Namco’s operating division has just completed a major refurbishment of its Funscape FEC in The Brewery at Romford, UK.
The location, which is housed in a huge former brewery, is a popular entertainment complex for locals and the Funscape improvements have been widely welcomed by the regulars, says general manager Nigel Bett.
“We have a fair number of non-locals among our guests,” said Bett. “They are by no means locals only - people passing through, or down here to visit families. We get a wide variety of players from many parts of the country.”
And they all approve of the Funscape improvements, he said. “A lot of work has been done on the décor, the fixtures and fittings and we have had a big influx of new equipment, including a set of dodgems, tenpin bowling and new party rooms.”
Bett said that Romford, together with the other five major FECs in the Namco operations portfolio, acts as a test location for new machines being brought into the country by Bandai Namco Amusements Europe.
“James Anderson at BNAE often sends us new games to test for him,” said Bett, “long before they reach the open market and we are able to feed all kinds of data back to him on the games, how they perform and customer reaction to them.”
Asked which of his current games is most popular, Bett said that the LAI Rabbids unattended VR game has been the consistent top-earner for several years.
“Despite all the new games and upgrades that they offer, we still use the original software because it is the most popular among the players.”
The Romford location was originally opened by Namco in 2000.
