Claw machine was nominated as a Sports and recreation good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (March 14, 2024, reviewed version). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. |
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On 24 July 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Claw machine. The result of the discussion was Moved. |
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)
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)
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
This Article is a Stub? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.142.234.138 ( talk • contribs) 00:29, July 7, 2005
it needs a picture of one —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.200.116.131 ( talk • contribs) 13:00, October 12, 2005
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?
horrible writing and unencyclopaedic too. *bookmark* Blueaster 20:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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)
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
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)
"The video can be found on Youtube." - Someone please supply a link for this one. Supermagle 10:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
After doing quite a bit of research, including reading maintenance manuals, I've been able to determine the following:
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)
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:
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)
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)
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)
Don't like the name. "Vending machine" implies a payout every play. Asher196 ( talk) 20:01, 21 February 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)
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)
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. benǝʇᴉɯ 04:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion 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.
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien ( talk · contribs) 06:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll have a review posted within the next few days.
Thebiguglyalien (
talk)
06:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
The sources pass the basic standards for GA, but they're far from ideal. Right now, it looks like the article was written backward. The best sources are the ones that cover the topic or a specific aspect in general, instead of trying to tie together disparate ideas into an article (which risks WP:SYNTH and WP:CHERRYPICKING). The article is also lacking in text-source integrity. In many cases, it's impossible to tell which citation connects to which facts. I wrote a few examples of this in the spot checks below.
Spot checks:
This article does not meaningfully cover the major aspects of claw machines. The vast majority of the content is about very specific aspects: their 21st century popularity (with a disproportionate focus on Asia), and the legal/"rigging" aspects. I'd expect the bulk of this article to be about their design, their operation and function, different variations, and general technical aspects, as well as a broader coverage of their history.
The main problem is that the article fails WP:PROPORTION, as described above. Also, this isn't as serious an issue since the term is used in the sources, but "rigged" has a decidedly negative connotation and should be used more carefully, probably not in WP:WIKIVOICE.
No recent disputes.
File:GIRL TRIES TO PICK UP PRIZE WITH A MINIATURE CRANE... is not a helpful image. It's difficult to discern that there's a claw machine at all, let alone what's going on in the image.
In South Korea today there are more more than 1,900 such claw arcade rooms ... There were only around 20 claw arcade rooms in 2015.) and, again, it doesn't have to support the United States (ref 30), South Africa (ref 3), or Singapore (ref 57)—they show up in the order they're mentioned. It doesn't make sense to suggest a lack of text-source integrity when not all of the sources being used are being considered.
the major aspects of claw machinesand that it places
a disproportionate focus on Asia. This is completely reliant on subjective importance and the idea that "there must be sources". The emphasis placed on Asia is based on the emphasis placed by the sources on Asia, not the other way around. You also say that you would
expect the bulk of this article to be about their design, their operation and function, different variations, and general technical aspects, but the onus falls on you to prove why those things are notable enough to be given more weight in the article than the aspects you consider undue, and you have not substantiated the reasons behind your expectations.
once the issues listed below are fixed, but the problem is that the issues outlined were already fixed by the time of review. I will take this to WT:GAN when I get the chance for a third opinion. benǝʇᴉɯ 20:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Claw machine was nominated as a Sports and recreation good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (March 14, 2024, reviewed version). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
On 24 July 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Claw machine. The result of the discussion was Moved. |
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)
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)
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
This Article is a Stub? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.142.234.138 ( talk • contribs) 00:29, July 7, 2005
it needs a picture of one —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.200.116.131 ( talk • contribs) 13:00, October 12, 2005
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?
horrible writing and unencyclopaedic too. *bookmark* Blueaster 20:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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)
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
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)
"The video can be found on Youtube." - Someone please supply a link for this one. Supermagle 10:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
After doing quite a bit of research, including reading maintenance manuals, I've been able to determine the following:
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)
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:
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)
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)
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)
Don't like the name. "Vending machine" implies a payout every play. Asher196 ( talk) 20:01, 21 February 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)
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)
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. benǝʇᴉɯ 04:29, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion 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.
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien ( talk · contribs) 06:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll have a review posted within the next few days.
Thebiguglyalien (
talk)
06:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
The sources pass the basic standards for GA, but they're far from ideal. Right now, it looks like the article was written backward. The best sources are the ones that cover the topic or a specific aspect in general, instead of trying to tie together disparate ideas into an article (which risks WP:SYNTH and WP:CHERRYPICKING). The article is also lacking in text-source integrity. In many cases, it's impossible to tell which citation connects to which facts. I wrote a few examples of this in the spot checks below.
Spot checks:
This article does not meaningfully cover the major aspects of claw machines. The vast majority of the content is about very specific aspects: their 21st century popularity (with a disproportionate focus on Asia), and the legal/"rigging" aspects. I'd expect the bulk of this article to be about their design, their operation and function, different variations, and general technical aspects, as well as a broader coverage of their history.
The main problem is that the article fails WP:PROPORTION, as described above. Also, this isn't as serious an issue since the term is used in the sources, but "rigged" has a decidedly negative connotation and should be used more carefully, probably not in WP:WIKIVOICE.
No recent disputes.
File:GIRL TRIES TO PICK UP PRIZE WITH A MINIATURE CRANE... is not a helpful image. It's difficult to discern that there's a claw machine at all, let alone what's going on in the image.
In South Korea today there are more more than 1,900 such claw arcade rooms ... There were only around 20 claw arcade rooms in 2015.) and, again, it doesn't have to support the United States (ref 30), South Africa (ref 3), or Singapore (ref 57)—they show up in the order they're mentioned. It doesn't make sense to suggest a lack of text-source integrity when not all of the sources being used are being considered.
the major aspects of claw machinesand that it places
a disproportionate focus on Asia. This is completely reliant on subjective importance and the idea that "there must be sources". The emphasis placed on Asia is based on the emphasis placed by the sources on Asia, not the other way around. You also say that you would
expect the bulk of this article to be about their design, their operation and function, different variations, and general technical aspects, but the onus falls on you to prove why those things are notable enough to be given more weight in the article than the aspects you consider undue, and you have not substantiated the reasons behind your expectations.
once the issues listed below are fixed, but the problem is that the issues outlined were already fixed by the time of review. I will take this to WT:GAN when I get the chance for a third opinion. benǝʇᴉɯ 20:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)