Talk:Claw vending machine
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[edit] History
The history must be wrong, these machines were in use a long time before 1987. I can't be precise about the dates, but I remember them from my childhood, and I was born in 1956. They used to contain mostly trinkets, but usually one expensive thing, like a packet of cigarettes, (can you believe!), or a wristwath which looked expensive to my childish eyes. Of course, the grap never quite would fit around the cigs or the watch, but it didn't stop us trying! Assume I was 11, 12, maybe 13 yrs old, that must be some time in late 60s. I saw them in amusement arcades at Butlins or Pontins holiday camps, which were very popular in England at the time. Also in Blackpool... I think maybe some more research is required, because my memory is fallible of course....... Orelstrigo 03:21, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Right you are, sir; this article is full of factual errors and omissions... I'll see what I can do for it...
- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.218.239.57 (talk • contribs) 17:54, June 7, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Skill?
Also, these machines aren't skill. http://www.cromptons.com/pages/pagetext.php?pg_name=XFactor says "Audited % Payout" which implies that it's not skill based. Possibly by varying the strength of the claw. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.19.57.138 (talk • contribs) 20:25, September 15, 2005 (UTC)
- When they say "Audited % Payout" they mean the actual statistic of wins and losses, not a target percentage. Like any other audit, it's something checked after the fact. With every prize a different size, shape, and wholesale price, the operator doesn't know the final win percentage until after a certain number of actual attempts by real customers.
- You are still correct in part... some games have a fixed claw strength which is expected to drop a certain number of prizes, particularly those not picked up correctly. Sadly, in the USA I'm seeing more and more of a different type (mostly imported from Asia) in which the operator sets the number of wins (1 in 20, e.g.) and the claw stays strong only after 20 failures. With US manufacturers importing and selling these alongside their own product, it's hard to know what you can trust.
- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.129.221.102 (talk • contribs) 20:08, March 27, 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Stub?
This Article is a Stub? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.142.234.138 (talk • contribs) 00:29, July 7, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] picture
it needs a picture of one —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.200.116.131 (talk • contribs) 13:00, October 12, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] East Asia
Live animals in UFO Catchers in East Asia? Never seen that in Taiwan, China, or Japan. If there is such a thing, I don't think it's such a widespread phenomenon that it requires special mention in an encyclopedia entry! Citation?
[edit] Ew
horrible writing and unencyclopaedic too. *bookmark* Blueaster 20:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Kids getting stuck in the machine
Maybe someone could do a section about all these kids that have been getting themselves stuck inside the machines...GodSka 19:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Skill
The game is entirely skill. I am an employee of America's largest supplier of these games, as mentioned in the article, and I can tell you, there is no box that says Grab Power on it, and doles out a prize only one in ten or some such nonsense. Perhaps this is the case overseas, but if you see a machine with my company's logo on it, you can rest assured that is not the case. There is a way to make the claw more or less powerful, but as is mentioned in the article, we have settled on a fair ratio that we can adjust afterwards if necessary. We do not adjust the machine to make people lose, we simply adjust it to make the game more challenging.
Nyabinghi43 00:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)Nyabinghi43
