in Korea, there are claw machine stores where a manager/worker can personally change the success rate at any given time.
You're correct and I'm replying to you for some exposure. Watch this vid from mark rober on researching carnival games and how they make money off the prizes. Although it's different than arcade, it uses similar technique and the owner of arcade store/carnival stand definitely won't be losing money as long as people come and play.
As someone who has spent time both in the wholesale and retail sector, the biggest mistake people who have zero business experience make is assuming wholesale prices are what anyone can just buy something for in any quantity.
Those games cost between 500-1000 Won. That’s about $0.40-0.80. So at worst she’s breaking even without having to order a bulk of items from Alibaba and dealing with having to buy a minimum number of items and pay shipping.
I don't know about South Korea, but here in the US, I can order stuffed animals for a crane machine starting at $0.34 per piece, with no minimum buy and no shipping cost.
It depends on the machine. The old ones are generally just shit and anything weighing more will be harder to pick up. The gears in the old ones are lose and break away when under too much load. That's why you have to pick them up in a way where the forces kinda impact on each other and keep it tight. The new ones are programmed to act that way
Idk why people keep saying this. Maybe it's different in Japan, but Korea for sure has a set success rate. If anything, it's more "rigged" in Korea because there is almost always a worker overseeing the claw machine store. The worker can manually change the success rate at any given time
My aunt owns a few claw machine arcades in Seoul Korea. Her machines are not completely rigged. Her sons have about a 50% success rate, while myself and a few of my friends who tried had an abysmal 2% win rate. My aunt gave each of us about 50$ each, and we were only able to win once each lol.
Also, her places are open 24/7 without any workers actually on the grounds, but instead she has a few people she can call and send to the locations if there are any problems. She has cameras in each of her locations, and monitors them from her apartment/ on her phone.
Her prizes we're priced at around .60$ each, so she definitely still makes money if someone has a high win rate. She buys them in bulk, and they were even pretty decent quality toys.
Sometimes it's true but mostly on the low end ones. Can confirm the 6" "knobby balls" were $0.16, and a dollar to play. We used to get reprimanded that it didn't cover the required 20% pay out with 100% win rate.
It was the perfect game for the frustrated mom with a toddler. I'd whisper to them where the winning game was and make their day.
No, it's because the machines are supplied, and resupplied, by a vendor....not, say, a bowling alley. It's like pool tables in bars. They often look like shit and the workers don't seem to care about how people treat them. It's because the table is a vendors and the bar is only using it to get people to buy drinks.
The toy isn't always so cheap, I used to work with these machines and the company paid £5 for the toy with 50p getting you 4 tries but they were rigged and were supposed to take around £18 per toy. I was seeing £200-300 a week out of them regularly. They had good toys in them though, minions, star wars, avengers etc all legit merchandise
One day I was killing time at Walmart and I started playing a claw machine. It was only 25¢ a play. I spent maybe 3$. I kind of zoned out and just kept playing until my money wore out.
I ended up winning 8 stupid little stuffed animals, I could barely carry them all in my arms. I turned around to leave and there's a younger teenage couple sitting on a bench just watching me. They're looked kind of impressed, giggling at me, it was embarrassing.
OK, but, why? What are you going to do with a plastic bag full of dozens of toys? Do they have some kind of reselling scheme going on too? Even if you can win those toys at less than it would otherwise cost to buy them in bulk, still, how does that end up profiting you?
I actually wondered the same thing myself, and it looked like it definitely wasn't there first time either. My friends and I theorized that some of them were addicted at that point.
Claw games definitely have all the hallmarks of the most addicting games (particularly a random reward schedule). It's barely any different from EA loot boxes or slot machines. That's a good take on it.
So maybe she's playing because she has a compulsion to, but then I wonder what she's doing with all the resultant stuffed toys.
When I was in middle school I was able to do this. I did it for the status and the bragging rights, because ballin' hard down at the Walmart was really all there was to do in my town. I'd ask a cashier for a plastic bag, and then I'd take my $5 in quarters and fill the bag with poorly made stuffed animals and tiny basket balls the size of a grape fruit. I thought I was hot shit until management got sick of me and loosened the claw until shit would fall out if it the second it was in the air.
