Stinger Report - 12/07/2021

TSR Newsletter | July 12, 2021

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-- The Stinger Report: Service Message --

The Global Digital Out-Of-Home Entertainment (DOE) Sector covered in The Stinger Report .

Wishing all our subscribers, famlies, loved ones, (and those serving) stay safe and well.

Kevin Williams

Publisher, The Stinger Report (TSR)

Attack of the Entertainment Robots!

# 1078

Report Skinny

In The Stinger Report #1079 – This issue covers in detail:

1. [TRENDING NEWS] Telepresence enters the amusement arena, with the continued growth in ‘Live Play’ entertainment experiences – a new trend of the #RobotsAreComing is revealed in this latest report.

2. [BREAKING NEWS] Formation of a new trade association to police the popularity of “Online Crane Gaming” is revealed, with over 100 members of the Japanese amusement trade, as the new genre explodes on the market.

3. [BREAKING NEWS] The Japanese amusement trade raises its stake in ‘Live Play’, with TAITO deploying the first Online Medal Game app following in the footsteps of Crane gaming – the first details revealed.

4. [TRENDING NEWS] Even more big announcements, with ‘Live Play’ seeing the growth of robot mini-golf and the deployment of the first Robot-RC and Drone platforms that offer a new landscape for Out-of-Home Entertainment.

….and much, much more!

To read the full Stinger Report, register for your subscription here.

- The Stinger Report, published by KWP and its director, Kevin Williams, is the leading interactive Out-of-Home Entertainment news-and-views resource, covering the immersive frontier and beyond.

Main Report

The ability for the entertainment space to be a versatile environment, with a connected online persona as well as the physical entertainment space, has seen the coining of the term the “Clicks, Bricks-n-Mortar” entertainment business. The social media element of the business is seen with report booking, and the creation of player avatars collecting points and comprising skins. This opens the business of entertainment to the deployment of a version of games aimed at remote access, building on the concept of “Telepresence”.

The migration between the “Physical/Digital” divide, offering an entertainment facility an offline capability to their online persona or avatar, has become even more real under the conditions of Lockdown. However, there has been a consideration for entertainment venue operators, even before the Global Health Crisis, to have the ability to offer “Virtual Prize Centers”, with no need to retain stock and redemption prizes sent as online orders directly to the guest. Some operators are even experimenting with touch-screen kiosk prize selection and dispatch.

The entertainment sector is experiencing the same issues as the rest of the world, with live events and even live working impacted by the Global Health Crisis, and acceleration in what had already been a growing trend before the situation for a partnership between remote and venue. What has been dubbed “Hybrid” has been seen in the employment scene (working from home with occasional office days), the exhibition scene (live streamed conferences and physical events), and in the entertainment scene (with the deployment of remote play elements alongside the conventional Out-of-Home experience). And this trend is best reflected by a new technology entering the market.

- Remote Control Amusement

With this, the concept of “Live Play” has evolved. As you will see, it is not such a new idea – fundamentally, these online apps allow the player to control their game remotely, while a robot interface on the physical amusement machine relays their commands. The marriage of a monetized online game apps with live play proved a strong pull with the Japanese UFO machines, the first to be configured to this trend. So was created “Online Skill-Crane Game” in 2015 – originated by Netch and its ‘Netcatcher Netch’. Hordes of UFO machines hooked up to online robots, controlled by players from the smart app. Soon Netch was joined by other variants of the concept, launched by Japanese amusement factories frantically playing catchup to jump on this bandwagon.

The opportunities for the international scene were not lost on the developers and Netch created a Westernized version of its platform, called ‘Akiba Catcher’, in 2016 and was soon followed by other variants in the same approach from TAITO and then SEGA, who would later hand the business to GENDA (the app is now rebranded ‘GOTON!’). This can be best seen as a game craze that builds on “Live Streaming” from social media – the remote involvement in live activities from the comfort of your connected online device. This is seen from YouTube and Twitch streamers to the ability to interact remotely with entertainment devices and win physical items through the employment (hopefully) of the user’s skill. The ability to participate and experience remotely is the definition of “Telepresence”.

The draw of remote play [GENDA]

The importance of this new business can be seen regarding how quickly a new trade association has been launched to attempt to police excess. Announced in May, the Japan Online Crane Game Operators Association (JOCA) has a primary focus on establishing operational guidelines and regulations for members to follow regarding the “Live Play” hardware. This is focused wholly on the online game services and provider and is attracting over 100 members, including manufacturers and operators such as TAITO. The JOCA also includes consumer consultation and support, touching on the possibility of problematic gambling activities. It would be easy to strike similarities between the formation of problematic gambling support, linked to the addictive nature of this new craze in online gaming. How long it will take for the Western market to feel the need for a similar organization has yet to be seen – mainly as “Live Play” has yet to appear on any of their radars.

