Talk:Claw machine

History
The history must be wrong, these machines were in use a long time before 1987. I can't be precise about the dates, but I remember them from my childhood, and I was born in 1956. They used to contain mostly trinkets, but usually one expensive thing, like a packet of cigarettes, (can you believe!), or a wristwath which looked expensive to my childish eyes. Of course, the grap never quite would fit around the cigs or the watch, but it didn't stop us trying! Assume I was 11, 12, maybe 13 yrs old, that must be some time in late 60s. I saw them in amusement arcades at Butlins or Pontins holiday camps, which were very popular in England at the time. Also in Blackpool... I think maybe some more research is required, because my memory is fallible of course....... Orelstrigo 03:21, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Right you are, sir; this article is full of factual errors and omissions... I'll see what I can do for it...
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.218.239.57 (talk • contribs) 17:54, June 7, 2005


 * They were popular in the US as well. I played these machines in the early 70's. They were a lot easier to win, although the prizes were cheaper. They were still interesting things to a kid. I always tried for moderate things, things like the watch were nearly impossible. I played them at the midway of carnivals and fairs. They were set up in a trailer, with small fishtank sized games on the sides. I've never seen anyone win one of the modern games, although I'm sure it happens from time to time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RLent (talk • contribs) 18:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, you will note that classic Warner bros. cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny referenced this type of game. I recall one in particular with some golden-age film star trying to win an Oscar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.131.201.226 (talk) 20:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Skill?
Also, these machines aren't skill. http://www.cromptons.com/pages/pagetext.php?pg_name=XFactor says "Audited % Payout" which implies that it's not skill based. Possibly by varying the strength of the claw. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.19.57.138 (talk • contribs) 20:25, September 15, 2005


 * When they say "Audited % Payout" they mean the actual statistic of wins and losses, not a target percentage. Like any other audit, it's something checked after the fact. With every prize a different size, shape, and wholesale price, the operator doesn't know the final win percentage until after a certain number of actual attempts by real customers.
 * You are still correct in part... some games have a fixed claw strength which is expected to drop a certain number of prizes, particularly those not picked up correctly. Sadly, in the USA I'm seeing more and more of a different type (mostly imported from Asia) in which the operator sets the number of wins (1 in 20, e.g.) and the claw stays strong only after 20 failures. With US manufacturers importing and selling these alongside their own product, it's hard to know what you can trust.
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.129.221.102 (talk • contribs) 20:08, March 27, 2006

Stub?
This Article is a Stub? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.142.234.138 (talk • contribs) 00:29, July 7, 2005


 * Not anymore. :) &mdash;Lowellian (reply) 22:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

picture
it needs a picture of one —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.200.116.131 (talk • contribs) 13:00, October 12, 2005


 * Now it has one. :) &mdash;Lowellian (reply) 22:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

East Asia
Live animals in UFO Catchers in East Asia? Never seen that in Taiwan, China, or Japan. If there is such a thing, I don't think it's such a widespread phenomenon that it requires special mention in an encyclopedia entry! Citation?


 * That's exactly what I was going to say, and why I came here. I've never seen any in any part of Asia!  However, a simple google search turned up some interesting results, including this article: http://www.seriouseats.com/tags/claw%20machine which talks about the machines in the United States!  Note that while the newscast is about a machine in Maine, the picture is actually from Japan.  Since this proves the machines exist in both Asia and North America, I don't know whether to move this information to a different section or not though. -Jaardon (talk) 14:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Ew
horrible writing and unencyclopaedic too. *bookmark* Blueaster 20:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Kids getting stuck in the machine
Maybe someone could do a section about all these kids that have been getting themselves stuck inside the machines...GodSka 19:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that’s a rumor 2A00:23C6:BE86:B401:E998:A72A:186E:DACE (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Skill
The game is entirely skill. I am an employee of America's largest supplier of these games, as mentioned in the article, and I can tell you, there is no box that says Grab Power on it, and doles out a prize only one in ten or some such nonsense. Perhaps this is the case overseas, but if you see a machine with my company's logo on it, you can rest assured that is not the case. There is a way to make the claw more or less powerful, but as is mentioned in the article, we have settled on a fair ratio that we can adjust afterwards if necessary. We do not adjust the machine to make people lose, we simply adjust it to make the game more challenging.

