Elaut's Belgian headquarters and its big research and development department is not the only place to find innovation. The company's US subsidiary, Elaut USA, is also making its mark as a games developer.
At the IAAPA trade show in Orlando last week, the company’s big booth played host to a number of new games, some of them devised and built in the US. A notable new pusher, Wizard of Oz, with licensed theme from the cinema classic, was presented for the first time.
An auto-pusher with all of the inserted coins staying in play, Wizard of Oz has a bill acceptor as well as coin validator and is capable of indicating credits. The player presses a button to fire coins or tokens at a high speed with a carousel in the centre dispensing through hoppers a number of bonus points cards.
Elaut’s Helga Verstraeten told InterGame that the new pusher is not for all jurisdictions, but its ability to be used with coins or tokens, made it readily available in many places. The points collected could be taken to a cashier for an instant prize. "We have tested it for some time and find that in some places, operators will place seats in front of the machine for older people who want to stay in front of the game for a long time."
Little Giga is another newcomer for Elaut, a small crane with compact footprint for fairs, carnivals and cafes and in arcades seeking to use up a small corner. The unit is popular for cafes with its Zippo lighters prize. Another new crane was Lollipop Kids an extra-wide crane for larger locations which can vend over-sized prizes.
Verstraeten said that the Belgian company planned to bring a new version of its famous crane mechanism to the London EAG expo in January.