The explosive growth of this scene was revealed with the news of a brand-new power relationship. It was announced that DMM.com, a comprehensive online service provider, and AltPlus, an entertainment services and social gaming developer, have partnered to create the joint venture ‘DMM Oncre Co. Ltd’. This new entity will create a new online crane game service that will also include broad licensing deals and will also incorporate AltPlus’ previous investment into development of a blockchain game (‘Crypto Sports’). This new joint venture will receive investment of 80-percent from DMM and 20-percent from AltPlus.

The fast-paced nature of the “Live Play” scene, from an Asian perspective, was illustrated with news only a matter of days after the announcement of the JOCA, of a brand-new approach to the concept. Japanese amusement veteran TAITO (owned by Square-ENIX) announced the upgrade of its ‘TAITO App’ with the inclusion of the new service “TAITO Online Medal”. This marks the first serious move to include Medal games (Japanese style token pushers) into the “Live Play” genre. Along with offering mobile games on the app, TAITO, in 2017, entered the online skill crane gaming scene with “TAITO Online Crane”. But now, with Online Medal, the company offers players on smart devices a chance to play real Medal game machines through a robotic interface. The app allows player to play with real-time video on one of TAITO’s latest Medal machines (‘Dino King Victory’) and, in return for setting up an account, players are rewarded with free points/medals to begin with. The app is still in a pre-release stage as the corporation tests the waters and has a limited time of operation but is expected to widen its offering soon.

Medal games get the online treatment [TAITO]

This is a major development in the “Live Play” scene, opening the door towards consideration of other Medal games that could be converted for remote play. But more importantly, this could start a major discussion in the gaming and gambling sector towards the deployment of “Live Play” in online services – could we soon be seeing Western-based Coin-Pushers and Prize Machines given the online treatment. This is an application which was emerging before the Global Health Crisis but, with many tech trends, it has received major impetus from the lockdown, and represents a brand-new aspect of the industry that will be fought over between the casino/gaming and the amusement industries.

We have seen operators of amusement spaces incorporating a ‘Live Play’ element into their machine mix, giving themselves a secondary business revenue stream though remote play. A recent example is seen with Round1, with chains in Japan and North America, adding its name to the list of online skill crane systems with the launch of its new Japanese service, ‘Round1 Online Crane Game’.

The Online Crane or Claw machine business was ignited in Singapore in 2019, with the launch of one of the first online services in that territory with DinoMao – appearing on the Google App Store that year, the app followed the model seen with Japanese variants of remote controlled machines via a Game App, offering a free number of tickets to get started, drawing the player in, and dispatching won plush. The operation started modestly with 12 connected machines, but soon grew as popularity followed.

Example of the online claw machine in action [StraitTimes]

Sources in Singapore also revealed the testing of a new concept called ‘Arcade Online’, under development from a major force in the amusement sector. The concept has been spurred on by the lockdown conditions of the past year. Described as playing real arcade games online from any device, the concept has utilized this period to invest in innovation and new verticals. Remote controlled amusement machines are linked to an online game app, supported with its own payment infrastructure and prize elements. It borrows heavily from the “Online Skill Crane Game” approach but is placed in an amusement style online offering. As a new business vertical, it is expected that other operators and manufacturers will also be turning to the system.

As previously covered by The Stinger Report, “Live Play” has broken beyond the confines of just amusement and redemption and crossed over into mini-golf. 54e Dev Studios, a game app developer with a long pedigree of previous work, has released its latest game app, called ‘OneShot Golf’. The system offers specially created mini-golf courses being played by a horde of some 50 online controlled putting robots, located in a warehouse (the company is already starting scaleup plans to increase capacity). 54e Dev Studios had closed, in December, a seed round of investment of $1.7m (led by Conexus Venture Capital). The company is building its own robots which work within what the developers are dubbing “Connected Reality” (CR). The motto of the team behind the concept putting down the interest to control the golfing robots, rather than just a video game representation, is “you can’t fake real”. There are also added elements of live course updates and even real “course hosts” (staff in the warehouse) interacting with players with words of encouragement. The app has been configured for casual play, but also includes daily tournaments. The concept is feeding off the basic premise of “Live Play” and pointing to a new growth in this business approach.

Robot mini-golf takes a new course [CTV News]

The concept of “Live Play” has also evolved from the deployment of immersive technology, allowing traditional systems to be incorporated into game experiences. We have seen the deployment of robotic interfaces with exiting amusement hardware, such as with the “Online Crane Game” and the emergence of “Online Medal Game” systems. But, with ‘OneShot Golf’, we see the creation of dedicated robots to supply the live-feed and represent the player (acting as their Avatar). This leads us to the other aspect of “Live Play” in entertainment.