Nyabinghi43 00:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)Nyabinghi43

Success rate
In the section title "success rate" it says "In general, while getting the claw to pick up a prize is relatively hard, having the claw hold the prize long enough to bring it to the opening is easier." I disagree with this, many a time have I got the claw to pick up a toy only to have it drop it again. --Candy-Panda 12:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Controversy link?
"The video can be found on Youtube." - Someone please supply a link for this one. Supermagle 10:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I just removed the current version of the controversy text:


 * The occasional presence of live animals among the prizes (shellfish in China, and domestic tortoises in Japan) has caused protests from animal protection organizations.


 * The only link I could find about this was here which seems to just be a PETA person responding to a reporter's question and not any organized opposition. This has been uncited in this article for more than a year now. Folks should add this back with a citation, but not without. — m a k o ๛  19:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Bias
This article contains a lot of bias, particularly in the 'success rate' and 'controversy' sections. I'm flagging it as such. Orkie2 12:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That's putting it lightly, especially since the claw haters offer absolutely no proof of their claims. The American vending machine industry is very powerful and I doubt that Wikipedia's shoestring budget will be able to stand up to the lawsuits that will be thrown at them if this article continues to be hosted in its present form. 58.107.102.215 13:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I've rewritten the "Success rate" section extensively in hopes that it is now more neutral, with both viewpoints represented. After the rewrite, I didn't see too much of a problem with weasel words in the remainder of the article, so I've removed that template.  I did add an unreferenced template, since there are no actual sources given, and this might be helpful if any such sources exist on this subject; my internet connection is unfortunately too poor to look into this at the moment.  *Vendetta* (whois talk edits) 05:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

British theme to them?
Just wondering if there is a tune pinned to these, I've heard it many times and just a random thought wondering if it had a name to it, especially in Britain at the seaside, where I would predict the theme is well known and wondered if it should be included in the article.

As an employee of Coinstar Entertainment Services (the largest provider, servicer, and manufacturer of these games), I can say definitively that they do not have a yellow box here in America that defines the number of wins and losses. We do audit the payout, and that is supposed to be in a certain range, but we almost never get it in that range. I have found on my machines that more often than not people are good enough at these games to buck the ratio we shoot for. My machines are not fixed, as people seem to think, but they do have a certain tensile strength they have to adhere to, and it is adjustable, but the idea is to get rid of the toys, not let them sit there. I don't know about anyone else, but when I go to my stops, I want as many toys gone as possible, and adjust my machines thusly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.79.212.4 (talk) 09:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Guaranteed payout version?
When I went to Taiwan, there were at least two different locations with several arcades in which the machines had a sticker on them with a price. If you spent at least that much on one machine without getting anything, someone would open it and give you the prize. (They would also move everything back to where they were before you started messing everything up.) --68.161.148.207 (talk) 09:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Information on payout odds
After doing quite a bit of research, including reading maintenance manuals, I've been able to determine the following:


 * 1) All post-1980s crane games allow the operator to adjust at least the claw grip strength via a screw on the mechanism or via a potentiometer on the PCB (if applicable). Most of these machines also allow the grip width (i.e., how far apart the claw fingers will be when the claw is "closed") to be adjusted.
 * 2) Some crane games also allow the operator to enable special features, notably a "2-stage claw power" mode -- when this is enabled, the claw is energized at full strength when dropped, but after a brief delay, weakens its grip to the "normal" level (again, set by the operator as described above). This is why the claws in some machines sometimes look like they're about to deliver, but then drop the prize.
 * 3) Modern computerized claw machines are fully programmable, and allow the operator to set a payout percentage. One manual I looked at described features including a net payout percentage and a daily payout percentage, all in terms of the value of the prizes. Thus, the operator sets the average value of a prize in the machine, and the onboard computer uses this to determine how often to pay out. And what does payout mean? It means adjusting the claw grip and timings upward or downward as needed.
 * 4) On these same computerized machines, a "fail limit percentage" can be set. This makes the machine appear to be out of order and stop accepting coins if people are winning too much. Interesting, no?
 * 5) The claw machines are not designed to "rip people off" -- a claw machine no one plays is very costly to the operator. Operators will obviously try to set a percentage (either by trial-and-error in the case of older machines with screws and potentiometers, or by computer in the new machines) that keeps people coming back to play while also giving them a nice profit.

Now, I also did some research on the legal aspects of claw machines. Looking at the laws of various states, an amusement such as a crane game is usually exempt from the laws governing gambling so long as at least some skill is involved in winning. However, I've also seen legal opinions (in old cases I wasn't able to read the full versions of without paying) that decided crane games were inherently chance games because the player is not able to know or control the claw grip strength or the depth to which the claw will descend. Other (lawyers, judges) have decided that the game predominately depends on the skill of the player.

