Mechanical Crane Game Controls

Saw a program not so long ago claiming that these machines had a programmable "win/lose" ratio, and that by watching one being played for a while, you could predict (within a couple of goes) when to step in and play, to ensure a prize.

If this is true, I guess this one was either defective, or had been deliberately set up to "pay out" every time. Maybe an aggrieved service engineer?

The machines can be mastered with practice...such practice by the 9-year-old which might have been unbenownst to you.

Speed and clamp lapse time would be one way to electronically set likelihood of "Success." Sometimes concessionaires post banners on the machines stating in so many words that Wins are (now) more likely...usually accompanied by change to cheaper prizes.

This is the modern star wars game, in a mechanical format from yesteryear......

Modern kids with a gaming machine or games PC at home must find those things easy. They all have a 3D mind and are completely used to solving such functions with about 1% of their brain!!!

Did you try yourself???

I suspect that a "non-gamer" would not have such luck!!

But, Andy, these things are "fixed". On a machine programmed for a certain "win/lose" ratio, the electronics will make damn sure the prize gets dropped before it is over the exit chute. The best gamer in the world will certainly do better than you or me, but still won't win every time.

It was just a guess on my part that modern kids have the ability trained in them (from birth almost!) of a high quality Air force Pilot!!! That they might be able to beat the system more often than you and I.......

Anyway, nobody knows for sure if those things are Win/Lose programmed. The only ones I have seen are from the Dark Ages.....electricity is still a new fangled thing. Programming win/lose???

Hi, agua doc!

Around here, the machines you describe raise money for charities by giving away stuffed dolls to the winners. This is what I've seen.

The player puts money in the machine, and the control joysticks become activated. They move an arm at the top of a glass case with the relatively heavy three-or-four pronged pickup back and forth in any of four directions to a position of the player's choice along a continuum of travel ending within a small distance of each side.

Then when the player is ready to drop the pickup, stopping the joystick's manipulation stops the arm's movement and the pressing of a release button by the player allows the chain holding the pickup arms to drop. Sometimes the drop is a gravity release and the prongs drop rapidly, and sometimes it's a controlled drop ending when the prongs' lift chain runs out on its spool.

The prongs separate opened when they touch something at the bottom of their drop, and close around it due to their mass as the chain holding them winds back up to the top of the case and the arm. If you are fortunate, the prongs continue to hold the item you have 'won' until it centers over a hole on one side of the case. The prongs are opened there, and the prize drops into the hole and exits out of the machine.

Hate to say it, but this is a game of skill, and not rigged (so far as I know).

It can't be rigged because the prizes are placed in a fairly random fashion in the bottom of the case, and get knocked about by inept tries. Someone who wanted to rig it so kids would win would have to arrange the prizes in the bottom of the case so as to be easily accessed by the pickup.

And it's skill because people who are good at it win a lot of the time, and people who are not rarely win.

I have a buddy, Bob, who is very good at winning in those machines whose glass case bottoms are populated with stuffed dolls. He knows the lenth of travel available to the arm and notes the compass position of the pickup arms before playing; but most importantly, he knows what kinds of grabbing points allow a pickup on those dolls and how to drop the pickup to employ them.

Literally, when people who know his skill see him walk up to play the cases (there are three cases full of these things at the bingo Bob attends), they line up to hand him their dollar to play for them; and most often walk away with a big smile and a doll for their grandkids or whoever.

He tells me which doll he's going to win before he puts the money into the machine. With a practiced eye honed in looking for assembly faults, I tell him the arm won't pick up the doll. Then under Bob's careful management, and sometimes dropping the pickup somewhere nearby the doll that I think has nothing to do with winning it, it picks up the doll and drops it dutifully into the slot.

