Weener's Cube

Went to the Sunnyvale Golf Land arcade tonight with Nathan and Melissa. There was one new machine called Winners Cube that cost 12 tokens to play ($3). The game had ipod touches, ipods, and an ipad ($500). The user controls the x and z coordinates of a rod. You have to align the rod. You get one push on the x coordinate and one push of the button to control the z coordinate. When you are done aligning the z coordinate the rod pushes forward. It has to push through a small hole in the clear wall to push the prize out the back.

This game is just like the game stacker. There is more than what is really shown. Stacker has an internal mechanism to pay out prizes as a negative balance of what it brings in. Stacker awards similar type prizes but is only a $1 to play. To the untrained eye, winner's cube is a game of pure chance. Where in fact the computer is calculating the y and z coordinates through calibrated stepper motors. It was obvious by how you could see when users let go of the button, the computer decided when to stop on the z coordinate.

I played it once. I didn't even get close. Over the hour that we were there. There was close to $30 put into the machine. Some people were close, real close. And most were far. I can't understand how someone can design a machine that doesn't have fair odds, and sleep well at night. I would never take a job like that. Just wrong.

Oh well. I guess its like buying a lottery ticket, you buy it to hope you are the lucky one. Well, the family still had fun. Won a bunch of prizes, and Nathan got a big plastic squeaky lizard that he likes. He didn't care much for the games, but somehow understood the tickets were valuable.