I'm not sure how computerized crane games such as the one I described above (Cromptons X-FACTOR) figure into this. If the machine has programmable "payout percentages", then it may as well be a slot machine. If the crane always gripped strongly, then people would win almost 100% of the time, because placement of the claw doesn't have to be very accurate in that case. Thus, I think the argument that the crane game inherently involves skill because the player has to move the claw to a "good" position in the first place is based on a technicality (positioning the crane is too simple). It might be worth looking into the gambling laws of other countries to see how crane games are considered, but I suspect that in any jurisdiction where you see crane games around, there are loopholes in the statues to allow for the "auto-payout" techniques described above. Furthermore, how is a computerized payout percentage really different from a trial-and-error percentage established by simple adjustment of the claw strength and aperture?

Some of the above (minus my "original research" about the legality of computerized claw games) ought to be incorporated into the article, and I'll do so if I can figure out how to cite my sources. I have PDFs of some manuals, but don't have anywhere to put them for public access. You can find them (and others) by doing careful Google searches. Also, the article should be adjusted to note that the Brainiac episode which claims that crane games have a control box inside that lets the operator specify that the machine will pay out every Nth time (with no randomization) is nonsense. Nowhere have I found any reference to such a "one-in-N" setting. Every machine I've found any useful information on has had screws controlling the grip and aperture, DIP switches controlling certain other features, or full computerization.

67.163.72.120 (talk) 18:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I worked some of this info into the article, and added two refs. However, I'm not sure how to cite the manual for the X-Factor machine in wiki format. Please fix. I'm also removing the tags at the top of the article, since there are now refs and the new factual information should fix the POV problem. 99.140.193.230 (talk) 23:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

More information to be added
In the course of my crane "research", I found a few other things that I can't add until proper sources can be tracked down:


 * 1) Crane games originated much earlier than the mid-80s, but were a bit different. There was a machine called "The Digger" which could dig down and get a prize out of the bin, which was filled with sand or something. Then, 60s-70s crane-like machines were available that were aimed via a "swing" mechanism which was almost impossible to really control, so the machines amounted to thinly-veiled gambling devices. Legislation against gambling machines caused these to disappear (or maybe they were just too unprofitable?).
 * 2) Some of the toys inside crane machines are exclusive to crane machines. I found one story where a player had collected 35 out of a set of 50 toys, and tried to trade the restock-guy some of his duplicate toys for others he didn't have yet. The restocker refused, saying that the company had a strict policy that the only way to acquire those toys should be to win them from the machines.
 * 3) Companies which operate crane machines want to "move" the merchandise. What's hot and trendy today (like Spongebob dolls or Pokemon) may not be trondy tomorrow, so they want their percentage to be such that people play and win, but at a rate that gives them a nice profit, and as the toys are won, the machine can be restocked with the newest hot items.
 * 4) Companies consider the plushies inside the cranes to be "perishable merchandise" in that they become dusty, moldy, worn, and otherwise unsaleable after sitting for long enough in a crane machine or warehouse (typically a year or so). Thus, they have some incentive to move the merchandise by setting the machine to reasonably high win rate
 * 5) Machines in heavily-trafficked areas that do not rely on repeat visitors (Disneyland, amusement parks) are likely to be set low, because the customer is unlikely to come back just to play the crane game and win more prizes. Even at a payout rate near 0%, the heavy foot traffic will generate some hits with minimal loss of material for the operator. However, machines in areas such as arcades or grocery stores, which do depend on repeat customers, will likely have their rates set higher so that people will play and the plushies will move.
 * 6) "Out-of-order" signs or tape on a crane machine often means "pending claw adjustment because this machine is currently too easy or hard".
 * 7) Machines containing high-value items such as a Wii or iPhone are always rigged to odds of about 1 in 500 or so. My "sources" for this are various blog posts about such machines, but it's mostly common sense. I've never played one of these machines, but I'm curious as to whether and how the crane settings maintain the illusion of "skill" being involved (beyond positioning the crane vaguely over the large target). 99.140.193.230 (talk) 00:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

To do:

What is the average cost per play, and what is the probability of winning? And if you win, what is the average cost-to-manufacture of what you win? Or does this article say: on average it's utterly random; results per specific machine are unpredictable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.238.208.194 (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

