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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 22:47 
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Never mind your f*cking Simpsons and Deal or No Deal sh*te this is what I really want

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Real games for real people - play and get the feature - big win - 6p !

Where's Cavey when you need him


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:33 
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Grim... wrote:
I remember the Simpsons game. Christ, it must be twenty years old.


zaphod79 wrote:
Never mind your f*cking Simpsons and Deal or No Deal sh*te this is what I really want

Real games for real people - play and get the feature - big win - 6p !

Where's Cavey when you need him


This is the thing, there are over ten years of changes and improvements in this release, so there's pretty much something for everyone.

Bringing the most recent machines to the table are SCORPION4, SCORPION5, ADDER5 and MPU5 technologies. Scorp4 and MPU5 have been in since the 'leaked' version but with very erratic ROM/hardware support so lots of games have been non-runners, for example all machines by 'Red Gaming' on MPU5 because of some extra encryption, and all Scorp4 machines that used a CCTALK module.

(Interestingly the ROMs surfaced a few years ago for a Red Dwarf fruit machine (by Red Gaming) that never got past the test phase, only a couple of units were built for a trade show, and was never released or produced beyond that, so that is now a runner in the emulator - loads of great sound samples!)

At the other end of the spectrum you've got some really ancient techs from the 80s (such as the machine zaphod linked to above), which either weren't emulated at all, or had all sorts of issues.

Then in the mid-ground you have the links of the EPOCH tech, which for example that Simpsons machine ran on, and now makes available a huge number of machines by Maygay, Impulse, Global, and others. (EPOCH as a tech was pretty flaky, (leaking batteries on the boards and exploding power supplies), so not many EPOCH machines have survived for real compared to other techs of the era, so emulation is a great way to bring them back to life.)

Plus there are all sorts of outliers which are now included, so MPU4 video fruities are in, machines that used large plasma or DMDs are now supported, all sorts of extra reel/lamp extenders, and stuff like that.

On top of all that there are quality of life improvements and changes far too numerous to mention.

It's a massive, massive event in the world of fruit machine emulation, for folks like me who have been a huge fan of the scene solidly for fifteen years, (and arguably kicked it all off with the first fruit machine emulation site on the internet, fact fans), it's pretty much a dream come true.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 10:00 
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Hearthly wrote:
This is the thing, there are over ten years of changes and improvements in this release, so there's pretty much something for everyone.


I don't suppose the Party Time type machines are emulated yet?

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:02 
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devilman wrote:
Hearthly wrote:
This is the thing, there are over ten years of changes and improvements in this release, so there's pretty much something for everyone.


I don't suppose the Party Time type machines are emulated yet?


The technology is emulated and you can now run multiple instances of the emulator and they'll talk to each other, emulating different aspects of the set up.

So for Party Time you'd need four instances of the emulator running, one for each of the three base units, and one for the top box.

I believe there's a Golden Game layout in development, which will be running on this principle - I'll keep you posted in this thread. (Or just follow the forums at the sites I linked to above.)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:07 
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Cheers for that. Every time in the past when I've looked for info on it, you'd see anyone asking questions about it get roundly shouted down.

There was a variant of it that was just for one player -
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which would be fine for me. :)


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:52 
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Very early WIP of Astra's 'Celebration' which is basically the same machine :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:54 
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Pretty.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 12:07 
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DavPaz wrote:
Pretty.


That's pretty much what all layouts start out as, and finish up looking like the screenshots above.

There's a huge amount of effort involved with working out the reels, lamps, buttons, etc.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 12:23 
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Isn't that what JC was good at? Prettying up fruities?


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 12:34 
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DavPaz wrote:
Isn't that what JC was good at? Prettying up fruities?


Yes he was awesome at it, taught himself Photoshop and could work absolute magic, even with the shittiest of photos/flyers or other ropey source material.

There's a good number of really talented people on the fruit machine emulation scene, who've given an awful lot of time and effort (and money) to get old machines brought back to life in an emulator.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04, 2016 9:45 
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Layouts for a couple of very 'doable' £70 jackpot fruit machines have just been released, ALIEN and STAR WARS A NEW HOPE.

These machines between them paid for many free nights out for me, with bundles of cash left over. ALIEN in particular was so lucrative that on one occasion the pub's landlord appeared next to me and said he was going to turn the machine off as 'it had paid too many jackpots'.

