Fruit Machines Inside Out: Compensation

We started seeing a noticeable drop off in revenue in the early 2000s - the innovation went, the jackpots went up and the % went down. Also, on a human level, a lot of good designers either left or moved to the USA to work on casino games (Barcrest USA). The UK really suffered from that, I think.

 

Although those designers didn't have a lot of success in the USA

The only people that really want higher jackpots are the pub co's and arcades - the manufacturers (and certainly the game producers, like me and Ed) DON'T want higher jackpots. The jackpot to stake ratio is really important - the best days were the 25p, £10 jackpot days - a 40 to 1 ratio seemed good. 30p / £15 was ok and so was 50p / £25 as they both had a 50 to 1 ratio, but once the stake went past 50p, and the jackpot past £25 it got silly. Players used to love pushing for Jackpots, knowing it wouldn't cost them the earth - but nowadays, that just simply isn't possible.

 

I doubt a RollerCoaster ( , £10 version) would take any money if you put it in a pub now because people are so used to the DOND feature and seeing the big £100 there somewhere, that i just don't know if you can go backwards successfully... although, i do have an idea of how to do it

 

I didn't code the original Wipeout - it was done just before I moved to Impulse - and I went to Impulse from JPM yeah

 

Well I was half right, I was told that Impulse was formed from ex JPM and ex Maygay people, is that correct? Wipeout was a great idea for a game but the JP is too high to allow it to play freely. I would love to see a £6 Token version.

Very interesting thread!
My era was £4, £4.80, £6 and £8 token days. So many awesome fruits.
I used to run an arcade back in the £10 and £15 jackpots days. Did well unlike today's arcades.
Never see a full arcade with customers unless in holiday resorts on them ticket machines and 2p pushers!

Wipeout was a good game, and yes it was a few ex JPM guys who started it up. I think they did a great job with lots of good games. 

Wipeout was a good game, and yes it was a few ex JPM guys who started it up. I think they did a great job with lots of good games. 

 

We also did some batshit crazy games that never say the light of day:

Strategem
Red Square
Full Metal Jackpots
Smokin' Pots
Jungle Juice
 

We have the roms Red Square (Mazooma) & Stratagem (Maygay)

Wipeout was a good game, and yes it was a few ex JPM guys who started it up. I think they did a great job with lots of good games. 

 

Same here, IMHO nothing beats the vogue cabinet games, which is why I have 7 of them. Extrememly playable and can go from completely dead to throwing jackpots at you in a few spins. Though some of them can be outright evil if you hit them at the wrong time.

A quick question you may be able to answer for me.

 

What does frigamatic and MIDAS mean in terms of JPM?

MIDAS was a data-capture system used in pubs (I think it was Bass and Scottish & Newcastle) which was a blue and orange box sat on the wall, connected to the dataport of a machine, which collected machine data (cash in, out, plays, etc) and was used to aggregate data across an estate of thousands of machines, so operators can see how well (or not) the machine is doing, send an engineer, etc, without physically having to visit the site.

 

Every machine supported it, as far as I recall, and I think it worked the same way as a datapak on a comms level.

 

frigamatic? no idea - "frig" is the almost universal industry term for forcing something to happen usually for testing purposes (e.g. "frig a feature").

We have the roms Red Square (Mazooma) & Stratagem (Maygay)

 

Red Square and Stratagem were both Impulse games that failed test - it definitely wasn't Maygay. I don't know if Red Square was also a Mazooma game, but it was also a failed Impulse game too.

A quick question you may be able to answer for me.

 

What does frigamatic and MIDAS mean in terms of JPM?

i was one of the first persons to install and use MIDAS (Maximised Input Data and Security (i think)

 

i was a casino repair enginer on the P&O ferry "the pride of bilbao" working for BFG.

 

took bloody days to run all the cables and switches etc from one end of the ship to the other  to get MIDAS operational......(around 30+ machines)

 

as already stated here it was just an accounting and security tool. my pager would go off if anyone tried to break into the machines (happend a lot) as MIDAS would dectect the open switch. and when we did the weekly count up, the monies should match what MIDAS says.

