Taking a Look at that Arcade Game that got Sued... (Key Master)

[@Viking102938]

All of the stories of people being angrily kicked out when they actually won something should have been the first clue

[@EmperorZ19]

Why do they get kicked out? Is there some way to get past the planned payout rate?

[@crossdaboss8914]

​@EmperorZ19 not quite but when the machines ready to pay out it acts diffrent and if you know what to look for you can take advantage of it

[@KateGrayCode]

@@EmperorZ19some machines try to stay legally games of skill instead of games of chance, so they set the winning timing to 1ms, or add random jitter, or something.

[@mikea5745]

@@KateGrayCode That didn't answer his question at all, and the video explained how the game is rigged already

[@IDoABitOfTrollin]

​@@EmperorZ19you can kick out anyone for any reason. You dont have to give them the prize either

[@CarbonatedTurtle]

What would really be nice is if arcades were places where people could just play fun games instead of the casinos for kids they've turned into, full of rigged games to steal your money in exchange for no amount of fun at all.

[@OlympusAerial]

Yep, unfortunately gambling is much more addictive and therefore much more profitable for the arcade owners.

[@jaytee5692]

Absolutely agree. Redemption games have killed arcade fun

[@luigifan4585]

you go to Round1 or barcades if you want places filled with the most cabs that are actual games instead of redemption/prize trash

[@FrostBite3232]

I agree. I also wish there were great modern arcade games in general. The modern race and shooters are nice an flashy but not that fun. Though arcades can't compete with pc or vr anymore without being insanely expensive I imagine. I think better pinball machines would help. I don't care for how Stern does business nor their laziness of slapping a licensed theme on a pinball machine and patting themselves on the back

[@Random_4400]

More like in exchange for depression & stress.

[@SoraHagate]

The fact that most claw machines have claws that couldn’t pick up the weight of a paper clip im surprised this hasn’t happened much more often

[@CalamityBaird]

Claw machines are ones that I refuse to believe are rigged...to an extent. There absolutely is stuff that's too heavy for the claw but using common sense you can usually figure out which ones are too heavy fairly easily. My mother's ex would bring home literal trash bags full of stuffed animals he'd won from claw machines almost on the daily. Wed go to Denny's and he'd win 5+ times before we even got seated.

[@kingbitgames8718]

@@CalamityBaird There's a claw machine at a local joint that doesn't even fully 'lock' around objects. It lightly closes and then the claws slide along the edges of the prize while it rises.

[@MarcusFigueras]

​@CalamityBaird most claw machines are riggable, which Is to say that they can be rigged but aren't necessarily so automatically

[@manicpepsicola3431]

​@@CalamityBaird one time i brought home a bunch of small basketballs from the movies so many we got kicked out

[@sporemaster97]

@@CalamityBaird If it's one or two machines in a place like Walmart, I can pretty much always win the 25 or 50 cent ones with a dollar, it's the dollar plus machines that have the lower chances of winning. However, I have been to multiple arcades and such over the past year and have not won a single thing from any of their machines, big or small. They *are* rigged at places where the games are the main form of income. I'll walk around the machines, look at different angles, watch other people play them so I know how the claw moves (some spin on the way down, some don't), everything you can possibly do, and still got nothing. Spent at least 20 or 30 bucks trying, too. But then there's this one at a bowling alley near me that I damn near cleared the entire machine one day, pretty much every play was a win. But that's because the bowling alley and Walmart aren't relying on the claw machines and games to keep their doors open.

[@redrum3r]

in my country using these settings or any setting that creates a dynamic prize window qualifies the machine as a gambling device and is highly illegal.

[@joshuavillwo]

It’s funny that in the US it’s the other way around. Here if you called this game a “gambling device” it would be highly illegal, but advertising it as a kids skill game is completely fine.

[@redrum3r]

@@joshuavillwo Yes. It's both, depending on how the operator sets the options. So long as the inspector sees that the game isn't rigged, it remains a kids skill game. But even the option to make the game easier to win over time (mercy settings) changes it to a gamble.

[@CatFish107]

Where are you at, with sensible laws like that? Sounds like something other places' legislators would be wise to learn from.

[@TheAyanamiRei]

​@@joshuavillwo I think the big issue is that with the Claw Machines, people know by now that they're rigged to various degrees and it's easy to tell. With key master it's a lot harder to tell if it is rigged, and less well known. But I bet the reason they got sued was the High Value of the Prizes that you redeem directly for money. Most other rugged games in Arcades you redeem your tickets for them, similar loophole as Lootboxes. That and it doesn't have a set Monetary Price for each individual ticket, similar to most Fake Currency for Lootboxes

[@ryanchase9332]

@@CatFish107 Japan is one country that does it.

[@Picticon]

Years ago, at Cedar Point, I spent over 12 hours playing a Drill game. I could hit the 250 tickets almost every time. I'd empty one machine, tell the employees, move to a different building, and repeat. I went back the next year and I noticed that I could no longer stop the drill in the correct spots. It would "drift" and always miss. I suspect it was the same thing as shown here, and they had adjusted the settings over the winter.