The layouts released are in the 'classic' format (i.e. a simple graphical representation of the real machine), but resources for DX layouts (DX layouts are the 'real' looking ones) are high quality and plentiful so I'm sure they'll be along in due course.

The methods for both these machines are complex and involved, the idea that the 'cheats' for fruit machines revolve around just bashing a few buttons are very far off the mark, however, with a bit of practice both these machines were substantial money-makers for me. Was very sorry to see them go! :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04, 2016 15:49 
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Yay the Alien is a doable chip, it costs about £45-£55 for each £70 jackpot, until it finally clams up and stops boarding.

Quite awkward to do though, and I can sort of understand it looking a bit dodgy to the casual observer or vexed pub landlord.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04, 2016 16:08 
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How long does it take to get the jackpot? If you're pumping up to £55 into it for up to £15 profit, hopefully not too long! ;)


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04, 2016 16:17 
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GazChap wrote:
How long does it take to get the jackpot? If you're pumping up to £55 into it for up to £15 profit, hopefully not too long! ;)


Well I used to average about £45-50 per jackpot, £55 would be an outlier scenario, I guess I'm still getting my hand back in with it.

Of the ~£50 it costs to get the jackpot, £40 of that is lost as quickly as you possibly can on £1 play, it's only the remainder that you play out on 30p play that you're actually trying to win the jackpot off. I'll have a proper kick about with it tonight and see if I can get back to my old efficient ways on it, but off the top of my head I'd guess maybe 10 minutes or less per jackpot, so if we say £20 profit per jackpot that's £60 up in half an hour. (Generally speaking you'd never get more than three out of them anyway.)

A properly battered one would be left in an incredibly foul mood, and could easily cost upwards of £50 just to offer any win or feature again, even a quid.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 11:04 
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The first 4K layout is now in the pipeline. I'm beta-testing this for someone so there are still tweaks and improvements to be done, and I'm having to use the emulator's 'shrink to fit' option even on my 2560x1440 screen!

Look at the quality of the source artwork though, and the awesome job that the guy is doing with the lamping work.

This is another significant tech added to the new emulator, specifically in this case the MPU4 variant that used a CRT screen instead of traditional reels and had quite a lot of games released for it.

Really great machines to play with loads of little tricks and features, and great sound packages too. (This was one plays Crockett's Theme on the Lucky Lotto feature, for example.)

Please note this isn't available to download anywhere yet as is still in the beta-test stage (you can see for example that he hasn't lamped one of the 'BUSTED' squares on the feature board or the coin mech and a few other bits and pieces, and some of the debug buttons and switches are still off to the right). The guy who's doing this layout is a bit of a legend on the FME scene, I believe he's a professional artist by trade so can really work some wonders when it comes to putting these layouts together.

In other news on the Alien machine, which I spent a shockingly extended period of time playing yesterday (my PC was running MFME solidly from about 8:30am in the morning to 1am the following morning), I've managed to hammer the thing so mercilessly it's wanted over £50 just to get on the board :D

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 14:56 
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We finally get that emulated then, is that some sort of multi-game cabinet you are showing there?


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 15:53 
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asfish wrote:
We finally get that emulated then, is that some sort of multi-game cabinet you are showing there?


No it's one of these (video of a real one below).

They were basically just a normal fruit machine with a screen instead of reels, and it used the screen for all the different games that were available on the feature.

The games up on the top glass are all part of the same feature. When you get the three car symbols on the winline or exchange to the feature, you are offered one of the eight games in either NORMAL or SUPER form, which you can either collect or spin the dice to move around the board, which will either land on a feature again (sometimes the same one!), or the BUSTED square which is feature over.

Despite there being eight different games there's no skill involved in any of them, you just get awarded what you're given really, the key thing is that the SUPER games always pay at least half the jackpot value and often a lot more, whereas the NORMAL games can pay proper wank like a quid or something.

Great machines IMO, really good fun to play.



My personal favourite machine in the series is Reno Reels. I used to love the music on this one, back when I was a shockingly hardcore fruit machine addict, I would just let the music samples loop round and allow them to relax me a bit, before losing whatever money I had available to me, and then walking home wanting to die.

You'll have to turn the sound up on this video as the recording is poor, but you can hear the tunes well enough.

