Here’s the Ticket!
The Top 50 Redemption & Merchandiser Combined List is put together from actual collections from games owned and operated by Alpha-Omega Amusements. The purpose of the list is for you to see where your own games rank and see where other games that you do not have would rank in your facility.
We test many of the new games and you can see where they rank among the Top 50 and see earnings and Ticket Payout % from the 4 weeks comparison in the Test Game Spreadsheet. Additional games that are scheduled for testing are:
- Monster Drop X-Treme – Benchmark. This was just installed and is already #1 in ranking, earning over $6000 in 3 days.
- Sink It Shootout 2 Pl – Bay-Tek. Looks like another winner for Bay-Tek.
- Fright Night – Smart
- Blaster – Benchmark- Since I first saw this game at IAAPA 2013, a Super Bonus level has been added to further challenge the player. To promote the Super Bonus value, a spinning marquee has been added to the top of the game. TRR feels this will be another Benchmark winner.
- Hit the Beat – Andamiro
- Lobster Robot – Andamiro
Analysis of Top 50 Redemption & Merchandise Combined
Monster Drop X-Treme (Benchmark), in its first three days, was tracking at #1 with a 20% ticket payout. For its first complete week of operation, (WE 4-18-14) MDX earned $7,554. See Top 50 Redemption & Merchandiser Games Combined and Test Game spreadsheet for more information. TRR will report the latest earnings in the next issue.
Whack N Win (ICE) with three weeks of testing ranks #4 which is very impressive. Beating out Ticket Monster by a nose makes this the game to watch closely over the next few months. The ticket payout % is right on target averaging 29%.
Color Match (LAI) is another game to watch closely with a #7 combined ranking and the #1 merchandise ranking. We are working hard to figure out the best Win % settings that have ranged from a low of 3% to a high of 45%. Over the 4-week period the average of 24% is good but the range is too high.
Candy Crane with Tickets is still attracting the players (#8 combined ranking & #2 merchandise ranking) and earning over $1000/week for almost 4 months straight. As reported in the previous TRR #22, this simple merchandiser with a very high hit frequency and very low maximum prize value of $1.13 proves that players can be attracted to low tech games.
Down the Clown A & B (ICE) coming in the combined ranking at #9 & #12 has consistently over the past several months shown that it is worthy of a ‘work horse’ position. It does not take long for a player to feel comfortable tossing the ball to hit the X on the top of the targets ‘foreheads’. It is similar to tossing a dart. The ticket payout % is averaging just above 30% and we will need to adjust this game to be a bit more difficult as the players keep getting better. My congratulations to ICE for creating this concept as a in your face, close up, ball toss. In the past we have seen this knockdown character in games where the player throws a ball, rolls a ball up an alley, or shoots a ball from an air cannon (all long range). In Down the Clown the targets are very close and the player feels more confident that he/she can hit the targets.
Sink It (Bay-Tek) is one new game that I like very much. It came in at #21 but should be much higher because the ticket payout % is too low at 13%. We will be working with Bay-Tek to get it in the 21%-25% range. The game has everything going for it: the player understands how to play after seeing the game for 1/5th of a second; the player quickly learns how to skillfully bounce the ping pong balls into the cups. We’ve seen players toss the balls directly into the cups but bouncing them provides more accuracy. In the next weeks we will be exchanging the prototype Sink It for Sink It Shootout 2 Pl and have those results to you.
Snow Down (Jennison) came in at #15 but would be higher if we can consistently get the ticket payout % closer to 25%. It is one of the most attractive games ever made and it has been a consistent top earning game for several months running.
UFO Express (LAI) is another game to keep an eye on. When it was first put into the Test Site, it was in the Top 10 but as other test games were added around it, its revenues dropped. The reason could be placement and we will see if that can be looked at. We try several different placements during a full 90-day test period as well as changing price/play, average time, and settings to zero in on the ones that will maximize the game revenue without giving any one game a distinct advantage over the others.