[@idontwantahandlethough]

Lol that's awesome! You ever watch Bob's Burgers? There's an episode called _The Taking of Funtime 1 2 3_ where the gang of kids takes advantage of the various flaws in arcade machines to try to win the "impossible" top ticket item (a dune buggy, I think?). They do the episode in kind of a "heist" style, it's neat! I think you'd enjoy it :)

[@skiedev]

We had a rhythm game where I would fill the entire scoreboard with 110-140 beats in 30 seconds. Everytime I would get a payout of 50 or 100 tickets. I'd do it for my friends too. Made it so much easier to get a little plushie. When I went back even if you reach the 100 it's only 30 tickets now. That was the one game with skill there to get prizes.

[@ryanchase9332]

Similar for me. The large arcade/bowling/eatery near me had a vertical spinning Spongebob game that my friend could get the 250 ticket jackpot every time. Since it only cost 33 cents per play, we cleaned that machine out to the sum of around 6,000 tickets.

[@ZeldagigafanMatthew]

at a local arcade, I once had a machine bug out and award me the entire stack of tickets it had.

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@ZeldagigafanMatthew How did that go down?

[@planescaped]

I am reminded of the keymaster I saw recently that was giving away a "brand new" Xbox 360 as a reward, and half the rewards in the machine looked to have actual dust on them.

[@Kirbycooo]

my local mall has one with a copy of skyrim for the xbox 360 that has been there since like 2018 is when i first saw it last time i went in 2023 is was sill there crazy to see how some of these prizes are still in that is probly a few years old

[@birdcrossing]

my local one has fucking ds LITES

[@G_man5]

(Insert insensitive joke about a keymaster with a slave inside it as a prize.)

[@fizzle54]

@@G_man5????

[@halo129830]

@@birdcrossingbro I’d start working to get one of those ds lites since mine broke

[@OkieOtaku]

I no joke watched a guy get the key into the hole perfectly, and then it didn't go in far enough to get the prize, stopping JUST inside the hole

[@tydshiin5783]

For me it was like it pushed, but not far enough back to drop it, was very upset about it tbh

[@SaruTanku]

I literally won the game one time as a kid, it went in the hole, and the box of the prize blocked it.

[@lpnp9477]

They're a joke in here somewhere but I'm struggling to find it

[@LatinaGaming88]

Happend to my mom at the mall once, and she kicked it. It was even funnier when we came back a few months later, and someone had pushed it really far to one side, lol

[@jublywubly]

I'm surprised claw machines haven't been banned. Decades ago, it was easy to grab things with the claw. Then new machines came out, they started coming with adjustable gripper strength. I went from winning nine out of ten times, to never winning, because arcade people set the gripper strength too low to even pick up any of the prices. At best, things may get moved closer to the pay-out shoot, but that's it. It either takes multiple tries to get one prize, because the claw keeps letting go of them, or the claw can't even fully pick up any of the prizes in the first place.

[@jackpijjin4088]

There was a claw machine at the CiCi's Pizza where I lived that would always pay out with a handful of candy and maybe a few little stencils or something. It always had grip for even the smallest pieces. Now you can't find a machine that can grab a large object, even if it clearly fits in the claw. There is NO grip force at all.

[@colinklang]

I remember when they would at least pick stuff up and "drop" it. It at least provided an opportunity or at least the illusion of opportunity. Now, these machines have the grip strength of a 98 year old man on his death bed.

[@nostalgicumbry3279]

There's a claw machine at my mall with a 100% win rate for rubber duckies, i let my son play it. It keeps going until you actually win.

[@dekoldrick]

And sometimes, the prizes are impossible to win because they are too soft and heavy so even with a strong claw grip, the prize is too squishy to grip onto properly. I used to game these thing by either waiting until they restock so the prizes sit high enough for me to just shove one into the hole or find something on the prize the claw can get hooked into so no matter the strength setting, it can't slip off the claw until it open again.

[@MoneyManHolmes]

It’s worse than that. Some of them will give a stronger grip after so many plays to allow you to win. The claw game can be rigged just like Key Master.

[@TheFrantic5]

By law, the minimum payout percentage you can set a slot machine in Nevada is 75%. (As in you put in a dollar, on average you will get 75¢ cents out) The crane games at the arcade I used to work at had a payout goal of 18%, high end merchandisers 25%. If arcades are supposed to be casinos in training, those kids are getting scammed on proper training.

[@willcook6967]

This game is probably the reason arcade KZbinrs talk about payout on every video. It's a pretty sucky thing to be famous for. Then again, it seems like the owners of the arcades have the final say in how it plays and pays. Sega just got the full brunt of the blame. If the didn't have such a high default setting, they might not have gotten sued.

[@ShadowEclipse777]

Yeah if the default payout window was low then the blame would squarely lie on the owner of the machine

[@JJGeneral1]

Well, I mean, there’s way too many games out there now that have payouts… so…

[@kmoney2800]

No wonder the top row prizes begin to turn yellow in those videos. The payout is so high that those prizes have been inside there for over a decade. Prize Locker is a lot more fun to watch.

[@bugjams]

I'm a bit lost, because he didn't really explain what the "payout counter" meant in the video. I assume it means "counter that enables the game to be rigged _n_ number of plays until it hits 0, where the game stops being rigged until won."

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@bugjams That's right. If you try to get a prize that isn't "ready", the machine will automatically shift any winning shots a few fractions of a millimeter above the hole, making it impossible to win until enough attempts have been made, at which point the machine begins operating "honestly" until somebody wins. After that, the counter resets.