The ROMs are in the FME DAT for this machine so a layout should be along shortly :D



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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 17:53 
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Here you go devilman! :)

Also included the 'before' pic to compare with the finished article!

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 18:41 
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Cheers Hearthly. :) I figured I'd give it a go and just play for a bit till I got a jackpot. Had to put £170 through it to get the £15 jackpot and ended up with £116. Bargain. :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 18:54 
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devilman wrote:
Cheers Hearthly. :) I figured I'd give it a go and just play for a bit till I got a jackpot. Had to put £170 through it to get the £15 jackpot and ended up with £116. Bargain. :)


Just watch out though that as downloaded it's set in 'Read Only' mode so it won't update the RAM file (i.e. machine state) when you quit out, you need to press CTRL+W whilst the layout is loaded, you'll see that the 'read only' text disappears from the description field right at the top of the emulator.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 10:43 
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Kind of as expected, the release of the new emulator has unleashed a tsunami of layouts, there's clearly been a lot of pent-up demand for something new for people to get their teeth into.

I've been a bit conflicted between two very different 'streams' if you will, the older machines that can now be emulated and played that I've been looking forward to for years (for example the Maygay 'Screenplay' machine which had a telly incorporated into the top glass to play video games on), and at the other end of the spectrum, the far, far more modern £70 jackpot machines - specifically the ones that had all sorts of cheaty shenanigans going on with them.

For example there's a Deal Or No Deal machine called Banker's Bonus, which I heard about back in 2011 but never even saw a real one over here, so when a layout was released for it yesterday I was super-keen to finally give the method a try. (I'd had it explained to me in 2011, but none of the buggers turned up over here!)

The cheat on this one basically gets the machine to break the law. The legislation at the time allowed for a maximum £70 win on a single credit, yet you can get this machine into a state where it will bank £140 on one credit, and then amazingly, you can get it set up to do the same thing again once you've switched the stake.

I managed to get £280 banked off just £56 of credits, and that was with me not having exactly finessed the method, I could do better on repeated attempts at it for sure. The real kicker is that the wins are accounted for, the machine knows it's just spat £280 out so you can well imagine the absolute pillaging it will dish out to subsequent players to claw all that back. (And at standard pub percentages it'd need to take an eye-watering £350 to get back to a level-pegging sort of state, appalling stuff.)

Opinion remains divided as to whether this was deliberately coded in (corruption) or just a mistake in the code (incompetence) - but it's really quite a sight to behold as you can effectively get the machine to break the law twice in the space of about 15 minutes.

I had the emulator running on my PC yesterday from about 8:30am, right the way through to 1:45am - so when I got up, to when I went to bed, basically.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 17:12 
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Attention devilman!

The full Party Time experience is now emulated!

http://www.fruit-emu.com/forums/topic/5 ... ime-arena/

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 18:42 
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Without going into every detail, what's actually involved in these exploits to get machines to pay out?
What is an expert doing that a normal punter isn't?


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 18:53 
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This thread made me stop and think about when was the last time I played fruities for real, and roughly - very conservatively in fact - how much I'd saved over that time.

In fact, I gave up fruities mid-2002, so approx. 14.5 years ago. Back in the day, I probably shoveled £60/week into them on average (that sounds like a lot, but that's only a £20 note or so changed up every pub visit or service station).

So, ignoring interest, that's £60 * 52 * 14.5 = £45,240.00.

Or, to put it another way, my brand spanking Porsche Cayman 981S was actually free of charge, because I gave up the fruities. Quite staggering, really.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 19:14 
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Was that 60 how much you put in, or how much you ended up down?

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 19:40 
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Cras wrote:
Was that 60 how much you put in, or how much you ended up down?


