Here’s the Ticket
I am a big fan of noticing new technologies and how they are used in our industry and more importantly how they can affect our industry, both positively and negatively. Here is a brief summary of those that caught my eye over the past two months and a response from my NFC technology article:
Reader Response to ‘Smart Cards are Rapidly Replacing Magstripe Credit Cards’
Frank, good article of the NFC technology. It should be noted that currently it will only work with the Android type phone. Apple will not adopt the NFC for their platform and they are testing a low frequency blue tooth as their solution. Until our industry gets more congruent with the public’s preferred way of paying for goods and services, the performance of our products will continue to wane. AMI and Touchtunes have developed their own App’s and the performance as a % of revenue is amazing. It has rendered the direct credit card play as inconsequential. Bob Geschine, President, Betson.
Bob, I stand corrected as I was unaware that Apple is heading in a separate direction. Our industry can only look towards a payment solution that works on all cell phones and all wearer payment applications. AMI and Touchtunes have taken a big step forward and their Apps are a big plus for their jukeboxes and related games but I do not believe that having each game manufacturer develop its own payment app is going to help our industry. What we need is the old AMOA/AAMA Industry Standardization Committee to get back into action. Or we can leave it to the vending industry to find the best payment solution and our industry will sit back and wag its tail awaiting the bone to be tossed our way—at a price of course! – Frank
PayRange has a Mobile Payment Non-Network Simple Solution for Coin-Operated Machines
Vending industry wizard Paresh Patel, CEO PayRange, has developed a wireless Bluetooth (‘Blukey’) hardware device that enables a smart phone to activate a within range (about 2 feet or less) coin-operated device of any type and have the payment transaction processed by the user’s cellular network. The system includes a mobile app and processing service for the machine operator. The customer/player needs to have a prepaid balance (like a debit card) that is more than the current purchase to be made.
The Blukey is currently designed for vending machines but can be adapted for coin-operated games, laundry, car wash, parking, transit turn styles and the list go on and on. The Blukey is easily installed in minutes. For coin-op games a 4-wire PayRange harness uses 2 wires to connect to the coin switch terminals with the other 2 wires connecting to the game’s +12 volt power supply.
The cost of a Blukey is $49. Currently there is a 3.95% fee per transaction. There are no other fees or monthly fees. For more information go to www.payrange.com.
What this could mean. This is a very interesting solution for the coin-op games industry. At $50 per Blukey (assuming that one Blukey can handle multiple player position games) this is a reasonable amount to get started in locations that have a small number of games. However, the 3.95% transaction fee seems high when considering locations with 20 or more games. For example, an FEC that has gross game revenue of $250,000 annually would pay about $5,000 in transaction fees (assuming 50% of the players made mobile payments) plus $50 x 25 games = $1250 minimum for Blukeys. It might make more sense to install and finance a debit card system and recover the investment through the float (credits and points left on cards) and 15%-20% increased revenues. One could always just install PayRange on one of the Kiosks or on one of the token dispensers in a token operated location for those who insist on paying with their smart phones. I had always figured that a company like Visa or American Express would take over the vending and coin-operated mobile payment industry when they finally noticed us and they would make more money in transaction fees then we make. But I am happy to see one of our own, Parish Patel, take the lead so I can see it happen in my lifetime. Kidding aside, this is a great new technology.
Intel Corp’s RealSense 3D Camera Enables Devices to Perceive Depth.
Can you imagine a video game or videmption game being able to recognize your forward, backward, up and down body movements and gestures including facial recognition? Add this to a player being immersed into a game and interacting with that 3D environment. This is now possible with the RealSense 3D Camera that can recognize depth almost like a human eye does.
PHOTO: Intel’s Mooly Eden holds the Intel RealSense 3D camera, the world’s first and smallest integrated user-facing 3D camera. The technology enables devices to perceive depth, much like the human eye can.
What this could mean. This type of technology can raise the bar on what game players expect. Each player becomes a unique player to the game. The game recognizes everything visual about the player and can react accordingly. A blink of the eye, a smile, a look up or down, a quick breath, or a thumbs up gesture could each have an effect on game play. The gestures and movements are infinite. Each game will be a different experience and repeat play could be irresistible. Even emotions can be learned by the game. In the future I can imagine the game being able to capture specific heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure during a game and these could have an effect on how the game progresses.
Several companies are currently working to incorporate this new technology into their future products. As reported by Vending Times, computer/laptop/tablet manufacturers include ‘Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo and NEC and third-party collaborations in the works with Autodesk, DreamWorks, Metaio and Microsoft Skype.’ Wouldn’t it be great if one or more video game manufacturers take a try at integrating this technology into one or more of their games? To have this first, before the consumer market, would create quite a buzz. I can already imagine applications for videmption games as well! That could be a far less expensive undertaking than would a video game.