[@Dwarg91]

Was recently on a cruise with two of these machines, one machine was in the arcade area while the other was on the casino floor which I think tells you all you need to know about this “game”.

[@BiFoxQueen]

I've seen this game for ages, always played it, never won. One day though I was at the movies with my sister, and I gave it a shot. After like 12 tries at one dollar a try, I won a Nintendo switch. Went back to the movies like a month later and the machine was gone lmao. Can def say it's rigged though, I just got lucky with the time I was there.

[@ShadowEclipse777]

Yeah the moment a high tier payout happens those kind of machines either dissappear or the owner confronts you lol

[@sporemaster97]

@@ShadowEclipse777 I wish the owner would XD I've smacked the shit out of some of the rigged games, and nobody even looked at me. I'd love to tell them where to stick the machine.

[@richeetah5221]

12$ for a Switch is a huge steal! Good job!

[@theawesomeali8834]

huge W, I hope you are having a fun time with your Nintendo Switch! And yeah these keymaster machines are rigged and pretty much suck now. I remember playing it a few times but never won

[@dcastgaming6506]

Saw the post at the end mention Barbercut. I've won barbercut twice specifically because I took advantage of flaws in the machine. The first was a DSI. My local arcade attached the prizes to the strings using the plastic tags you see on clothing. Missing the gap and pushing on the string would cause the prize to swing and twist as the spring bounced back. Eventually it twisted and snapped. When the arcade saw this going to get the prize i heard one of them say "This is the same issue we came across when we tested it last week" I was like "so you know about the issue and didn't fix it. That's your problem not mine" and they reluctantly gave me the prize. The next day I found 2 tags on everything which was a bandaid fix if anything. Eventually they scrapped the tags after enough people exploited it. The 2nd time was at the mall. I won an Ipad, not by skill, but due to a string being hit enough times with the blade but the blade not using enough force to cut. Eventually the string got frayed and hadn't been replaced yet (They try to swap out frayed swings to avoid this). I missed once and saw it swing and twist and was like "...that'll give fuck the blade" and played to miss the blade gap and just push on the string. 2 bucks spent and it gave way. Won a mac book. It's a rigged af game but it's a flawed game if you catch it in between maintenance windows.

[@shinyrayquaza9]

Thats on them for trying to screw over the customers

[@MarcusFigueras]

It's sad that the modern versions of barbercut are made much harder to cheese

[@nethandelwampa116]

The best thing I ever won at one of those types of games was a Mini dvd player when they were new. Maybe I’m dating myself but I was stoked! I went to Best Buy and bought a couple of dvds. Thought the rest of my life would be just as amazing…kinda sad when you think about it

[@JeremyLeePotocki]

There were two well known Key Master machines in my area. One was in a mall that had a PS4 as the main prize. The guy that ran it got into some hot water with the mall owners over it. From what I heard someone won a console (there was accusations of cheating from both sides). Though I really think it was over parents complaining cause you would see kids drop some serious cash trying to win it. It was soon gone shortly after the kid one the system. The other one was in a gas station next to a Choctaw Casino (owned by them) they had wads of cash as the prizes (from $100 to $1000), but no one was ever able to win (I even tried it) even if you were dead on it still deny you so rumors spread that they rigged it to never payout. They moved the station away from the casino (two blocks away), but I don't know if they still got them at the new location. I know they'll never put in a Prize Locker that's for sure.

[@felsiccanis]

I work at a Playdium in Ontario, and Key Master getting sued makes sense, I'm not surprised at all. The amount of times I've had to explain to angry parents that merchandiser games are rigged is crazy

[@coten]

my local arcade has a very similar merchandiser game to "Key Master," called "S-Cube" by Andamiro. it's a one-button game, where holding the button makes a stylized "S" move from left to right in front of a series of slots, one representing each prize. the player has to release the button to make the "S" try to fit into the slot belonging to the prize they want. Andamiro sells this game *to operators* as being (ahem) "100% Skill-Based," but reading its manual shows that each prize is effectively "locked" and un-winnable until a certain number of attempts at that prize had been made. (so payout is set per individual prize, not per row like on Key Master.) i imagine the same "deviance after releasing the button" trick is being used in S-Cube when a prize is locked. perhaps the "S" shape was used to make it a little harder to tell which side the player "missed" the slot from?

[@erickernodle7636]

That title gave me an image of an arcade cabinet sitting in a courtroom with a lawyer asking it questions

[@Darkshadows9776]

As someone whose parents owned a business and worked with them for more than a decade in the industry when prize games were getting really popular, I’ve always felt uneasy, and in hindsight, I feel like it was a moral choice at the end of the day to go with these types of machines, knowing how they work.

[@ianbelletti6241]

The only ones I play are the candy scoopers where you're actually guaranteed a win. All the others are rigged against you.

[@nignamedmutt7270]

I went to a bar/grill with my work not long ago, and saw a few claw scoop games(the one's you're talking about) I decided to give one a try, and the first one just didn't respond to my input at all(it just went straight to the back corner, hit it, and returned to it's original position), and the second one one went where I directed it, but didn't scoop at all...... I'm fucking done with ANYTHING arcade related after that.

[@ianbelletti6241]

@@nignamedmutt7270 sounds like those ones needed repaired. The candy ones tend to get used so much more that the controls tend to wear out quickly. I hope you told the establishment and got your money back.