I always lost it (or pretty much always, except for the once-in-a-blue-moon occasions where I immediately made a packet from the off, and had the ability to stuff the proceeds into my top pocket... but usually 'the fever' set in, so even if I was a few quid up, I'd pump the lot back in addict-stylee. :( )

Towards the end, even the occasional win NEVER happened, it was just one raped, left-for-dead machine after another - whether AWP or club. I didn't know it at the time, but through the wonders of emulation I *subsequently* became aware of widespread "cheats" and the existence "pro" player. I have to confess to feeling mightily aggrieved and bitter at the time and for years afterwards - residually even now if I'm totally honest. But, I have to remind myself that, when I started out with fruities and for a long time thereafter I did at least enjoy "a punter's chance" and as slim as that was in actual reality, it still meant I got a run for my cash and occasionally even made a few quid... "good times" if you will. This kept me avidly playing (and losing). However, it was only the latter *catastrophic* and guaranteed quick losses - in short order, and every single time - culminating in a particularly disastrous £800 beating in a single (very drunken) session on a notorious £1000 jackpot Bellfruit Casino fruit machine that I won't mention here (I later owned one of these beastly things as a form of cathartic revenge afterwards, for many years) - that finally wrested me off them for good, in a near marriage-ending kind of way.

I admire Hearthly for "taming the dragon" as it were and caking the machines, poacher turned gamekeeper style. But that would've never worked for me, I was too hooked through the bag (and probably would've been too shit to master the necessary arcane procedures, skillstops or whatever anyway). Total abstinence was my only possible salvation.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 20:07 
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Dr Zoidberg wrote:
Without going into every detail, what's actually involved in these exploits to get machines to pay out?
What is an expert doing that a normal punter isn't?


There's really no single answer to that question, the various methods/manipulators/exploits/free wins/emptiers/etc are so many and varied that the explanations for their existence are equally varied.

Some of them are undoubtedly the result of coding errors or bugs, or oversights in testing, or whatever. On the other hand some are undoubtedly deliberately coded in, i.e. corruption/inside job. (The one constant always has been, and still is, that some people know about these things, and some don't.)

The unique aspect of UK fruit machines (AWPs) and club fruit machines (clubbers), is that they are COMPENSATED. That is, they actively seek out their target payout percentage.

So unlike a roulette wheel, for example, which simply relies on mathematics to deliver a profit to the operator over time (i.e. an inbuilt house edge that random numbers will deliver with 100% certainty over enough time), fruit machines will actively compensate their position depending on how far adrift they are from their target. (This is also in stark contrast to slot machines just about everywhere else in the world, Vegas slots for example are all completely random.)

As such, AWPs and clubbers have always been vulnerable to manipulation and exploits, and as Cavey notes above, what this meant out in the real world was that there were those in the know, and those who were not in the know. I most certainly was 'not in the know' hence the best part of a decade of catastrophic addiction as I lost my shirt time and time again to machines that were dead far beyond the point of any logical explanation. (I've still got the scars on my head from where I attempted to drill into my skull with a knife after one desperate session, and once destroyed my own car with a rock.)

I finally started to get my shit together around 2001 or so and was able to start making some money back, but truth be told I will never recover my lifetime losses which are in the many tens of thousands of pounds. (You can destroy an awful lot of money during a decade of addiction.) I continue to play now because every pound I make back is a small victory, a small clawback, a Pyrrhic victory in many regards of course, because that decade is never coming back - but I'll take the victories anyway.

I have total respect for Cavey's solution, which is to fuck the things off forever and maintain total abstinence - whatever approach one takes to conquer a destructive addiction is valid.

TBH I've mostly stopped playing AWPs for real these days anyway (although when my brother was over last month for example, they paid for a night out with a chunk of change left over), but I still love playing them in the emulator, and the wave of £70ers that the new emulator has made possible have been fascinating to really get stuck into. (In the case of Alien it was a machine I made good cash out of and it's been very entertaining to kick it around in the emulator again, whereas a Banker's Bonus I've never even seen a real one so it was fascinating to get my head around the mechanism of how to do it.)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 20:48 
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Poor Chavalier :(

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 21:06 
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I bought that car for £50 and it never let me down, until I set about it with a rock, and jumped up and down on top of it. (Note the dents in the roof.) Sustained some nasty cuts to my arms as well.

It burnt almost as much oil as it did petrol, and it had all of THREE forwards gears (automatic), but it never broke down.

Very nearly got arrested that night. Fortunately of the two policeman who turned up, the Sergeant grabbed me by the arm and took me off to one side, and snarled something along the lines of 'Calm yourself down right now, or you're getting nicked and going in the back of that van, and you can spend a night in the cells'. (This was in response to me bashing the side of their police van and screaming 'WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET ARRESTED?') I decided to calm down.

Not the best of times.

To add insult to injury, I had to pay to get the fucking thing towed away.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 8:49 
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I don't go to big pubs that often but they all have 3-4 machines in them.

