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LBX Collective
Sound Off #75 - Pac-Man's 45th Anniversary, the Golden Age, and much more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
We celebrate our 75th episode by exploring how today's amusement industry echoes the distribution patterns of gaming's golden age, with Asian developers increasingly working through Western distributors just as Japanese companies did in the 1980s.
• Pac-Man turns 45, reminding us how Namco's "Puck-Man" was renamed and distributed by Midway in the US to prevent vandalism
• Genda Entertainment's explosive 54% growth has expanded their operation from 8,000 to 12,000 facilities in just one year
• Toca Social and SandboxVR partnering at London's White City signals standalone entertainment venues may no longer be viable
• Westfield shopping center serves as a testing ground for competitive socializing concepts, including Puttshack's first location
• Topgolf acknowledges an 8% traffic decline and significant drop in business events as they prepare to separate from Callaway
• Minecraft's licensing success spawns partnerships across multiple industries, from arcades to fast food
• Chuck E Cheese expands its brand into grocery aisles while adding Dippin' Dots to its in-store offerings
• Scream Trucks reinvents the ice cream truck model with digital screens and app-based tracking/ordering
• Holiday Park's controversial rebranding to Plopsaland demonstrates the risks of changing established venue names
• SNK's classic arcade games reappear at China's AAA show through a licensing deal with a Chinese manufacturer
Follow Kevin's upcoming presentations at the World Experience Organization event on May 28th and at Amusement 360 in September.
Are you on the edge of your seat Because we're about to SoundOff with Kevin William, covering today's latest trends in location-based entertainment Brought to you by the LBX Collective your community to connect, engage and inspire. All right, everyone, let's buckle up, all right? Well, welcome everybody to the 75th episode of Sound Off with Kevin Williams. How do you? Feel about this, kevin, 75., 75, feeling it All right.
Speaker 2:Well, how are you going to change my mind today? Well, while we celebrate our 75th sound off, we've got another celebration to talk about, which is the 45th anniversary of Pac-Man as a successful video game character. But it is not the success or the anniversary of Putman that I'm charting here with this particular question, but I'm charting on what we felt from the AAA show in Gajon in China that's just taken place a couple of weeks after we record this, or prior to recording this particular session, and that is are we seeing history repeat itself? Are we at that point again where the Asian developers and manufacturers of amusement products are going to find it so difficult to ship their products directly into the market that they're going to have to go through distributors?
Speaker 2:And for those of you that don't know the history of the video amusement industry, back in the 70s and 80s, the tariffs were so high for Japanese electronics that they were forced to actually go through distributors for North America, and that is what created the confusion and chaos. That is the classic video game market, where companies like Midway are associated with Japanese products from companies like Namco that were represented in the North American market, and we're already seeing a little bit of that. Anyone that follows Adam's coverage of the video amusement sector or my coverage in the Stinger report will know about companies such as Ace Amusements, which is a Chinese amusement machine manufacturer but is represented through companies such as UDC and Amusement solutions in the Western market, and we're beginning to think that we will be seeing a lot more companies follow that path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I just don't have enough history to really know what was going on in the 80s in this industry and if we really are coming back to almost like a renaissance, I don't know if I'd call it a renaissance.
Speaker 2:I lived through it as a player, not as a. I didn't jump in and get my feet wet into actually working in the video amusement industry until the late 80s. So this is the golden age of the early 80s. Of the early 80s. It was, from all intents and purposes and from the friends that I have that lived through that, especially friends like Nolan Bushnell, who you know was pivotal in shaping what the early video game sector was like, it was the Wild West, you know, bring your horse and your six shooter.
