Epub: a new kind of fruit machine
For the launch of a fruit machine it was quite a lavish affair. A couple of hundred top executives gathered at the old Truman Brewery in London's Brick Lane to witness the official introduction of the country's first internet-based pub AWP - and hear from an impressive line-up of gaming industry speakers and experts.
It was all designed to drive home a serious point: that pub machine take is in terminal decline, and to reverse it pubcos and licensees have to respond to a fast-changing gaming marketplace.
The answer, at least according to Inspired Gaming Group, which organised the event, is server based gaming (SBG). If that means nothing to you, you might already have a sever-based terminal in your pub in the shape of an Itbox or Gamesnet SWP machine. But the big winner for pubs is likely to be the extension of this technology from SWPs to AWPs.
Inspired's ground-breaking contender for the UK is called The Player. Machine operator LeisureLink is already trialling it in a number of major pubco estates, including Mitchells & Butlers, JD Wetherspoon, Laurel, Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns, and the aim is to introduce 25,000 terminals into pubs over the next three years.
SBG machines have three major advantages over traditional AWPs:
1. Game refresh
New games are downloaded remotely over the internet. You don't have to wait for a machine operator to come along and replace the whole machine - LeisureLink alone currently moves 15 tons of machines a month to help pubs keep up with the latest games. With SBG, as soon as the popularity of a game begins to wane, it can immediately be replaced. Players don't get bored and machine take is sustained at a higher level.
2. Fault reporting
Because an SBG machine is linked to the internet, the machine operator knows as soon as it breaks down. It can even know when a machine is going to fail before it becomes apparent in the pub. Also, it's estimated that half of all faults can be repaired remotely, over the wire, so there's no need for a service call-out.
3. Tailored offering
Game content, stakes and prizes can, in theory at least, all be chosen by the licensee to suit the pub's customers, the time or the occasion. In future they could even go out and buy their own cabinet in a style that suits the pub.
Inspired is investing £10m on upgrading its own systems to handle the SBG revolution in pubs - and it's throwing in free phone calls to encourage licensees to take the machine.
The Player, unveiled by Inspired's joint chief executive operators Norman Crowley and Luke Alvarez at the Brick Lane event in December, is available in a familiar-looking AWP cabinet - except that it has a screen - while more adventurous licensees can try something more futuristic.
Another advantage of SBG is that you can have it in any cabinet you want and Alvarez envisages licensees and pubcos going out and buying their own cabinet.
"It's flexible," he says. "Different pub operators will take different approaches. We can customise the screen for a pubco too."
But it's what's inside the box - or rather outside the box in the virtual world of the internet - that's most important.
Alavarez describes it as a "liberation" for pubs, in that they can control machine content. The Player is an open platform which means you don't have to get games through Inspired.
"Pubs want control over content and we're keen to see games from many different providers being made available on The Player," he says. "There are already 40 game development partners working for our platform. It is 'language agnostic' so it can convert games fast.
"People get bored easily. SBG means you can go to a faster and faster cycle of games - and that's what is truly transformational about this technology."
Past attempts to move AWPs into the 21st century, using video-based machines, have been less than successful. That might make you sceptical. Norman Crowley admits there have been "false starts".
"But a huge amount of that is down to content. There is a wider pool of games available now - we have more than 40 games already in the pipeline between now and June that have never been seen before."
There are practical benefits, too, in the fact that an SBG AWP is open to the internet. Its performance is monitored continuously and a lot of problems can be fixed remotely - even before you've noticed there is anything wrong.
"How do you know how an analogue game is performing? By counting the money," says Crowley. "SBG reports by the day and by the week, and shows you clearly what's happening with graphs. If there's a decline in take you can change the game immediately.
"Half of all faults can be repaired over the wire so you don't lose any income," he adds.