So they must make money even with people who have cheats or advantages or the pubs would just get rid of them?


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 8:58 
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asfish wrote:
I don't go to big pubs that often but they all have 3-4 machines in them.

So they must make money even with people who have cheats or advantages or the pubs would just get rid of them?


Weird! The only pubs I *ever* see even a single fruit machine in are Wetherspoons/Chef and Brewer type affairs (which I never go into if I can avoid). I honestly believe that these days, and for a long time now, they are seen as rather seedy objects that totally lower the tone and, no disrespect to Hearthly whasoever intended, but frankly - tend to pull in the "wrong" kind of chav punter anyway.

It wasn't always this way of course; back in the £3JP heyday - when these machines were genuinely for amusement only and exploits were little known so you were not generally encountering dead machines (and even if you were, with such small jackpots and flat profiles, they did not take hundreds of pounds to recover a semblance of gameplay). Crucially, it wasn't just deadbeat chavs playing them, but a wide cross-section of people, many of them 'change from a round' punter types. Can anyone seriously countenance that these days? If someone I was with during an evening turned round to pump money into a £1/play fruit machine, I'd think they'd taken leave of their senses (as well as committed a serious faux pas. I mean really, it's just not the done thing, is it?)

The biggest problem for fruit machines (in the UK at least) is a lack of credibility; it's widespread knowledge that they can be cracked by those few with 'the knowledge' leaving everyone else with vastly less than the advertised "80% payout" displayed on stickers or whatever. If playing fruities is yer bag, and assuming you don't have an emptier - why on earth would you bother, pissing about with coins and cash etc., as opposed to playing a 97% payout random slot on your phone or whatever...? Physical machines are so 1990s (as are "compensated" games).

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 9:49 
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Cavey wrote:
asfish wrote:
I don't go to big pubs that often but they all have 3-4 machines in them.

So they must make money even with people who have cheats or advantages or the pubs would just get rid of them?


Weird! The only pubs I *ever* see even a single fruit machine in are Wetherspoons/Chef and Brewer type affairs (which I never go into if I can avoid). I honestly believe that these days, and for a long time now, they are seen as rather seedy objects that totally lower the tone and, no disrespect to Hearthly whasoever intended, but frankly - tend to pull in the "wrong" kind of chav punter anyway.

It wasn't always this way of course; back in the £3JP heyday - when these machines were genuinely for amusement only and exploits were little known so you were not generally encountering dead machines (and even if you were, with such small jackpots and flat profiles, they did not take hundreds of pounds to recover a semblance of gameplay). Crucially, it wasn't just deadbeat chavs playing them, but a wide cross-section of people, many of them 'change from a round' punter types. Can anyone seriously countenance that these days? If someone I was with during an evening turned round to pump money into a £1/play fruit machine, I'd think they'd taken leave of their senses (as well as committed a serious faux pas. I mean really, it's just not the done thing, is it?)

The biggest problem for fruit machines (in the UK at least) is a lack of credibility; it's widespread knowledge that they can be cracked by those few with 'the knowledge' leaving everyone else with vastly less than the advertised "80% payout" displayed on stickers or whatever. If playing fruities is yer bag, and assuming you don't have an emptier - why on earth would you bother, pissing about with coins and cash etc., as opposed to playing a 97% payout random slot on your phone or whatever...? Physical machines are so 1990s (as are "compensated" games).


It has been a while since I've out in big pubs :)


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 9:54 
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asfish wrote:
I don't go to big pubs that often but they all have 3-4 machines in them.

So they must make money even with people who have cheats or advantages or the pubs would just get rid of them?


When I worked in the railway station c2001, it was about £600 a week from 2 machines.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:19 
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The last time Spoons reported on fruit machine revenues they'd halved from 6% of its overall income to 3%. (Sep 2016.)

They're also siting less machines in many of their pubs now as a result.

It's hard to do a like-for-like comparison with the situation over here as pubs are allowed to site £500 jackpot random/B3/B4 machines, and these have proved so popular that they've almost completely replaced AWPs in pubs.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:21 
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They were 6% of annual income?

SIX PERCENT?!

Holy shit.

Even 3% is a fucking staggering amount.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:27 
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Bookies make 80% of their money from the slot\roulette terminals some 1.4 billion a year.