So, we have seen the explosion in interest in remote-play experiences. Chinese developer Owatch, known for its VR products, has also entered the Augmented Reality (AR) scene with ‘AR Racing’. The system comprises three racing seats with screens that represent the view seen by the cameras on the RC cars racing around the model racecourse. The concept of “Live Play” in this format is not new. The first real interpretation of camera-based RC cars to go into production was released by SEGA in 1988, with the ‘SEGA Super Circuit’ (SSC) racer, and again in 1998 with Disney and its ‘Treasure of the Incas’ attraction at DisneyQuest. The unique player experience is supported by a compelling audience appeal, watching the connected remote control racers on the model board. A derivation of this principle has even migrated to the consumer market, with Nintendo launching, in 2020, ‘Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit’. Again, an RC car equipped with a camera beams its visuals to players controlling the vehicle via their Nintendo Switch consoles.

Real-time RC competition in AR [Owatch]

The employment of RC cars as LBE entertainment is not new, with numerous installations of multiple racing cars which are controlled from drivers’ positions (just steering wheels and controls). Most recently, the new French Mixed-Use Leisure Entertainment (MULE) venue called Hall U Need opened, with its interpretation of this approach with ‘Car Racing’ – with ten driving positions controlling RC cars on a large miniature racecourse. This offers both competitive action for the players, and also a great audience experience as they cheer on the winners.

The ability to present radio-controlled action to both players and audiences has evolved with the use of real-time communication. In the sports scene, the explosion in popularity of Drone Racing has rocketed the interest in owning and racing aerial drones, although many customers do not have the space or capital to invest. This has offered the opportunity for the development of interactive drone-based experiences to be packaged for the entertainment sector. Leaders in this move include new start-up, Drone Interactive – the company is investing in the creation of its ‘ARCADRONE’ player. This is a purpose-built enclosure that allows up-to-four players to control their aerial drone within a special arena. The game offers a gladiatorial battle between the devices, with combat represented and the drones never actually making physical contact. It is fun to play, and the system also offers a great audience experience. The new company celebrated its second installation with the placement in Switzerland’s Fun Planet entertainment location last year and looks to start full rollout.

The use of competitive aerial drones as an amusement platform has been followed by another new start-up with its product concept, Portal Bots. This sees the deployment of specially developed robot arena that is played via the cloud from home. Players at home log into the ‘Parsec’ software on their home device and take control of one of six four-wheeled laser-tag-robot tanks, equipped with cameras, and laser weaponry. The start-up company is fielding a 40-minute remote hire, costing $20 per robot. Play during the session includes a selection of games, ranging from, racing, capture-the-flag (Conquest), and a Free-for-All, survival battles against other connected players. Latency at this time has not proven an issue, with connections up to 6,000km away.

The developers’ concept is reaching fruition based on a need by the pandemic-inspired market for lockdown entertainments (such as the previously reported Zoom-based Remote Escape Rooms). As with this, the company is seeing a lot of interest in teambuilding hires, with corporate block bookings. Regarding Portal Bots, the company is at an early stage of development, looking for investment, with the first site operational from the company’s webpage. The concept requires six tanks, a dedicated arena, and the infrastructure software and firmware; with plans for eSport-inspired competitive play and remote leagues. This platform is more of a derivation of previous remote experiencing, such as “Telepresence”.

Ready for action – the players’ robotic avatars [Portal Bots]

The Portal Bots platform of choice is the DJI ‘Robotmaster S1’ – an incredibly versatile consumer robot for enthusiasts. The system, launched in 2019, has both the capability for entertainment and education, incorporating the ability to be programmed. But DJI has also embraced the explosion in competitive robot and drone activities, by launching the ‘DJI Robomasters’ back in 2013. The latest rendition is a series of tournaments and competitions between all levels of enthusiasts, culminating in a competition and prizes. This creates an eSports experience in support of the range of robot products. It is this level of engagement, and the ability to include both education with entertainment, that will see other applications of this approach. It must be understood that most schools include basic robotic studies and programming in their syllabus (“EdTech”), including this new-tech, offering another opportunity for school field trips to entertainment venues.

This concept brings us full circle, with a logical conclusion of the ‘Live Play’ that started with the “Online Skill Crane Game” – and it is expected that other RC style remote-play concepts will be tested on the changed landscape of mobile gaming in the coming months. What this means for the amusement deployment of ‘Live Play’, and whether we will see a new hybrid entertainment venue with arena spaces setup for live and remote players, all controlling their own robotic avatars, remains to be seen and we will report back with developments as and when they happen.