[@kyraeuswulf5091]

Gotta be really careful with anything food based. As a maintenance tech about a year ago, when I left the place I was working for, I should have taken photos and video of the issue I resolved while there and reported it afterwards, but the candy in there was literally left in one of the machines for the better part of a year. There was noticeable issue with gunk stuck to the bottom of the prize area, and plastics, where it had melted, and much of it was long past stale. This is in a children's fun center with 2-5 year olds running around. Had I not made a point of asking and addressing the issue myself, it likely wouldn't have been taken care of. Make sure you know your arcade and be sure they clean out their stock and replace it regularly before playing ANYTHING that involves food.

[@rionthemagnificent2971]

plus they're filled with generally inexpensive candies, like Tootsie brand treats, so it costs the owner basically 5-7 bucks to fill it and the people who play it get maybe 1-5 peices for a quarter so they get a 2-6 dollar profit from each refill.

[@ArcadeChristian]

I see this game everywhere still. Sega is trying to get operators to switch to the Prize Locker (skill based) conversion kit

[@rionthemagnificent2971]

Probably as an attempt of "hey, we offer the conversion kit, yet they refuse to convert it" to prevent SEGA from being sued.

[@theabhominal8131]

i won a pair of old jordans from a shoe store key master only to see when the cashier gave them to me they were fakes.... the store said its not there machine to call the number but it was off.. made enough of a commotion the store just gave me $200 and shut the machine down....

[@chelledoggo]

Honestly not the least bit surprised these things had lawsuits against them lol.

[@marty1076]

At Imperial Valley Mall in El Centro, CA, there was a Key Master machine I first saw back in 2008 that had a top row with a PSP and a Nintendo DS Lite. Those prizes were still there the last time I was in that mall back in 2015.

[@dylanhohn3713]

I'm currently employed for an arcade vendor. I can confirm this is 100% true. I have been present for several prize machines being set up and programmed for the location it was leased to. I have physically seen these setting menus and have played around with them. The only thing you have to trust my word on is that my boss sets a reasonable skill curve for the prizes he offers. He buys the prizes himself and only purchases name brand, sometimes high end stuff, and refuses to buy bulk from China. He spends several thousand a month buying prizes for these machines. Items like designer purses, ninja food equipment, Keurig machines, Nintendo switches, console branded hardware, Bose beats and Sony branded speakers or headphones. And so on

[@dylanhohn3713]

Proof of my claim of employment. KZbin deleted my last comment. shorts/Wo3sgCmBtp8?si=TKdNSlWmfw1Lews5

[@dylanhohn3713]

Further context though. My boss has several folks with disabilities employed. He has an autistic savant who he pays to do the math for him to set the odds to each machine. The odd basically being him basically breaking even or a small profit. His thought process is these machines being the loss leader. The gimmick to get people to spend on other machines and spend more time in whatever arcade.

[@allstarscrubz]

Ya cus I want this comment seen imma post from my channel as well lol

[@ChakatNightspark]

There is a Key Master at This One Store I go to often enough. But, I Know it is being Rigged by the Owner. Since I have Caught him more then once remove Prizes in a way to make it look like people have been winning at it.

[@piercesable344]

Prize locker is certainly skill based. However the key has to go into the EXACT part of the window (A visible notch/curve on the top of the window). I'm surprised all the Key Master games haven't been recalled and retrofitted with prize locker given the lawsuits.

[@Capybarski]

New Channel Name! To be candid, I've never liked the old name. Something like a screen name feels better to me. The type of content I will be making is not really going to change for now. As long as I still have ideas and there's interest, I will continue. But most importantly, I'm still having fun with the creative process of making these, I will hold this above all else.

[@alaeriia01]

If you're curious, Storm Stopper / Cyclone doesn't get sued because the default payout rate is 15 plays. I used to be able to hit the jackpot at an arcade near me every single time it was available for payout. Sadly, the arcade is now an extension of the DMV, which makes it super-hell.

[@Katruto71]

I know this is a month old, but I remember when I first played this at a mall, fun fact if you manage to even align the key right the mechanism has a chance to dead stop an reset because it checks those variables it is a scam an majority of the time it is survivors luck

[@itisi255]

Now i wanna know the old channel name

[@1marcelfilms]

Ive seen those things where the expensive things have been there for years and all the boxes are sunfaded

[@Compgeek86]

How is keymaster different from claw games that can be programmed to only let the claw work a percentage of the time?

[@cyclopsvision6370]

It's not different, the machine just makes you think it's a game of skill, when in reality, it's a computer that makes sure the operator makes a profit from the machine.

[@wolfetteplays8894]

@@cyclopsvision6370loser mindset, I have won on the modern ones plenty of times.

[@peterhans3791]

​@@wolfetteplays8894and I've won money from scratch off lottery tickets plenty of times. Doesn't mean scratch offs are a good investment.

[@backlogbuddies]

Yes the modern ones are a game of skill but those are very rare as everyone sticks with the rigged ones

[@MarcusFigueras]

Claw machines at least PICK UP the prizes before it rigs it. It'd be different if it like slowly dragged the prize a bit each time

[@BurrBones]

Crane games, coin pushers, and crap like this should be illegal.

