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Once I had paid tribute to the digital god, the machine would respond with the magical phrase CREDITS 01. The attract mode was likely to continue playing – but the machine was aware of my presence now. It was waiting.

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16 thoughts on “Discussion: Insert Coin

  1. I think the slot machine comparison is very good. I think there are slot machines that have a little bit of “game” to them, but the key point is that nobody would pay to play those games if they weren’t hoping for the chance of a payout. Coin-op games don’t have the addictive random payout and you’re only paying for more time playing the game, not some extrinsic reward (unless maybe you count putting your initials on the scoreboard as extrinsic).

    Were there coin-op video games where you could could have a drastically different experience depending on random factors? The closest I can think of would be novices playing pinball who might luck into a long, high-scoring game on one quarter after several quarters of shorter games. But then we start sliding down the slope to pachinko and slot machines. I suppose somebody has made an evil slot machine version of Peggle by now.

  2. Uh, careful what you wish for…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcGpore3K0I Although to be frank there’s not much “Peggle” here???

    I recall only the early generation of arcade games and while there was apparent randomness in many of the titles, the randomness was just meant to provide variety over rote repetition (when are the invaders going to shoot, where do the tanks spawn in Battlezone). Then again there’s Tutankamen which I thought was cool at the time but was a fairly horrible design – the horizontal-only shooting would lead to these “quick rush” moments up vertical corridors and that’s when randomness could kill you. I think a sense of unfairness, at the time, would isolate a game. I believe rail shooters like Operation Wolf and Space Gun, while hard, still succumbed to memorisation.

  3. Growing up in the 90s, my memory of arcade machines was that they absolutely were bandit boxes that had obvious unfair difficulty spikes laced in to rinse you for extra change.

    But they were bigger, louder, and better looking than home video games (although only just at that point), and you probably didn’t own many games because nobody owned many games, so the spectacle and variety still made the arcade an attractive place to waste your pocket money.

  4. Hey CA.

    My interest in the arcades has always been about childhood. The particular period when arcades had limited colour palettes and all 2D experiences evoke the feels in me. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Defender, Qix. I was still in awe once we got ourselves a home computer because we just couldn’t match the look. But after awhile, it started to feel the game design just wasn’t that interesting and they began moving towards 3D; rail shooters didn’t interest me much and the polygonal graphics of something like Virtua Fighter felt like a step-back, an admission that consoles were catching up.

    So in the 90s, I was always looking for the *older* games, that bust-up version of Scramble or GORF languishing in the corner, with little interest in new titles.

    Thus I am wary revering the good-ol’ arcade because it is seems inextricably tied to my age. The only way to make the most of your coins was to concentrate on particular games and replay. But I was flighty. I wanted to play everything. Result: lots of coins spent, no games mastered.

  5. What Shaun said!

    Also I followed a link from your Twitter feed to User Inyerface which I finished in 8:47. You will be receiving an invoice for that much of my life.

  6. Thank you, Shaun & Matt.

    Also not sorry for getting you stuck on userinyerface 🙂 that’s about how long it took me

  7. OT, but Jack Lance, the guy who did the tiny PuzzleScript game Coin Collector…

    wait! Coin Collector! and the name of the newsletter was “Insert Coin”! Totally on-topic!

    …has a new major PuzzleScript game called Vext Edit and it is eeeeevil. I sort of want to tell you to keep playing through the messed-up parts because it’s going to get way more messed up than that, but that might not be constructive. A fair amount of Monte Carloing so far, as well as a fair amount of “I’m going to try this because I don’t see what else could possibly work,” which is not the same thing?

    via increpare and blow so it’s not like I’m some kind of trailblazer

  8. Hello, Joel! It’s important to have a break from the routine to put your ideas in place.

    The history of the arcades is an interesting point to analyze video games.

    I personally dislike any free-to-play, because they are designed in half, the other part are divided in many other pieces, and every piece is monetized, now they give things like power ups, skins, etc, but more and more they are limiting the game in all aspects, things that were common sense will be charged. So is a fake product, since it was never really thought as a game.

    Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_as_a_service

    Games having advertise don’t have my respect, you have commercials watching TV, but you don’t have any watching a movie directly and principally don’t see any ads in the screen the whole movie, it’s outrageous. There are ways less aggressive then put these advertising in the middle of the face of the player.

    As for slot games and the insert coin thing, probably the gambling effect makes everything more attractive.

  9. Currently getting bit hard in Vext Edit by the PuzzleScript level interface where you can’t easily replay levels (that is, in order to replay one I think I have to open another tab on the game and replay every level up to now). I glitched through a level with an exploit, it threw me to the next level willy-nilly, and I’m wondering if there was some lesson I should’ve learned from it. See Laboratory of Logic.

  10. This one’s entirely off-topic but I was watching the Bruce Conner video for Eno/Byrne “Mea Culpa” and it reminded me of how I annoy you by dubbing “Mad World” or “Pony” on every game trailer and then I was like “Wait! This is literally an Electron Dance!”

    (That really is the video I said it is, I swear. No Mad World or Pony. Strobe warning for photosensitive people.)

  11. Well, since everybody is going OFF-TOPIC, it seems there is a new Trump in the UK, wish good luck.

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