David Snook discovers why operators of cranes need to be just as skillful and patient as the players

Acrane needs to be operated with as much skill as a player needs to exercise in winning prizes with one. That is the conclusion from many years of studying this, in some ways the most surprising of sectors.

It is surprising because it was perhaps the last type of game which I ever thought would become a fetish in Japan. The decline of the arcade video game - the backbone of the Japanese manufacturing industry for many years - left a major hole in the Japanese presentation for their thousands of arcades. They needed something to latch on to, just as they used first pusher games and then photo booths as major ‘fads’ for their teenagers.

The crane? Too boring for the technology mad Japanese youngsters. But no, Sega went to work on its UFO Catcher and half a million machines later the great unpredictability of the Japanese coin machine market is underlined. It started with that machine 30 years ago and is now on its eighth update. Version seven was due at the London EAG Expo last month.

Sega isn’t of course the only company in the business. Its great rival Namco has had its moments in the cranes business, and currently has its own ‘fad’ in Barber Cut, an innovative game which I first saw in the showrooms of Dubai’s Warehouse of Games two years ago. WoG boss Nabil Kassim told me that the game, which had already been around for a year before that, was something of a phenomenon in the Middle East.

"This is a really innovative crane machine; and innovation is just as important in a crane as in any other type of game."

But how can you innovate in something as basic as a crane? You cannot get away from a cabinet containing merchandise and a crane mechanism with which to pick it up. It is as basic as a pool table…how can you add to that?

Sega did, but in fairness so did the acknowledged creator of the modern crane mechanism, Belgium’s Elaut. The additions which took the game out of its 1930s roots and into the 21st century are some very good electronics and a lot of ‘bells and whistles’. The crane has become a serious balancing act between mechandising costs and payout percentage - the essence of redemption, in other words.

Get desirable content into a cabinet, content which represents a decent return on investment, but at the same time adjust the percentages so that it gives the operator that return on investment but doesn’t make the prizes so unwinnable that everyone walks away. That’s the balancing act.

Technology provides the ability to do that. It isn’t just a question of building in a timer to give the player ‘just so long’ to make their ‘grab’ before cutting out. The tension of the grab itself is worked out to the pitch where the operator can adjust it to give their own preferred balance between income and payouts. The Elaut Intelli Link now provides a remote management system - that’s how far the science of coin-operated cranes has come.

The latest Elaut crane has a mechanism which is very maintenance friendly, has no microswitches and has a self-test and automatic problem description - that’s how far advanced it is.

At Instance Automatics, Ian Eason reports that their development of a media system to fit into a crane has been successful. A monitor is fitted inside and used to play back images and cartoons, plus movie trailers of the toys that the operator supplies.

Add to these influences the impact of modern cabinetry, lighting and sound effects and the package becomes as far away from the pioneer crane machines with their string and clumsy steel wheels and cogs of the old Bryans Works cranes that I remember as a kid, as you can possibly get.

Cranes are also ‘internet proof’ - it is one of the few types of coin-op game that cannot really be replicated on the web. But the improvement in technology which came with percentaging also opened the crane to the threat of ‘gambling device’ and in some regions they cannot be operated as a result.

In California, for example, they are not permitted and in the UK all locations must hold a local council permit and the operator must be registered as operating gambling machines. In Turkey a crane has to give a prize every time if it has percentaging.

It is probably one of the few coin-op sectors which has held up reasonably well in the recession (apart from the US, which is a one-off situation - see accompanying separate article), but like any other form of redemption it is entirely reliant on the quality of the merchandise.

A couple of years ago there were some experiments with small Toblerone bars which worked very well when the percentaging was adjusted precisely - and I remember visiting an Australian trade show a few years ago when one operator did extremely well with Cadbury branded products. It is therefore clearly down to a familiar brand which is valued by the player, and an ability to occasionally succeed!

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The recent introduction of ‘a prize every time’ cranes has helped to sustain the market, says Colin Mallery at Harry Levy. "The trend in merchandise is no more ‘tat’," said Mallery. ‘Tat’ is a British term for low-quality, for overseas readers… "Licensed products such as SpongeBob and Disney characters, but above all, good quality is what people will play for."

There are a few well-performing cranes around, notably Namco with its Barber Cut, arguably the European crane of the moment as we went into the autumn shows in ‘09. It was apparently found by Namco Europe managing director John McKenzie three years ago at a show and following tests, its high income and flat income (no peaks and troughs) led Namco Europe to take it on, building 50 and then another 50 and then in 2008 hundreds followed by a big kits business.

The kits went to North America and then Namco Japan took an interest, so instead of games starting in Japan and moving out to Europe and the US, it was very much a reverse situation. John Brennan at Namco Europe said: "It is really very simple…you move a carriage until you think it is lined up with a prize; the ‘cut’ is to sever the string holding the prize. It is a variation on a crane which appears simple to operate - and to win - but it really is skilful."

He relates an incident in northern France where a location with four Barber’s Cut machines had lines of players who caused traffic obstructions outside; and it hit the local newspapers. "In France and Belgium it has taken off with a vengeance and our distributors in Germany (Gigengack) report that it has taken off there too."

Namco was de to bring Barber Cut de Luxe to the London shows together with Clenaflex (‘Clean and Flexible’) a nine-tile game with an adjustable floor plus a range of other family-fun redemption items.

Al Kress at Benchmark in the US has been happy to have built such a strong international market as the US business has been desperate in ‘09. He was due to go to the EAG Expo with "at least five new products of which two or even three are on test right now (December)."

Crane specialists Instance Automatics in the UK, which makes the Maxx Grab series will bring a new Police Box crane and two new games for the SWP concept, Puzzle Bubble and Bulldog Bingo. There will also be a crane development named Fistful of Tickets and two new portrait type machines from LAI Games, plus of course the Maxx Grab range.

Sega will bring Version Seven of the UFO Catcher and two new ICE cranes. Version Eight of UFO Catcher is only being sold in Japan at present - enhanced technology and larger playfield - and it may not reach Europe and North America.

Harry Levy was due to bring to London a new sweet (candy) crane named Lollypop.

And the greatest experts at cranes of them all, Elaut, will introduce the new Disco Round, a rotary/crane hybrid mechandiser which is a true game of skill and combines two popular arcade games into one. A new rotary, Knock It Off, will also be there in two-player format and an all-new crane, the E-Claw with a new crane gantry with built-in IntraXion which means it has the capability to sense where it is and what time it is and operate on a self-learning capacity.

E-Claw has a Winner Gallery with a camera and 22ins LCD screen which shows the latest 12 winners; it has an adjustable prize hole and a replay button. It is, as you would imagine from an Elaut product, full of innovation and technology.

The essence of cranes is probably similar to that of redemption generally in terms of its basic operating rules. Put simply by Justin Burke at Sega Europe: "Thirty per cent of the play price should be delivered back to the player in prizes. Start with that and work backwards and cranes will give a good return on investment."

 

First published January, 2010