Although still in their infancy, tournaments are becoming a popular choice with amusement operators as a way of increasing cash box takings. Helen Fletcher looks at the appeal to both the operator and player and tournaments' place within the coin-op industry...

Tournaments have for a long time been dominated by sports games such as pool, table football (soccer) and electronic darts. But more recently online and terminal tournaments have come into their own and are starting to make headway in the coin-op industry.

The appeal of tournaments, whether a sports game or terminal based, to players is obvious - the spirit of competition, the sense of belonging, the honour of winning and of course the prize at the end, are all factors which encourage players to join a tournament.

According to Josef Ohlinger of Funworld they also provide players with a kind of sport experience and a hard competition.

"It is a big challenge for the players," he said. "They can show their talent and prove themselves when they take part in tournaments. The honour of winning means the player becomes a local hero or even better the global master."

Funworld has been operating tournaments across Europe, through its Photo Play terminals, for some time now and has grown to be one of the largest providers of online tournaments in Europe, with four types of tournaments available: Local, Global Masters, Live and Multiplayer Cup.

Operators take responsibility for local tournaments and Global Master tournaments, which are international, are taken care of by Funworld itself, with around 50 Global Masters taking place each year lasting three to five weeks a time. The Live tournaments are held over 24 hours and change every day.

The Multiplayer Cup is the latest innovation from Funworld and combines head to head play in which up to four players can play against each other and set credits with the tournament system of Photo Play.

Tab Austria has also firmly established itself as a provider of tournaments within Europe, with operators and TAB also taking responsibility for different tournaments, which are available on the company’s Silverball terminals.

According to the company’s Karin Scheidl, online tournaments provide the operator with more advantages and revenue as well as providing the player with a different experience.

Scheidl added, however, that it is not enough to just offer an online tournament and it is just as important to offer operators an up-to-date service. "Terminals must work accurately and increase an operator’s income," she said.

Tournaments available to operators are split into ChampionsNet and Online Terminal Management. With the ChampionsNet system every Silverball terminal has its own high scores; however, if the terminal is registered national and international high scores are also available.

The Online Terminal Management system is, according to Scheidl, the more popular choice with both players and operators as it offers further advantages such as a head to head mode, access to Tab’s music shop and music downloads as well as internet and email access and the possibility for individual advertisements to be set up by the operator.

"There is no doubt that online Silverball terminals achieve better cashbox results," said Scheidl. "The combination of tournaments and premium games makes the cashbox ring and for many years our clients have had the self-same experience over and over again.

"Those who have their terminals linked and installed online earn at least 115 per cent more, month on month."

As online tournaments, both at an international and national level, continue to grow in popularity in Europe, national tournaments are also starting to gain momentum in the UK pub market and could well give it a helping hand in reinventing itself after the effects of the smoking ban, which was introduced at the beginning of July 2007.

Operator Gamestec has recently teamed up with UK pub group Punch Taverns to provide the market with a pub-based tournament, which offers players the chance to compete against other players’ scores, both locally and nationally and gives them the chance to win money.

By selecting a tournament game the player, if they achieve a high enough score, can be entered onto a local or national leader board. Each day the national leader boards are updated on the participating machines so players know the scores they need to beat to get ahead of the competition.

Commenting on the importance of tournament play to the UK market, Mark Daniels, digital product manager at Gamestec, told InterGame: "It is a really important step forward as it has really raised the stakes in terms of prizes. Prior to tournament play the top prize available on an SWP was about £40 and now with the introduction of tournament play it is possible to win up to £1,000."

The UK pub market is an extremely competitive one and Gamestec is well aware that pub groups and landlords need to look at new ways to draw customers in.

"As awareness of tournament play increases and the variety of different types of tournaments available grows, cashbox takings will continue to increase."

Manufacturer Games Warehouse also provides the UK amusement market with a national networked tournament.

Tournachamp is held 10 times a year with a prize fund of £10,000 each time. To participate in the tournament operators need an ION or Force Merit terminal with a TFT monitor and the 2007 version of the Megatouch software or newer.

Speaking with regard to the UK industry Nick Hardy of Games Warehouse told InterGame: "The traditional UK pub industry is having a tough time across the board for a variety of reasons. The networking of the SWP games and the resultant management of larger-scale tournaments represents a huge opportunity for pub retailers."

On the delivery of tournaments Games Warehouse works in tandem with its parent company Merit Entertainment based in the US, which has also developed its own tournament.

The TournaMaxx feature from Merit is available worldwide and according to Javier Lanfranchi, director of international sales, there are four factors that determine a successful tournament location.

Lanfranchi told InterGame: "Competitive sports minded clientele, a good music location, a good day trade location and a location owner that understands getting involved and promoting tournaments directly makes them more money, are all aspects that determine a good location."

For Lanfranchi, tournaments are a cornerstone of the industry largely because of the community of players and the revenue for the operator.

With regard to the future of tournaments in the coin-op industry, Lanfranchi said: "Tournament play will continue to grow in popularity and as a staple of our industry. People like a fun competition and operators understand that it means a better return on investment for their games."

Online skill tournaments are definitely growing in popularity but let’s not forget where coin-op tournaments first began. Golden Tee Golf video game was first launched in 1996 by US manufacturer Incredible Technologies. As a video game it was relatively successful but it was when the company added a modem and developed software to organise tournaments from a central computer that the game really took off.

