[Cerealkiller050]

I remember seeing and playing this on a cruise ship.

It was a dollar per try, and I shoved in 5 bucks. By the 4th try it was NOTICEABLE that if you press the button at the "right time", there was a lag before it overshot it and you failed. I pretty much could guess that something like the article discusses was at work, and was simply more a game of luck.

Obviously I stopped after that, as a pure luck game is not as fun. If I had known that the default was 700 losses before payout as a default, I would have had a nice drink or 3 and counted the many people that tried it throughout the day

As a side note, saw one winner at the machine get a wrapped stack of 500, 1 dollar bills

[megameter]

Like with gambling devices, redemption games all seem to have operator-adjustable payout.

I recall playing "Stacker" for a little while in the 2000's. It used an LED dot display for gameplay, which was a simple timing game where you "built" a tower by stacking up the blocks, with it getting faster at each level.

What it did was exactly as you describe: it had a minor reward level that you could always win, and then a few levels above that where the game would cheat and instantly warp the block ahead to make you lose. I did get a win out of it once(and got an iPod mini), so I think I did come out ahead, but that was it.

Overall, it's better to be good at pinball(replay scores) or DDR(adoration of strangers).

[userbinator]

where the game would cheat and instantly warp the block ahead to make you lose.

Thanks to the Internet, this has been recorded on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofEb9fM8m0Q

[ericpruitt]

Mark Rober also made a video about this for a machine that works similarly. Rober built a machine to play the game perfectly, and it still lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXBfwgwT1nQ

[idonotknowwhy]

This annoys me, i spent most of my poket money on these when I was a kid, after my friend "won" an xbox

[542354234235]

> Like with gambling devices, redemption games all seem to have operator-adjustable payout.

This isn’t really the same because most gambling devices are regulated so that, while you can adjust payout percentages, you cannot remove random chance. That any given play has some percent chance of winning, even if it is adjusted very low or dynamically adjusted. This game is simply forcing a certain number of guaranteed loses before considering a payout. That isn’t luck.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> pinball

At least there is skill involved with pinball

[Bluecobra]

I played this in a cruise casino as well, knowing full well that the odds were stacked against me in international waters. I didn’t win. Near the end of the 10 day voyage the machine was mostly empty, I wonder if anyone actually won or they just removed the cash to make it look like it’s a winner.

[sen]

My wife won a Nintendo DS on one (when they were new) on a cruise ship, we were absolutely convinced nobody ever won anything on them, but it's still fun to give it a shot... no different to casinos or any other gambling. That's the only time I've ever heard of anyone winning /anything/ on those games though.

In Japan the machines pay out a lot more often due to the strict laws against gambling, but the prizes are a lot smaller. You'll put ~$2 in and get a soft toy that probably cost 50c to make, but it still makes it feel a lot more fun than trying/failing to win bigger prizes.

[technothrasher]

Like any gambling, you always want people to see others winning. It makes people more likely to play. You just want to make sure that the payout is always some percentage of the take and no more.