[@What_This_Be]

Lol I clicked on this thinking "I thought everyone else knew it was rigged when we were younger too" damn I was shocked to find out they had to get sued over it

[@RafaCB0987]

The worst part part of it is that the "Ipad" can be just a box with anything inside, how would you be able to confirm by just looking

[@PinballPredator]

Great explanation of this game. Honestly it’s one of my favorite redemption games because how easy it can be win from if it’s ready to payout. Now I have won from Prize Locker once (actually the first ever play I played on it I won a prize) but yeah I like both versions since they both are good money making ways for the owner.

[@jesperlivid9184]

Won a Polaroid Camera from a Keymaster game since I realized it was ready to payout, very exciting to get it for only 7$ in credits and was when they were still really popular. One of my best arcade moments really. Still trolling Keymasters for a switch, lmao.

[@oboll6064]

You know what would probably gain a lot of traction? Is a museum that intentionally points out the way arcade games are rigged, with minimum rigged games being next to max ones. Might even encourage laws to be made.

[@czexan6134]

Back in middle school, my friends and I got wise to this and started recording the game as we played it, where the key would go through but not pull the prize. We all got Nintendo 3DS's by showing the owner/manager the videos

[@ArcadeZgames]

Prize Locker actually IS 100% skill. Its just very very difficult but you can win every time. The difficulty comes from a tiny little notch in the keyhole but its perfectly fitted for the top of the key

[@ArcadeZgames]

Also I kind of like to at least try Keymaster if I see it due to the bottom key trick to see if it's ready to pay out. I don't really mind dropping 3 bucks to try out all three rows at a chance that it could be ready

[@pufero1]

No, i uses for fix them and is comp price controled when the machines is moved you have to calibred the holes soo the compiter have full control of price rate.

[@ShadowEclipse777]

​@arcadez8948 yeah if you learn it's ready to payout on the top row, a payday might be waiting for you

[@HarmonyOmega]

I haven't watched an arcade channel in a while but I think I'll enjoy this one :) I miss going to those places. Here's an idea, cover the Japanese Sega UFO Catcher since it's pretty different than the usual claw machines you'd find stuck somewhere in that it has two claw prongs instead of 3. I'm not sure if they make different versions of them specifically but there's a TON of variations with games using those machines it seems, probably made by the arcades themselves though, or maybe there's kits for it or even "knockoff" machines.

[@clawcraziness]

Woohoo great video!

[@Straw_Breaker]

When I was a kid, I saw a very similar game that’s probably almost as common as this one where digital blocks slide left and right across a screen and you need to press a button at the right time to stop them from moving so they stack to the top; if you stack them about 3 blocks from the max height, you get a prize, whereas stacking them all successfully earns you an even bigger prize, both tiers containing multiple from you to choose from. As young as I was, I didn’t realize that the game was rigged, but several years later, I found another one and tried it anyway on a whim…upon which I won myself a 2DS on the first try. EDIT: I now see he has made a video on said game.

[@hellion.vision]

I'm here to get excited about the Yes reference. Thank you for the brain scratch

[@hypercactus6489]

I can’t help but think of the video out there somewhere where someone one a big prize, but the prize was stuck under the hatch because it was too big, so they called the owner to maintain/ help them redeem the prize and he accused them of cheating on the game

[@kur0kiba]

back when ddr was really popular i would go to a local arcade at least once a week to just play. after i was done playing ddr i would throw a dollar into a prize machine they had. i forget what one it was. one time i was putting in my quarters and it made the sound after 75 cents. i ended up winning a nintendo ds lite on that play. i never played that game again because i knew i would never win anything else from it.

[@Amokeus]

As an arcade attendant, I'm legitimately confused that people feel "scammed" when they don't win on a claw machine or rigged machine. I can't imagine anyone still believes the games where you can win physical prices are skill-based, right? Or am I just severely overestimating people's logical train of thought?

[@Notester82]

Oh geeeeez, I get the Payout Rate stuffs as with most other redemption/prize arcade games, but Compulsory Upper Deviation?? Like I *guess* it makes sense but it's still wild to hear that it's a thing on Key Master! :o

[@FeedMeSalt]

Do you guys remember when arcades were actually just filled with games. Most didn't even take coins? I do.

[@apollofell3925]

You must be older than my mother, then.

[@headphonesaxolotl]

I used to love that duck machine that basically guaranteed a prize (or at least 4 tries) and it wasn't super difficult to get several ducks with one grab. I love those that aren't scams.

[@fen4ri]

there was a game at an arcade in a hotel near where i live, a game like a crane machine only you tried to scoop up the toys with a excavator-like shovel arm? while a wide plate/disk covered in plastic dinosaur figures spun around at a somewhat fast speed so it was more about timing the claw to get the dino you wanted. and i was shocked as a kid that it was not a rigged game, the arm had enough strength to pick up dinosaurs each time. so basically i won dinosaurs for my little brother and everybody i knew. :-) it did get me wondering why arcades didn't just put lower value prizes into the crane-game type machines in the first place, that way they wouldn't need to rig them to begin with. It's not like i needed a bunch of little dinosaurs but the fact that they were prizes from a machine made them so much cooler in my eyes

[@deadgowr8958]

Our bowling alley owner would get so upset when we won the iPad, because the boxes were empty and they didn't actually have an iPad to give away, we managed to squeeze the key through the payout logic they had cranked as high as possible, and then they basically just told us "that wasn't supposed to happen" "sorry you cant have that" Then they offered us free food, we happily munched on about 2 boxes of nachos and then never came back... :) Seriously though, this is disgusting, just a gambling game designed for children, this kinda stuff is probably responsible for alot of the adult gambling addicts in the world today...

