Playing the game

This year's ATEI show threw up a few thoughts for the pub trade, as Phil Mellows explains.

Behind the urgent commotion of noise and light at this year's Amusement Trades Exhibition International, known to all as the ATEI show, there was some serious debate around the future of the UK gaming machine industry - especially machines in pubs.

As you might have noticed, takings from traditional AWPs - the fruit machine - are falling. Fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) in betting offices, which offer bigger prizes than pub AWPs, have lured the hard-core player, who contributes the vast bulk of the money in the cash box, out of the bar, and this has only been made worse by the uncertainties surrounding the 2005 Gambling Act.

The old Gaming Board, which is being replaced by a new Gambling Commission with wider powers, had recommended stake and the maximum prize for "Category C" pub machines be increased to 50p and £35 respectively. But the government has so far failed to implement the rise - although MP John Grogan, the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group has tabled an early day motion calling on it to do so.

While all this is going on, there seems to be little in the Gambling Act for publicans to cheer about. The supposed deregulation has passed the sector by. Most licensed premises will be limited to two AWPs as they are now, although there will be an opportunity to apply for more to the licensing authority - your local council.

But there is no obligation on the authority to give you what you want and, worse, it will have the power to remove your machines altogether, in particular if it fears children are playing on them.

To many observers, both pub operators and machine suppliers, this all only adds to the argument for a change in the whole culture of machines in pubs.

Punch Taverns machines chief Bill Knowles was forthright in the ATEI show issue of Coinslot Review magazine.

"The manufacturers are not coming up with alternative products to the AWP for the pub," he says. "As we develop new pubs machines are effectively being designed out of them because the product is not enough of an attractive prospect for them.

"We would dearly love to see a product that could come into the pub sector and compete with the likes of the FOBTs, a product that can provide a similar sort of innovative approach. At the moment we do not have anything to compete with these sorts of machines."

Anyone who spent more than five minutes amongst the ATEI razzmatazz would find that hard to believe. But the challenge is to find a machine that can take pubs into the new era without losing the AWP take that's so important for many community pubs.

Internet-based games​

Internet-based "soft" games terminals such as Leisure Link's ITBox and Gamestec's Gamesnet are probably part of the answer. Between them they are already in 14,000 pubs and growing in popularity among customers.

Technology is moving ahead fast and that not only means new games but new ways of playing them, and both machines offer tournament play with a £1,000 prize for the top player each month.

Leisure Link's entertainment software arm, Inspired Broadcast Networks, which has launched a revamped version of quiz game Who Wants to be a Millionnaire? that can be played in a tournament format, is taking the opportunity a step further by putting licensees back in control of entertainment.

In effect, it wants to harness the sociable aspect of tournament games and get the publican directly involved in recruiting a new generation of machine players.

"We are giving pubs the tools to create their own events, to host their own tournaments," says Inspired's chief operating officer Anne de Kerckhove. "We want to allow licensees to regain control.

"Many pub customers still don't play these games and the active participation of the publican will give us a chance to bring machines out of the corner and make them centre stage."

It's now possible, for instance, for a pub with two ITBoxes to run head-to-head knock-out tournaments in real-time. Adversaries can even "chat" to each other during a game of Battleships, to give the gaming experience a sense of community.

Players can also use their mobile phone number to create a unique identity they carry from machine to machine and even build a virtual personality around it, adding value to the game.

Inspired estimates that the ITBox and its competitors have so far only reached 50 per cent of their potential in pubs. But even then, it is likely that soft games terminals like these are only part of the solution to falling machine take.

As Bill Knowles suggests, the pub trade is waiting for some other breakthrough that can protect the revenue from hard core AWP players that so many licensees depend upon.

The Gamestec approach​

Rolf Nielsen, the new managing director at the other big supplier to pubs, Gamestec, takes a more cautious approach than his rival.

As well as a new version of its soft terminal, Gamesnet5, the company has also developed a touchscreen AWP - called Gaming5 - which it sees as a kind of bridge between the real spinning reel fruit machines and the new generation of games.

"Gamesnet is growing week-by-week in a very buoyant market," says Rolf. "It is performing brilliantly and there is lots of scope there. But the decline in traditional AWPs continues to challenge everybody and it needs a fillip.

"It's crazy that we can't have the increased stakes and prizes as it's not contentious, and machines in pubs are still heavily regulated. Pubs near betting shops have real problems from competing products.

"A smoking ban will make it worse - traditional AWP players tend to like a smoke with their pint. These customers have still got to be convinced about soft terminals, and we don't want to upset the apple cart by abandoning the core market for AWPs."

Despite that he, too, feels the conditions are right for a leap forward in games culture. Key to this is the company's plan to introduce wireless broadband connections for 5,000 of its key customers this year.

"Pubs will be able to download games content much more quickly and I believe this itself can increase machine take," says Rolf. "It will also give us a better platform for developing and testing games that can bring in new people - without losing income from the core player."

And while you might see games websites as a competitor, Gamestec is hoping to turn that around by launching a new site which will actively drive players into pubs. Currently in development it's set up as a virtual pub with a variety of pay-to-play games - the clever twist is that winners will have to turn up at their local to collect their prize across the bar.

Pictured top: Inspired's Anne de Kerckhove with the new version of Who Wants to be a Millionnaire? on ITBox. As well as being set up for tournament play, the game features more of Chris Tarrant and a fastest finger first round where players can win lifelines - including a choice of phone-a-friend.​

Multi-purpose MaxBox is a one-stop shop for pubs​

Everyone's a Winner, the sales promotion terminal launched into the pub trade last year, has been developed into a multi-purpose digital terminal by creator Felix Group.

Unveiled at ATEI, the Max Box incorporates:

• ATM machine
• Digital jukebox
• Mobile phone top-up
• Ring tones download
• MP3 music download
• Wi-fi hotspot
• Digital photo printing
• Everyone's a Winner.

"If it can be squirted down broadband it can go on Max Box," says Felix's marketing intelligence manager Laura Jackson-Woods. "It's a real one-stop shop for pub customers."

Everyone's