Golden Tee Live (GTL) is the most recent development following a seven-year run. GTL uses a cellular modem, which offers real-time data transmission and allows a wide variety of live play features, including a unique tournament format where players are automatically entered into a world-wide tournament with every game they play.

Whether they choose to play for Glory (rankings only) or Prizes (cash), players have to identify themselves at the start of each game with a player card and are then automatically set up within the ITNet system, allowing Incredible Technologies to pay the prizes to them instantly via a special player account.

Scott Morrison of Incredible Technologies told InterGame: "Over 85 per cent of the prizes won by players are immediately channelled back into the game, which is a tremendous benefit to operators.

"More than US$10m in prize money has been spent directly on the machines as more game play, automatically converting these winnings to new income for operators."

For Morrison, the success of Golden Tee tournaments is down to the fact that golf is a universally recognised sport and the game provides an approachable and satisfying experience for players.

Kevin Weir of UK-based Electrocoin, the company in charge of running GTL tournaments throughout the UK, added: "The attraction is to prove they are the best as well as winning cash prize rewards. There is a dedicated group of players that play purely for reward. Tournaments are an added bonus to games as they take nothing away from the fun player."

Weir went on to say that the biggest influence as to how popular and successful tournaments are is down to legislation.

"Golden Tee tournaments for prizes for example, are only legal in the UK, Ireland and Denmark," he said. "The rest of Europe does not allow tournaments for prizes, so tournaments such as the one run by Funworld are not for financial gain."

Although Golden Tee tournaments have had an overwhelming success with tournaments, Mark Beauchamp of Sega believes video game machines with tournament capabilities, such as the ones it produces, are still well within their infancy.  

Beauchamp said: "Until such a time that the sector has a powerful infrastructure within which to offer multi-site game play and the quality and quantity of prizes to entice mass-market players, video game tournaments will stay in their infancy."

Sega’s games with tournament capability include WCCF, a unique card based football management game; VF5 - a platform fighting game; OutRun SP Deluxe driving game and Dinosaur King.

Beauchamp added: "There is no reason why the video game sector should try and compete with the online tournament sector as the two are worlds apart.

"However, the industry could benefit from the positive aspects of tournament play capitalising on the arcade environment and the unique experience that arcade game play offers.

"In the present climate I believe that we need to offer the ever demanding public even more value even if it is the perceived value of a tournament."

One area of the amusement industry that has had a long relationship with tournaments is the table sports sector and electronic darts.

Diana Marketing, based in Spain, has long been involved with dart tournament and association Bullshooter, originally set up by Arachnid, based in Illinois, US.

According to Adrian Buckley, managing director of Diana Marketing, running leagues and holding events are important tools in ensuring good coin drops and in smoothing fluctuations in earnings.

Buckley went on to say that the concept of a sports infrastructure to support the operation and function of an entertainment machine that in itself gives no prizes is fundamental.

"Creating such a structure has been one of the major investments that our company and Arachnid has embarked on," he said. "Bullshooter has played an important role in maintaining our business and paving the way for our future."

To keep up with the growing demands of the tournament and constant advances in technology, Diana Marketing is currently in the process of changing its league management software to a web-based format called League Leader, which is currently up and running in the US and soon to be introduced into Europe.

As for the table sports sector, Italian football table manufacturers Fas Pendezza and Roberto Sport and Spanish sports table manufacturer Billares Sam are all companies that have their tables featured in national and international tournaments.

The difference between sports tournaments compared to online and video tournaments is that the tables need to be manufactured and designed to meet certain requirements. Football tables, for example, have to feature a sandblasted pitch, rubber bumpers instead of springs, competition counters to mark game sets and goals and flat playfield corners.

Simona Pendezza, of Fas Pendezza, told InterGame: "Our National Team table features in numerous tournaments. The main tournaments (world cup and world championships) are organised by ITSF (International Table Soccer Federation)."

Marco Boretazz of Roberto Sport added: "All sportive disciplines were originally games and leisure activities but they grew up and increased in popularity, which led to them being organised and disciplined and officially recognised by institutional organisations."

Boretazz went on to say that out of all the tournaments available, it is the international ones that have gained the most momentum and become extremely popular with players.

"An international football table event, which is officially organised, draws high numbers of players which in turn attracts big sponsors which creates more money that can be invested in media such as TV spots and advertising.

"These investments then draw even more players, sponsors and of course provide the spectators with high quality tournaments."

For Billares Sam, tournaments provide a platform to get its products and company name noticed through sponsorships. The manufacturer currently sponsors Daniel Sanchez, one of the best carom billiards players in the world, who has won the Spanish, European and world championships.

Pablo Madarlaga of the company said: "We have been involved in carom tournaments around the world for years and the Elite table is now standard for this game and was used in various tournaments.

"As well as this, our tables are used in the Tour Espana tournament, which has been running for the past 12 years, and more recently, in association with a few operators, we became involved in the Linares Table Football League.

Tournaments may come in all shapes and sizes but one thing they clearly have in common is that they are popular with both the operators and players as they provide a different experience and extra revenue.

And as Otto Kraus of Amusys told InterGame, as the internet grows and improves so will the possibility to improve the tournament systems as well as finding new ideas to attract players.

However, a tournament will only survive if the game is interesting, challenging and appeals to players for a lengthy amount of time. Without this, it will never be a strong enough concept to single-handedly transform the coin-op industry.