[@grimfield5734]

I've played this game exactly once. Won but did not get the prize because when it hit the latch to release the prize, the released latch then hooked the prize, keeping it suspended but in a new location. Told the people managing the arcade and instead of opening the game to investigate just told me to play again and they would watch from the counter. If I got it again and it didn't fall they would then get the prize for me.

[@yoymate6316]

if anyone’s wondering, the song that faintly plays on the background of the outro is eriko imura - balue & lephise from the klonoa: door to phantomile ost

[@Lolmeep]

My guess in why Key Master got more attention than others is the value of the prizes. That game where lights are going around a circle and you need to hit the button just right is usually just for tickets and crane games have what...stuffed animals? People get more mad at losing the chance electronics vs tickets/stuffys.

[@tinywiener7401]

Hi I used to work as a Technician in a popular family entertainment style arcade and we actually had a prize locker! However ours being a conversion kit ( which was preferred due to this setting) still had a payout rate setting. Ours was set to 1400 top row and that was the corporate mandated setting. I don't trust any prize games after working there.

[@TheNathanTR]

Whats crazy is with a $1 credit a person can set the game to take $9,998 at minimum before any payout happens. Or to put it another way, If the top prize is $500, this thing can be set to a 5% PAYOUT for every 10k spent. Even the worst penny slot machines sit above 85%.

[@JoebDragon]

Keymaster can be found in cruise ship casinos loaded with cash

[@ShadowEclipse777]

That is fine and where Key Master belongs. A casino

[@RootVegetabIe]

Cruises are full of rubes.

[@Kraxt0n]

As a previous Technical manager for CEC yes, chuck-e-cheese (loved the job had to move made BANK) this is 100% in the settings of nearly ALL the games you play at an arcade that give rewards etc.

[@societl]

the fact there is a payout rate at all should be enough to tell you how dirty that is. The whole point was to have the skill to hit the exact right position.

[@elangsuryanegara4230]

nowdays whenever i go to the arcades, i only play racing games specifically WMMT, back then when i was a kid and the whole family is going to the arcade, my parents disallow me to play racing, shooter, and dancing very much, because "it doesn't produce tickets" which is stupid for me, isn't our goal to the arcades is to have fun? why bother with tickets and prizes so much like life depends on it

[@kyraeuswulf5091]

@capybarski As someone who was a maintenance tech AT a local family fun center that had one of these, roughly a little over a year ago before I left their employ later the owner had ordered and had the contractors for the machine install the upgrade kit. For all intents and purposes it seems to be more or less the same hardware save the differences you noted in the control scheme and such. I suspect they changed JUST enough to cover the 'legal' definition of 'skill based game' while maintaining as close as possible to the original intent of the game's ability to take advantage of customers, but that's common to a fair amount of these 'skill games'. No owner wants to buy in on a machine that actually pays out more than what they make off of it. I didn't really get much of a chance to dig into the settings on it prior to leaving the place for better employment, but even afterward it struck me as a machine that rarely paid out and took in plenty of cash in return.

[@cherenkov_blue]

I once witnessed someone get kicked out after winning at a keymaster years ago, and it's the only time I've ever seen such a thing. This was at a laser tag place with games in the lobby, and the person in question was the older brother of a birthday party guest. He had figured out how much the position of the key deviated after playing a few times, and ended up winning a pair of headphones. When he went to play it again, the owner yelled at him and demanded he leave. When he refused, he was grabbed by two employees and literally thrown out. That left a poor taste in several parents' mouths, and I never went to a party there again.

[@moodl3d856]

there was one of these at the mall and my brother won twice, it went into the keyhole, but only turned after it went all the way out 💀

[@AlfieEdwards]

seen this around a lot in malls and service stations. I assume it's not popular due to being fun, but the high value prizes appeal to people's greed a lot more than a bootleg plushie, so probably suckers people in more often

[@shoberinu]

I once got my hands on what I assumed was an employee card, which had infinite points. It was a small arcade section of a go kart place so there weren’t many other options. Me, my family, and my friends all tried this game over and over and could not win so if that doesn’t say anything I don’t know what does.

[@autobotjazz1972]

I miss the arcades of my youth with rows of actual video games. Mind i know times change and arcades have to run the machines that bring the best returns but i still miss what kid me experienced. I have never been good at this sort of machines ( prize and to some degree redemption) and never really bothered with them.

[@jonathon.norrie]

Love the new name! It gives your channel more personality imo. Looking forward to more content!

[@Kyermike]

one time i used that trick to win, and i got kicked out. they tried to take my prize but i just ran to my mom's car with an iphone

[@jardex2275]

Have you done Stacker yet? Similar to Keymaster, there are physical prizes in multiple tiers, with the high tiers usually being good prizes. There are multiple sizes and versions, but they all have the same basic gameplay. A row of 3 lights will move across the screen, and you want to line it up with the row below it. At some point you'll only have 2 lights, then only a single one to line up with precision timing. I spent $30 at a hotel playing it, and got a $50 Best Buy gift card. Pretty sure it's rigged though. The timing for the last couple hits have to be precise, and it'd be pretty easy for the game to make some slight adjustments to make you lose. What's worse is that players have to give up their minor prize for a chance at the big one, so anyone with high ambitions will likely walk away with nothing.