To-do list for this article

 * 1) Refutation/affirmation of UK TV show "Brainiac" episode which claimed that there is a rectangular control box inside crane machines that has two big dials on it: one for controlling the grip strength, and one for controlling how many tries must be made before the crane will actually grip. The show stated that the claw machines grip every Nth try, with N being set by the operator. This might apply to certain models of crane games, but I've seen nothing to suggest any such control box exists, nor that any crane machine is set to deliver every Nth time with no randomization. The TV episode is available on YouTube (actually, it's all over the internet, with many smug bloggers posting the link and saying "see, I told you so!" or "wow, what a ripoff").
 * 2) Specific information on the most popular crane models. In particular, Namco's "Big Choice" machines and American Coin Merchandising's "Toy Taxi" machines are very popular in the USA and it would be good to point out what features they tend to have and how skill-based they are
 * 3) History section needs to be corrected and cited. As noted above (by myself and by a much earlier post near the top of the page by someone else), skill-crane-like machines have been around since at least the 1950s.
 * 4) Legality section needs to be written. It should discuss whether and why skill cranes are or are not considered to be gambling devices in various jurisdictions. The ability to set a "payout percentage" on modern crane machines naturally raises the question "isn't that just like gambling?", and it would be good to be able to answer that. This arises in particular with the machines containing Wiis or iPhones.
 * Begun, but could use expansion. 99.147.222.122 (talk) 06:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

128.146.172.201 (talk) 15:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the above list, should the Machine Brands section be integrated with the History section? As in, "nowadays, most machines are manufactured by..." 24.31.180.180 (talk) 22:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Repeated adds of "Controversy" section
Several times, someone has attempted to add a "Controversy" section to this article, specifically referring to an epsiode of a TV show called "Brainiac" alleging that the games are rigged by means of a two-setting control box. Don't keep adding this information. First of all, the rigging of the games is covered already in the "Chances of Winning" section, which refers to much more reliable sources. Second, Brainiac's information is wrong. The above section cites actual manuals from crane machines, and the "Legality" section sites case law.

If you want to refer to the Brainiac episode, you need to describe the episode and point out that its information is incorrect.

64.241.37.140 (talk) 13:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Article name
Don't like the name. "Vending machine" implies a payout every play.Asher196 (talk) 20:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Googling different names, this is what I found: Skill crane-222,000   Claw crane-6.9 million    Claw machine-373,000   Claw vending machine-139,000.   As you can see, "Claw crane" is by far the more popular Google result, and "Claw vending machine" the least.  I'm going to change the name of this article to "Claw crane" soon unless someone has an objection. Asher196 (talk) 23:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The results mean nothing unless you get Google to treat it as a joined phrase through the use of quotation marks; otherwise, it finds all pages that contains the words in the term, even if they're not together. When we do so, we get:


 * "skill crane" - 87,300
 * "claw crane" - 96,000
 * "claw machine" - 70,600
 * "claw vending machine" - 318,000


 * Claw vending machine is by far the most common name, and thus I have reverted this move.


 * —Lowellian (reply) 03:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I worked in this field for 20 years. I NEVER heard them called "vending machines". Asher196 (talk) 14:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Anecdotal evidence is not good evidence. —Lowellian (reply) 11:06, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't intend to start a war here. The problem with calling them "vending machines" is that they are NOT vending machines.  They are SUPPOSED to be a skill game where you will not always win, unless it is a "winner every game" type crane.  Many states regulate cranes in a way that actual vending machines are not, so there needs to be a distinction.Asher196 (talk) 14:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Obviously there is no one correct name. I was just reading in a trade magazine about a universal retrofit for crane games that replaces the claw with a suction cup.  You wouldn't really be able to call that a "claw crane" or a "claw vending machine".  What to do....Perhaps we should change the article name to simply "crane game"?  Asher196 (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * There are indeed many different names used. But Wikipedia policy is to use the most common name, which, as established above, is "claw vending machine". —Lowellian (reply) 10:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

"Stuffing" Plush Toys
I think there needs to be mention about how the toys are placed into the machine. When an operator reloads toys into a machine, he usually stuffs the plush toys in such a way to make them hard to get out, due to the friction with each other. I can attest to this through personal experience as a kid; those darn things wouldn't move after it was reloaded. Whenever I played, I always went for the "loose" toys; the ones that were'nt pinned down by other ones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.137.63.22 (talk) 12:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "Usually"? I don't know any operators who do this.  "Most" operators shoot for a specific payout percentage, to achieve maximum revenue and repeat business. Asher196 (talk) 22:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 24 July 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) SilverLocust 💬 04:55, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Claw crane → Claw machine – Much more common name for the machine in question, evidenced by the amount of sources that use it. ben ǝʇᴉɯ 04:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. "Claw machine" has a substantial lead in Ngrams, and a check of Google search results for "claw machine" does not suggest that there are any other topics that would be meaningfully inflating its numbers. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 19:25, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Rreagan007 (talk) 07:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)