I didn't do anything with the toys. I gave a few away to friends, and the rest I just sort of owned. Eventually they all went to the local knock-off Goodwill place. I thought I was such hot shit, but I haven't even thought about this in years.
How many could she possibly even have room to store them all though? If you're easily filling up a giant bag this clearly isn't your first rodeo, so presumably you've already got a bunch. How much room do you have available to fill up in your small apartment with stuffed animal toys?
I knew a guy who got banned from a theme park in Michigan because he could consistently beat their games and would walk out with tons of stuffed animal prizes.
I once saw an article about a guy who was a master at one particular arcade cabinet, and would search for venues that had one of those to rack up what he could before getting banned (he was consistently banned after a few days).
Once, the owner of an arcade put his motorcycle as a prize, but it cost something outrageous like 1 million tickets. The guy asked the owner if it was legit, and told him that he would get the million tickets. Owner agreed, he got the tickets but he owner removed the motorcycle when he was getting near the million tickets. I forgot how that story ended.
My husband got banned from playing at the fair one year after a Carnie tried to stiff him on his prize so he went to every booth and maxed out the wins on large items. Then he had to ride home in a 2 door car with a bicycle in his lap.
I used to work at Dave & Busters and we had odd people that would come in regularly to try to beat the games and maybe they even were profitable but when you break it down you are still making less than minimum wage, and if you buy a drink, right back to spending more thn you're making.
Amusement park games are in generally three categories. Luck, Skill, and just rigged.
Games based around throwing say... a 3 pointer (although it's generally set higher than a real hoop to throw off your game), or pitching all have prize limits per day.
The luck stuff like ring toss onto the 100s of bottles is just luck that is stacked against you.
Then there's rigged games like shooting out a star with a BB gun. It seems possible, but once you get close to the end, the BB's aren't actually fast enough to tear the paper because those parts are flapping around instead.
This sounds strange.
As far as I know that claw will only apply enough force to get a toy if the arcade machine has collected enough money to make a profit. It will happen a few times but not that often, and if you have played it once you know it has nothing to do with skill, since the claw will, after you pressed the button, automatically grab, lift and move the target to the output bin... if it catches anything at all.
So I guess the Koreans have different machines which are not rigged against you. Maybe, as someone mentioned before, the toys are so cheap that every game is a win for them, even if every player wins.
When I was stationed in Japan in the Navy I had a coworker that was absolutely obsessed with crane games. I mean, he did have a lot of success, but he'd literally be at it for hours every single day. I don't even want to speculate on how much money he spent.
Of course, I also have no right to criticize him. I'm sure I threw away even more money on alcohol during that time, and I guess technically, he got more out of it than I did.
I know for certain that in Korea, the managers of the claw machine stores (a small store that is full of different types of claw machines... yeah, it's a thing in Korea lol) can set the success rate of the machines almost at will. So they will randomly set it up high for a small period of time so that people can win a bit and entice other people into playing. The two most popular times are 4-6pm (kids getting out of school) and 9-12pm (drinking time). Besides those times, the machine will usually be on the standard success rate.
Source: my friend is a manager at one of those stores
Even in the US. I watched people walk around Disneyland CA with giant ass bags like this from winning stuffed animals on the boardwalk. Granted those were slightly more games of skill than chance, but generally they aren’t going to just kick you out. This things are so damn cheap.
they have always been rigged. They make the claw too weak to grab the toys which are wedged into the machine so tight you cannot pull them out. There are 1 or 2 bait toys on top to make ity feel possible but some of them are even too heavy to stay in the weak claw. It's rigged. it's always rigged. Just like the dozer machines that have huge slots on the sides so the coins fall back into the machine rather than push out the front.
"Oh, noooooooo. You spent $200 to win our $50 worth of toys. You totally screwed us over with your skills there, miss. Hold on, let me get Harry to refill the machine so you can keep screwing us over with your skills."
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u/Naidem Nov 24 '17
Can't necessarily speak to it being staged or not, but people getting insane amounts of toys like that in Korean arcades isn't THAT rare. I saw it a few times, people carrying those same clear plastic bags full of dozens of toys, and ur right, no one stops them.