[@Amokeus]

I'm an arcade attendant, and can confirm Stacker is a rigged game. We can put in payout rates that will deliberately overshoot or delay the button press on the final two top lines to ensure it can't be won until it's ready to.

[@DankRedditMemes]

Prize/redemption games? Being rigged? SHOCKER! Anywho, I've never seen one of these, but what I do see all the time is that stacker one

[@princessmarlena1359]

I remember Stacker.

[@GoodlyPenguin]

I won an IPOD Gen 2 from the Stacker on like my 10th try back then. My dad offered me $50 for it back then...I kinda regret selling it to him now lol

[@JHelfrich]

Also saw one at a casino in Vegas, seemed fitting.

[@lovebug621]

I remember back in 2015, I visited the Fun Spot in Kissimmee, FL and won a PS4 in 2 tries from the Key Master game. My picture should still be in the machine, if they haven't gotten rid of it yet. The coincidence of it all was it was also close to my birthday and my parents were wondering if they should get me a PS4 or an Xbox One. Looks like The Key Master chose for me

[@TanukiYT]

How about a video on the various Stacker games? Super fun memories winning low level prizes and always not winning high level prizes.

[@nutbardelete]

i had seen a guy playing key master at an arcade, didnt win anything, i dont know if he was hitting low or what, went up knowing that if it hits just above, its not ready to payout. played once. got the dratini plush for the gf on the second row. there was a lot missing from the bottom row but second was completely full

[@GoonCommander]

The fact that Gambling is illegal in some states and federally illegal for children, yet mechanics like lootboxes and rigged arcades are seemingly perfectly fine for children of any age is appalling. I'm not really angry, it doesn't affect me at all, but it's similar to cigarettes being legal despite how horrible for your lungs they are, sure it's consumers choice to use them but like putting the burden on the consumer and not the provider when a product is promoted exclusively for a use that is dangerous to you and others well being is dissapointing.

[@ArtzyZero]

I saw a variation of this where you had to pop a balloon to receive a prize instead, there was still the hole that you had to put the needle through to reach the balloon. Even though I knew it was likely rigged I gave it a shot for fun. The balloons were just out of reach of the needle even though I got it through the hole (it took a few attempts to get the positioning right). It could've just been human error since it was a small seaside arcade but I figure it's far more likely that the needle would reach out further when ready to actually give out a prize. These days I just save up change and play 2p machines. It's a lot easier to compare what I've spent to what I'm trying to win and walk away when it's not worth it but I still enjoy the rush when a pile of 2p's fall off the shelf.

[@feliciaamore1105]

Ah. The game that caused me to realize i might have a predisposition to gambling addiction. Accidently zoned out in a mall once and spent 367$ on one of these. Would've done more but that's when my bank started flagging the purchases as suspicious. And locked the card. Good times.

[@alternateperson1840]

Yeah, you should definitely avoid casinos. I wouldn't trust myself in one, either. My one solace is that I've always hated gambling in video games, so I hope I'd be just as bored in real life.

[@ZontarDow]

A bowling alley in my town has one of these, must have set the odds pretty high since people win all the time but that's pretty easy to justify when the prizes are candies and chocolate bars and the top prize is a 7$ banana marshmallow pack so even with credits set to a quarter kids play it all the time since spending a dollar to win a two dollar chocolate bar feels like winning even if the wholesale price was probably fifty cents.

[@alexcharles8541]

I won a PS Vita out of a KeyMaster machine for $3 one time. It was amazing. It was when the Vita was a brand new thing too.

[@TheAyanamiRei]

LAWSUIT: I bet the reason this got sued is because these prizes have direct monetary value, so you can argue it's actual Gambling. Secondly, the worth of many prizes is easily $100+. With the other games, you get fake money to exchange for prizes and it doesn't have a direct money value.

[@hidden3880]

one of my biggest flexes in life is winning a red ipod shuffle from one of these in a guest hotels arcade, i still have it in a bathroom drawer, but i never thought in my life i would win one of these prize games

[@naverick22]

I used to play these quite a bit in high school and college, and I knew they were rigged at the time too. But I think during the few times I've won I just happen to be at there at the right time. I still have the stubs to the gift cards I've won, and the thing I noticed was that they marked the date of when they put the prized in, which apparently it took 6 months before someone like me came around at a bowling alley arcade to win them.

[@helpkirbyhasagun_2047]

I’ve never seen Cyclone as a rigged game, I LOVED cyclone as a kid, even practiced the timing and I consistently either got jackpot or the light directly next to it. One time when I was 14-15 I won jackpot on it 6 times in one day racking up so many tickets that I had a crowd of kids watching me Almost 10k or so tickets if I remember correctly

[@vicm5344]

congrats on 100k, damn! nice work dude

[@ThePkmnYPerson]

5:05 Of all kinds of places to include a gift card to in the machine, why a hardware store? Why not somewhere more fun?

[@cpljimmyneutron]

I did see someone win an ipad once, I asked how much they spent and they told me $50. To be fair, that is a great price for an ipad.

