When making a purchase the majority of consumers will buy into a lifestyle or image that is associated with a product - something that is important to its success. With this in mind, Helen Fletcher takes a look at the importance of brands in the coin-op and gaming industry...

According to Heinz Foodservice director Phil Jones, using well-known brands has a positive effect on an establishment’s profit potential and when it comes to customer perception, brands have distinct personalities, represent certain values and can evoke both positive and negative feelings.

Car manufacturers such as BMW, Lexus and Mercedes, for example, have a certain image attached to them and many consumers will associate words such as luxury, sophistication, speed and high performance with the cars.

Fast food retailer McDonalds, however, is a good example of how brands can gain a negative image.

The company has received so much bad press over the past few years for its unhealthy food menu that it has been forced to introduce healthier foods and is working with UK smoothie manufacturer Innocent Smoothies, well known for its ethical practices, in an attempt to move away from its negative image and reinvent itself as a brand people will believe in and want to buy.

Branded products do, however, come in all shapes and sizes and some products are in fact spin-offs of successful television programmes.

Take children’s television programmes for example.

They are particularly suited to branding as children develop and incredible loyalty to their favourite characters like Dora the Explorer, The Tweenies and SpongeBob SquarePants has been used to sell everything from clothing to school stationery to lunch boxes.

SpongeBob SquarePants is one television programme that has entered the coin-op industry successfully and Harry Levy Amusements in the UK has had a great deal of success with its redemption titles.

Brands in the amusement industry


Gary Newman of Harry Levy told InterGame: “Branded products definitely have a place in the coin-op industry and can sometimes turn a great game into a real hit.

“Take the Crazy Frog in The Annoying Thing whacker; the song in the advert got on everyone’s nerves for months, so using the frog as a target along with the audio was an inspired idea.

“Licensed products can sometimes have the edge on generic products when the licence and game work well together and when it is popular with the player, but it is not enough to just badge a game up - manufacturers have to consider what a character might do in the game. For example, SpongeBob lives under water so in one game he goes fishing.”

Newman added: “We travel the world looking for interesting redemption machines to offer our customers and have a very close working relationship with companies such as Coastal Amusements in the US, showing characters that players will recognise worldwide.”

The children’s ride market is another area where branded products can perform particularly well. However, according to Jolly Roger’s Marshall Ashdown:

“The market is now becoming quite congested and manufacturers have to be very selective and try to predict the next ‘hot’ licence.

“We look for a licence that has the backing of a master licensee such as one of the major toy manufacturers, Mattel or Hasbro, as it guarantees a major advertising campaign, which will in turn raise the profile of the ride.”

Jolly Roger currently holds the licence for brands including Thomas the Tank Engine, Rupert Bear and Bob The Builder and according to Ashdown the key is to secure a successful licence on cheap terms and likened the process to signing an unknown pop group in the hope they will make the big time.

Ashdown said: “When a character is extremely popular the licensing company wants large guarantees and royalty rates. So we try to identify characters that haven’t yet reached mass appeal but show good potential for the future. It is an art rather than a skill, but luckily we get it right the majority of the time.”

TV influence

It is not just children’s television programmes that can be turned into successful branded products and many TV quiz shows as well as popular board games have been turned into games for the coin-op and gaming industry including Deal or No Deal, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Bullseye, Monopoly, Cluedo and Guess Who?, which have all had great success in the AWP and SWP markets.

Monopoly, launched by UK-based company Maygay Machines in 1990, was the first board game to be styled into an AWP and was also the first to truly exploit a prominent consumer brand.

Nick Hardy, of Games Warehouse, who worked for Maygay Machines’ advertising agency at the time, told InterGame: “It was a ground breaking development and a huge success and today, almost two decades later, coin-op and gaming companies are still developing games based on this iconic brand.”

Hardy added: “A strong brand brings instant recognition, favourable familiarity and, therefore, an increased element of trust.

“However, the ultimate reason for a successful coin-op or gaming game lies in the format rather than the theme or packaging.

“The most successful SWP games of the past decade by a large margin have been Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Bullseye and Deal or No Deal. They are classics of the genre and the brands are powerful, but the foundation of their success is that the core games themselves are superb and ‘marry’ perfectly with the interactive video medium,” said Hardy.

And according to Rosie Littlewood of AWP manufacturer Barcrest, based in the UK, branding has the benefit of giving a product extra impact and has a walk-up factor, particularly in sites with large gaming offers.

Barcrest currently has branded games for categories B3 and C that include titles such as Monty Python, Rocky, Elvis and World Poker Tour.

Littlewood added: “Branding can also be used to give a great generic game a second lease of life, extending the success of the game format.

“Our core product range of hi-tech, reel-based games is one that can lend itself to branding, but only with a really strong brand which adds value to the game.”

It has been shown that different brands work well in different locations. For example, Barcrest’s Elvis brand games have been a success for the company in bingo clubs and arcades and also marked the company’s entry into interactive TV, which has been followed by Cashino and Rainbow Riches. 

Then there are the video games and one manufacturer that knows about brand licensing is Sega; its driving games use them heavily.

Video games and brands


The video game giant has had a long running relationship with Ferrari that goes back as far 1986 when the first Out Run racing game was developed.

Justin Burke from Sega said: “It is fair to say that Out Run would not be the game it is without the Ferrari association, particularly when we can recreate the car in the arcade environment as it’s not every day you get to drive a Ferrari around a race circuit, so having licensed products puts the player in a world of aspiration.”

In Japan Sega has a whole department dedicated to managing licences, of which Sega holds hundreds globally. WCCF (World Club Championship Football), for example, covers 21 European teams including Manchester United, Chelsea and Inter Milan.

“Licences have extremely tight conditions about what can and can’t be done with the property and all use of the images and rights must go for approval back to the licensor,” added Burke.

It would seem then that certain aspects that come with branded products and licences, such as familiarity and loyalty are beneficial to the coin-op and gaming industry.

So much so in fact that popular generic games can sometimes gain the same familiarity status, as Dave Fochs of Bay Tek Games in the US explains: “Our main emphasis has been to capitalise on our Bay Tek Games brand, which is well known and highly respected within our distributors customer base.

“Almost all of our games are non-branded but their great game play has resulted in brand name recognition, not only with our Bay Tek brand but with the titles of the games as well.”

Bay Tek Games does however, hold licences for brands including Hummer and American Idol.

The future of brand power

As game developers come up with increasingly hi-tech, complex and entertaining games, will there still be the need for brands in the industry?

According to Maria Kidulis of Bell-Fruit Games in the UK, which has had success with numerous branded games such as Dr Who, Lord of the Rings, Only Fools and Horses and Deal or No Deal, this will definitely be the case.

Kidulis told InterGame: “The importance of exploiting popular brands will increase as factors such as the smoking ban mean the industry needs to increase the player base and therefore needs to appeal to new or lapsed players as well as more female players.”

And according to Newman of Harry Levy: “It’s clear that the success of our modern TV shows such as the X Factor is going to lend itself to genres such as singing games, but the cost of these licences will have to be reflected in the cost of the games themselves.

“From a redemption point of view, the evergreen licences such as Disney characters that children and adults recognise will always be popular and are ideal for children’s rides, but again will be more expensive.”

And it is clear that for now branding is important in the world of gaming but there is also plenty of room for good generic games.

However, in the words of Sega’s Justin Burke, some games “wouldn’t be the games they are without the licence” and this is why, for now at least, the power of brands is strong.