Not content with plugging Deuchars IPA and Highland Park whisky, Ian Rankin¹s Rebus yarns are now giving a nod to a brand of games machine at least in the TV version.
Watch the new series on ITV closely this autumn, and in the the episode titled The Naming of the Dead you¹ll see DI John Rebus himself leaning over a pub SWP quiz machine. In this realistic fictional detective series it¹s a sign of the growth of these machines and their broadening popularity in sharp contrast to the decline of the traditional fruit machine or AWP.
Rebus¹s brand of machine, too, is well chosen from the point of view of authenticity. It¹s a Paragon from Games Warehouse which in the space of a few years has put 10,000 of these machines in pubs. That¹s about the same as Inspired Gaming Group¹s itbox, which has tended to focus on managed chains, and probably accounts for at least a quarter of the pub SWPs out there.
And as the British pub changes in response to the smoking ban, the importance of food and the need to attract a wider audience, there is plenty of opportunity to expand that number. At least that¹s the conviction of Nick Hardy, group managing director of Games Warehouse.
"SWPs are the softer, lighter, more acceptable side of games machines," he says. "They are more sociable you hardly ever see someone playing an SWP on their own and they are far more attractive to women.
"It¹s because it¹s about skill and knowledge. And even when a machine demands speed and dexterity from a player, the most successful games are still based on quiz questions. There¹s something more acceptable about that."
While Paragon¹s market is mainly among tenanted pubs and the freetrade with little overlap with its main rival Inspired Games Warehouse recently did a deal with managed house giant Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) to put Paragon-Pro into its Restaurant Group division, comprising heavily food-led brands such as Harvester, Toby Carvery and Vintage Inns.
While the core of the SWP business is likely to remain in community pubs, for Nick there are great opportunities as operators switch towards doing more food.
"As pubs undergo refurbishment to become more like pub-restaurants the chances are they¹ll move the fruit machines out and sacrifice AWP income and someone will be wondering how they are going to replace that," he says.
³We can¹t promise the £250 a week that an AWP typically takes in a pub, but we can punch a big hole in it, and, like other SWP suppliers, we have invested a lot in the aesthetics of our machines.² And in this market, looks count. The decision to install SWPs came at a time when the M&B pub-restaurants were undergoing major rebranding and refurbishment.
According to M&B director of electronic leisure John Appleton, it was the look of the Games Warehouse machines that clinched the deal. "Paragon-Pro in a black cabinet is currently the only entertainment terminal that is aesthetically acceptable," he says.