[@murder.simulator]

I saw Key Master at a large truck stop outside the Denny's side entrance. I remember seeing a notice that you must contact the owner to claim the prizes, so I assume the boxes were empty.

[@dartimes6048]

The GCB (Gaming Control Board) needs to regulate Prize games. I think the GCB needs to inspect the machine and require a meter that shows the payout rate for a specific prize pool. It doesn’t show the progress of the rate but the rate itself. So if the payout rate is 700 the meter needs to say 700 payout rate. Each prize pool needs a rate and the GCB inspects each machine and puts a sticker to indicate that it was inspected. If the operator wishes to change the payout rate they need to notify the GCB and the machine would need to be reinspected. There should also be a sticker that informs about payout rates and how they work, as well as an average payout rate of that type of machine. So if a key master has a payout rate of 100 for the bottom row 300 for the middle row and 900 for the top row. The machine should have a sticker that says the average payout rate globally for each row.

[@kyraeuswulf5091]

Or they could simply have not included settings for that and either preset them at the factory, or more likely taken the setting out in the first place along with the mechanism that forces that.... which is basically what they did. To some degree, the legal definitions of gambling already do what you're suggesting. Certain states have this codified into law, and pure luck based games CANNOT be advertised as skill games by legal right. You can get sued that way, or lose your operating/business license. For places that have these that are aimed at the younger generation, that can be a huge blow. That's why this particular machine caught such a shitstorm. Generally speaking, there's no need for this setting, they simply need to not market and advertise something as a skill based game that.. well.. ISN'T. It was blatant misrepresentation and Sega's lucky they didn't have a class action filed against them over this both from owners AND customers. No sense paying 'inspectors' for something that shouldn't even be that way in the first place. Artificial difficulty raising like this (and I speak AS a prior arcade tech), is unnecessary and stupid, and scammy as hell. Why play in an arcade that takes gross advantage of you?

[@dartimes6048]

@@kyraeuswulf5091 I’m not talking about keymaster. I’m talking about Prize games as a whole. If they were all regulated and inspected they would be more fair to consumers and the operator would also make more profit. The machines are stigmatized for being super rigged, an official government sticker that says “This machine was inspected and was found to have a fair payout rate.” Without that stigma people would play it more often.

[@rionthemagnificent2971]

I won 3 prizes in a claw machine at Busch gardens, gave one of the prizes to a kid who played before me and didn't win. (it was a 4 yr old so i felt bad), after the third time a tech came and closed the machine. I just knew how to exploit the sonic plushies' design to win.

[@jinjo2200]

I just came across your channel and I have binged watched your videos, I really love your videos talking about these games. I would love to see what you think about how modern coin pusher games compare to other redemption games you have covered. I've personally seen coin pushers where the goal is to earn tickets by either pushing coins off the edge or collecting cards, and wonder how they compare to other means of farming tickets.

[@montywh]

looking at it reminds me of another game with a similar setup. had a number of prizes to win hanging on racks in the same manner, only the goal was to get a pair of scissors to cut the plastic loop holding the prize up

[@wispisang]

I actually won a polaroid camera and a set of headphones for my friends from one of these. It was my 13th birthday, my friend saw the camera and mentioned how she always wanted one, so I gave it a shot and actually snagged it. Then we decided to see if I could manage anything else and I got a pair of headphones which I gave to another one of my friends there. So it is possible. But obviously doesn’t mean it isn’t heavily rigged on most occasions.

[@linus1703]

I remember at university one day spending quite a bit on one of these games, it was too addictive and ironically the place was called Therapy and so I swore never to go back there again. Prize games IMO are worse then redemption games as the prize is right there.

[@darktacan9690]

I have experiment at looking at some of these between losing and winning one of these games, I have noticed that when you press the button, it doesn't go in a perfectly horizontal path, it slightly goes upward by 1 degree, but not so much so the player doesn't even noticed it unless they took a really deep look into it, and when it's time to give out the prize, then it goes to 0 degrees until the prize it taken out.

[@HatersGarage]

My local bowling alley has had an MP3 player in their key master since 2011. I remember wanting it as a kid but it's been in there so long it's basically garbage now

[@AngryD]

You kid of sound like the guy who drives the yellow Hummer on Breaking bad. LOL. Great video!!

[@Object336Tetris909]

Whack-a-Clown is a fun whack-a-mole game, you can hit as many clowns has you can within the time limit, and try not to hit the red clowns, because it'll waste time. It's possible to milk this jackpot over and over. And BTW, it has a overscore penalty.

[@vetrakr]

There's one of these in my local mall. It has an original release 1.0 nintendo switch in the top row. The box's color is totally washed out, probably about 50% of the pigment from the box's print art is gone.

[@fbussier80]

I've seen one in Quebec City's Place Laurier. They use it at a shoe store to bait people into winning expensive Nike's.

[@Spiral6SM]

I have actually won this game and thought it was just skill (not luck). I had someone watch through the side of the glass to help aim the key as I aimed for the top row, and did get it. But now I know it's really just dependent on plays. The owner stated that no one had won the prize (a PS4) for ages.

[@karol4775]

there is another machine very much like this one that just has a rod push through a prize hole to push the prize out the back to win, works on the exact same concept. for the up/down womtion it uses a stepper motor and knows exactly which are the winning steps and if it hasn't taken enough enough money it will just add a few.