That figure came from the Guardian in 2013 so its probably more now as they will have opened a lot more sites in 3 years

I had a pub in the early 90's and the slot in there would take £200-£300 a week, that was on booze takings of around £1500 a week


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:33 
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Grim... wrote:
They were 6% of annual income?

SIX PERCENT?!

Holy shit.

Even 3% is a fucking staggering amount.


Yes, they are still pretty big business, but previously they were very big business.

https://www.ft.com/content/dcb2154a-7bf ... 4b4333ee43

Quote:
JD Wetherspoon, one of the UK’s largest pub companies, revealed last week that the proportion of its income from machines had halved since 2000 from 6 per cent to 3 per cent, or £48m of £1.6bn revenues. Machine revenue at Wetherspoon has fallen in seven of the past 10 years, while at rival pubco Punch Taverns “machine and other revenue” has fallen 16 per cent in the past five years, from £14.3m to £12m.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:37 
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Hearthly wrote:
... as pubs are allowed to site £500 jackpot random/B3/B4 machines, and these have proved so popular that they've almost completely replaced AWPs in pubs.


I'm not surprised, for the reasons I've long argued old chap. Good old empirical proof and validation. :)
From a non-pro perspective, why the fuck would you play a battered, cheating "80%" (more like ~0-30% in the actual states found) compensated game, as opposed to a 95-97% genuine payout random game where everyone gets the same chance? No-brainer, even with that huge clubber jackpot.

It'd be the same in mainland UK in a heartbeat, too, if such machines were allowed in pubs here, I've no doubt at all.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:47 
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Cavey wrote:
From a non-pro perspective, why the fuck would you play a battered, cheating "80%" (more like ~0-30% in the actual states found) compensated game, as opposed to a 95-97% genuine payout random game where everyone gets the same chance? No-brainer, even with that huge clubber jackpot.


I haven't touched a pub machine in years. With online slots, the playing field is level and you're basically just clicking a spin button, but with the machines I see in pubs, I wouldn't have a clue what to do and what features to aim for.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:56 
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Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:59 
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MaliA wrote:
Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.


Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:01 
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Cavey wrote:
MaliA wrote:
Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.


Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.


Yes, from the 80℅ of the money it didn't keep.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:02 
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MaliA wrote:
Cavey wrote:
MaliA wrote:
Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.


Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.


Yes, from the 80℅ of the money it didn't keep.


?

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:08 
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Grim... wrote:
Even 3% is a fucking staggering amount.

Wikipedia lists their revenue for 2015 as near enough £1,514 million.

That's £45.4 million just from fruit machines.
They have 956 locations (again, according to Wikipedia)

I'm not sure how many machines are in each, but based on the few that I've been in around the country I'd say an average of 5 would be a relatively safe bet.
Nearly £10,000 per year, per machine.
~£150 per week, per machine.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:08 
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10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.

The machine wants people to win

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:11 
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MaliA wrote:
10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.


It doesn't alter profitability, but if each of those people put in 100 pounds, and one has rinsed the machine for a grand, you can see how the experience as a punter is a bit shit for those who are playing in the 0% zone.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:12 
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Incidentally, my knowledge of UK fruit machines (and how rigged they are) completely put me off using the slots while I was in Vegas. Even after I'd found out that every spin was totally random, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:13 
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GazChap wrote:
Incidentally, my knowledge of UK fruit machines (and how rigged they are) completely put me off using the slots while I was in Vegas. Even after I'd found out that every spin was totally random, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.


Slots in Vegas are literally the most boring thing in the entire city.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:14 
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Curiosity wrote:
GazChap wrote:
Incidentally, my knowledge of UK fruit machines (and how rigged they are) completely put me off using the slots while I was in Vegas. Even after I'd found out that every spin was totally random, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.


Slots in Vegas are literally the most boring thing in the entire city.


In Iowa 2001, there were slots but no prizes because gambling machines were not legal there.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:16 
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Curiosity wrote:
MaliA wrote:
10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.


It doesn't alter profitability, but if each of those people put in 100 pounds, and one has rinsed the machine for a grand, you can see how the experience as a punter is a bit shit for those who are playing in the 0% zone.


Undoubtably, but, y'know, that's the rub of it, as callous as that sounds. Nowadays there is a sticker, but not sure what that does.

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