Sometimes those gamblers don't walk away with a prize; but they're philosophical about it, and sometimes neither does Bob. But as Bob doesn't play it to gamble but rather as a skill, he fumes a little when he doesn't win. Sometimes, he refuses to play a particular case because his practiced eye tells him there are no winners; and sometimes he takes away --for himself and others-- five or ten wins in a row. I've told him that the charities don't make any money on him.

I've played a few times and won only once.

It's possible that your grandson was there on a good day for things to be lined up in such a way as to make the win easy. Maybe someone had lined up the prizes deliberately for the kids to win. Maybe you had a player like Bob who won the prizes for those kids.

Mark

This is exactly the type of game to which I am referring and I'll admit that gaming skill has t play a part in success, but I have to believe this one was rigged some how, because some of the kids getting prizes for each try were maybe 6-7 yr olds. At that age, eye-hand coordination is not quite the same as a 9-10 yr old.

One thing that makes some children (and adult children) very good at mastering such games is their lower inhibition against "cheating"; they are better at cheating because they do not see cheating as cheating...rather just a way to gain an advantage over the machine...so they are able to focus very narrowly, bringing all attention and capability to bear on the idea of getting that prize out...of successfully cheating the machine out of stealing the coins. Adults other than child adults, on the other hand, tend to allow themselves to be distracted by such things as the whys and wherefore's of the workings of the machine, and the "equities" concerning investment vs likelihood of return (on the deposited coins). Children never make this mistake, but only put full attention on "taking advantage" of the machine and making off with a prize. Under the "equity" category would also come the issue of motivation. A child just wants this prize or that, no matter what; he doesn't know, thus doesn't think about how little the prize is worth...in the long run. S/he just wants gratification, now. Or, if an older child, he might be motivated by the need to impress peers or girls; or the anxiety of being seen to "lose," and the imagined consequences or lack thereof.

If you had an "adult" machine, for example, where it was known that inside a significant portion of the stuffed things were tokens redeemable for money in value ranging from, say, $10 up to $10,000...you would then see adults also mastering the machine very quickly. An example and proof of this would be the scratcher tickets sold in drinking venues in Washington state...by far the best scratcher program around. The way the games are run there, the chances of winning significant prizes is fairly good; the chance of playing repeatedly and never winning is fairly poor. It's a scratcher game unlike others because there is an element of skill and timing not present with other scratcher card presentations.

What would happen if the prices are a tad smaller than usual so the claw has a better grasp? What I have seen is that the volume that the price has to be able to be picked up, is fairly small or the price is rather large that you grasp a small piece of a large volume and just can´t hold on to it. The other thing could be, that the claw has a stronger grasp than usual, so it makes it a little easier to collect a price.

"The claw is our master. It decides who will stay and who will go."

With nods to Disney from the Toy Story.

Don't you just hate it when unplanned observations lead your brain to unanswerable questions? The bane of an observant, curious predisposition!

I like to play those with "Play till you win". It has big and small prize. You play the big one once and play the small one until you win.

The best time use these devices is right after they have been filled. The reason for this is that the toys are at the top and since the claw is timed the operator wsould have more time available to pick and place a toy in the chute. This is fact that was noted in an article a few years back. You probably could google this if you are really interested. The article mentioned that one individual new that every Monday the case would be refilled (in the store he patronized) and guess when this person dropped in his coins?

I guess allo the kids hit this on refill day.

Even with a 100% success rate you are spending a dollar for a 50 cent prize. DOH!

Hi, erssk!

Nope. The prize might've cost 50 cents for materials, but if it's a teddy bear or stuffed cartoon figure (which is what we've got in most of these machines), it would have to be made in China or somewhere else where money is not expensive to hit your estimate.

Buddy Bob, mentioned in my earlier blog, takes his won stuffies out in big plastic bags to a busy street corner and sells them for $5. to $25 each and gives the money to the Sick Kids hospitals. People buy them because the same fuzzies in the retail stores sell for $6 to $35.

This stuff isn't the same thing you get in the gum machines for 25 or 50 cents.

Mark.