16 January 2013
PRIZE MACHINES: Many people have trouble with winning prizes out of machines; however, these tips might help.
By Isabel De La Garza, Senior Writer
Prize Machines. They lure unsuspecting arcade gamers and restaurant goers into their traps with bright lights, colorful prizes and ear-catching music. The gamer will then proceed to shell out sums of anywhere from 25 cents to the entire contents of their wallets trying to win something from the evil machine. The claw and UFO nearly always drop, fail to grab onto the prize and move back to position, while the plunger always seems to miss its prize hole by mere millimeters.
So what can one do? I’ll start with some tips for the classic claw machine.
This three-pronged menace tempts you with its great prizes. Most people who fail to win often try to go for prizes that are blocked by other prizes, put too close to the glass or too oddly positioned for the crane to grab. For the claw machine, one must always study the positions of the prizes and see which are realistic targets. If a person wants a monkey, but said primate is trapped under a walrus that is in the perfect position to grab, it’s better to try to get the walrus. It is best to have a spotter who can watch from another angle and tell you whether or not you have your claw lined up. Use as much time as the clock will allow in order to line the claw up just right. If the claw is not in proper position, you will not be able to win your prize.
One thing about the claw machine that many people don’t seem to grasp is the fact that the claw does not have a lot of strength; it might not even be meant to grab things and pick them up in the first place, but to push and pull them around. If there are a lot of prizes near the mouth of the prize hole, it is best to use the crane as a broom to “sweep” the prize into the hole. For small prizes, such as necklaces and key chains, it is best to get the crane to trap only a small piece of the loop so that it will hold the item but still release it easily when it gets to the prize chute. The same can be done if items in a claw machine have tags and are relatively light. If none of that works one can always ask the arcade staff to move the prizes around a little bit. They may not say yes at every single place you go, but if you don’t ask, you won’t receive.
These tricks also work on the UFO Machine, a close Japanese cousin of the traditional claw machine. Unlike the U.S. claw machine, the UFO Machine has two claw arms that open up fully to form two right angles at the elliptical base they are attached to (thus “UFO,” from the elliptical shape). These machines usually do not have prize chutes with glass or plastic barriers around them, and those that do are often loaded much more heavily so that there are many prizes above chute level. These machines have become much more popular in the U.S. and can be found in the Disneyland Arcade, Round 1 and several China Towns, Korea Towns and Japan Towns. Unlike the classic claw, there is no joystick with which to move the UFO.
There are, instead, two buttons. The first (you must use it first or you do not get to use it at all) moves the UFO across left and right, depending upon the machine. Once you let go or press the other button, it stops moving left and right. The other button allows the UFO to farther back into the machine; once you get to your position you must let go of this button to drop the UFO.
Although it lacks the joystick, the UFO actually has some advantages over the claw machine: there are more prizes, the prizes are easier to get, the claw is stronger and it has small thin appendages on the end of it that enable it to hold onto small items or crevices on items. When playing the claw machine, a good tactic is to drop the crane near the mouth where many prizes are concentrated so that you will get more prizes. The tag, necklace and keychain loop trick also works on the UFO machine. But there are a few other tricks that can help. If the machine has boxed prizes on it, one can center the claw on the box so that as it tries to grab the slick box and fails, it eventually slips into the top flap of the lid of the box and carries the prize to its destination. There are ways of sliding prizes into the hole slowly with the UFO by positioning one claw on the prize and one in the prize chute so that the present will fall in. Other times, you can lightly pick up a large prize so that the crane can no longer support its weight, causing the prize’s center of gravity to shift so that it falls forward into the prize hole.
The plunger machine’s method of moving is the exact same as that of the UFO machine, except that the second button moves the plunger vertically up and down. The holes on some plunger machines are smaller than others but the concept is still the same: you aim your plunger into the slot so that it either pushes the prize voucher into the chute or unlocks it so that it will drop into the chute. For this machine, the best thing to do is to look for a machine that has bigger prize holes and definitely not go for the extremely expensive prizes. As the plunger gets closer to the top you have less and less time to let go of the button at the right moment. The easiest prizes to go for are the ones in the bottom two rows in machines with three rows and the bottom three in machines with five rows. The best strategy is to go for the lower prizes because they have a higher likelihood of being won. However, these machines are often so difficult that it is best to just avoid them. People do get lucky and win, but only by a fraction of a millisecond. The machine is just that complicated. If you want to give it a try, just try it once and move on. You will save yourself a lot of time, money and frustration.
The best advice for all of these machines is to have a spotter, take your time, focus, remember your tips, study the machines, ask the staff for help and remember when to give up. What good is wasting 20 bucks on a plunger machine when you could have put that money towards saving up for an iPad? If you know when to quit or have someone to help drag you away from the machine, and you study your tips and machine, you will be able to walk away happy every time.
Courtesy of arcadeperfect.net, bmigaming.com and namco.co.uk