Again what an excellent read, love it!!!! as regards below

 

evo1: "On an offtopic question when you played with tokens did the machine play on a different cycle/% cause again never really got any return on token play"

 

Yes, token payouts were typically in the 50% to 60% region.

 

does this mean i can sue only it didnt state that i would drop down to that percentage

MIDAS . We use to say it stood for must I do all switches.  Zone 1 zone 2 etc refill turned door switch made Blar blar poxy thing beeping away running cables around pubs. Done my nut in 

 

Bass was a big player involved kudos leisure where involved bellfruit was involved for those that remember the smile cabinet that's 5pin din socket was for. I remember doing stuff to it for MIDAS. Please correct me if I'm wrong. 

 

As for jpm programmers a few made there away over to start a new sister company for barcrest called red gaming . Then IGT sold to Gd sacking old pals I quote you are no good to us your analog. They kept a number of programmers etc to work on games at around the same time games media had been bought. PMSL told barcrest games media will look after you.  Errr yeah right because they made a del Monty machine. A 2bit juice machine. Sg drived the ship axing even more staff. The industry is dieing as things become more of a mobile platform. Us oldskool techs are a dieing breed. This generation will never understand tokens edc pop and % key changes. It's a shame 

 

Going back to the topic after my waffle on. How you explained how the win ratio variances work etc absolutely spot on. 

 

That's my 20p token in the slot 

Ahh the 5 pin din plug, I had forgotten that. They were on the rear of BFG machines.

On our machines we also had a small infra red emitter on the top glass, by the coin mech. We used to visit sites and connect a laptop to a small IR receiver. Reboot the machine holding down a few buttons and it would dump the software meters via IR.

Amazing! I always felt this was the case, but interesting to see the math behind it. Does this apply to aspects of the games (eg, when to offer "Trail held on DOND machines or the game overs.)? 

Would also love to know what percentage is skill involved and how is this accounted for?

We use to do the data dump via IR bellow the reel glass using a pda cog device. 

 

People use to say that they was emptying out the machine. On maygay brands 

I remember some of them codes for the Maygay machines, I think Green Monopoly and Deluxe Monopoly was, H1, H3, H1, H3, H2, H3, H2, H3.    Unless this wasn't anything to do with that.

 

I remember people said it totally reset the ram so the machine would be ready, LOL...

 

J

Yeah the old Maygay 123231 thing, it just dumped the software meters down the serial port. You can do something similar on BFG machines, and a lot more besides. H1, H3 and Start on power up with door open. Turn refill key and enter test....

 

>Trail held on DOND machines or the game overs.

 

Just done on a % chance depending on compensator level, and subject to max 50/50 (or it was, shows how long its been since I did a UK AWP!).

 

>Would also love to know what percentage is skill involved and how is this accounted for?

 

Psuedo skill, mainly, so if you'd skill stopped it on something and it wasn't allowed (too high a win) you would "roll it off" - hopefully not too obviously. But a lot of games, and most of mine, only let you have it when it was affordable. Remember that a compensator will just tighten up, and so if you get a win, the machine would just take money back in the reel game to pay for it.it  

Just wanted to chip in and say what a brilliant thread. Great hearing all the old stories coupled with the "behind the scenes" stuff. There's probably a book in there somewhere

The code on Maygay machines was 123232313 - this was for the data dump down the IR port normally to Psion devices. Some players were convinced this also altered the machine so it was also likely to pay a jackpot after you had done it. Of course this wasn't the case, but that's like trying to explain slots are random to people convinced they aren't...

JPM and Impulse games - where something looked like it was skill, it was. If we couldn't allow the top prize we just simply wouldn't give the feature. Of course this might mean that the compensator would end up shafted if someone was good.. Remember Red Arrow? That skill feature made me a fair whack... Then it would stop numbering and I'd leave knowing the compensator was screwed!