Speaker 2:But we also had the situation where American distributors would take products or import products, taking on the financial hit, would pick games that they wanted to flood the market with, would box them the way they wanted to, would even, in some cases, rename these games. See an example of puck man, which was for all intents and purposes the jump man game that namco had launched in japan, given a westernization, shall we say, and released on the market with some changes. And then, a few years later, when, uh, the distributor said, hey, we need a follow-up to the success that we've had at puck man ban, namco at that point in time said well, we're, we need a follow-up to the success that we've had at Pac-Man, namco at that point in time said well, we're working on a new game, but you know it's taking longer. And because of the relationship, the distributor Midway was able to just turn around and say, hey, we've got some guys that have knocked out a game that we think is, you know, comparable to Pac-Man, can ride off the bootstrings, the coattails of the previous success and along came Miss Putman.
Speaker 2:How many people don't understand that Miss Putman wasn't really an original Namco product. It is only over the myths of time that it has been brought into the fold of Namco development. I wouldn't be surprised from past experience if we see that kind of thing happening again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. So you say real quickly, just to cover some history, that the original Pac-Man was named Jumpman. Is that why the little no, no, no, sorry.
Speaker 2:I was converting. That's the Donkey Kong story. So the Donkey Kong story is Mario wasn't called Mario.
Speaker 2:Right he was, and it was the Americanization of Donkey Kong that led to that. The same argument the Puck man, puck man, mushy, mushy man. Whatever the story you want to follow, I was. You know, when I first came across Puck man, I was led to believe that I was. You know, when I first came across Pac-Man, I was led to believe that it was the pizza slice character and that paka paka is you know the derivation of the munching noise from Japanese. That's the story I was given. You know it's also. I'm renowned for. You know it's also I. I'm renowned for, you know, my character means that I I do like to kick the bricks every now and then. And for those of you aren't familiar with the story uh, puck man was p-u-c-k man. Uh, originally that was uh the japanese name that it was given. But Midway the US distributors got scared that the kids would get out the tip X and turn the P into an F and would have a whole load of problems on their hands. So they went for Pac-Man, and the rest is history.
Speaker 1:Interesting, all right. Oh, that's great. It's good stuff, all right. Well, we will jump into some economy watch and other trends right after a quick break. Years Cashless systems from Intercard increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry, and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon. All right?
Speaker 2:Let's dig in. Thank you, Intercard. And straight into the biz and it into the biz and it's that. It's the Genda section of our cast Interesting one here. We've been kind of skirting around it, but Genda Europe finally revealed themselves with the opening of two facilities in London. They are based upon their Kindleton kind of model, which is a number of their train units located in an existing retail mall. One of these is located in Westfield and that's kind of important for later on in the biz we're covering.
Speaker 2:But just as a rundown and kind of giving you an idea of the world domination that Genda is under, Genda Entertainment recently revealed some numbers and in April 2024, they had about 8,000 facilities under their tutelage. I don't know if this includes all of their facilities. You know the Singapore and the Thai as well as the North American, but I think this is just mainly the Asian slice of their business. And by the same time, a year later, we're at 12,000. So if this carries on like this, they'll own the whole planet in 10 years. No, no, All jokes aside, it is a operation that is definitely accelerating.
Speaker 1:And it is remarkable growth. It's about 54% growth year over year in number of locations and if you're not watching this, then you're going to miss the mark if they continue this same type of growth trajectory.
Speaker 2:You're standing in the bathroom and the taps are turned on. The water is now at your knees and if you carry on ignoring this, uh, you'll be dead soon. So if what I am seeing is other corporations who have much more foresight in other aspects of the entertainment market, rather than just the amusement, are seeing what our friends at Genda have achieved and are looking at world domination as an opportunity. The market is ripe. Operators in some cases do not know what they have in their hands, and it is an opportunity to acquire, using the capital that is available to certain corporations in the entertainment sector, and come up with a unified brand. Genda is leading the way.
Speaker 2:Others will follow, and if you miss this, don't worry about it, because they'll just run over you Talking about the White City location. And we have a unique development, though. Anyone that's been following the last 75 issues of SoundOff will have heard both of us procrastinate about the inability of a single site entertainment facility to survive and that they're going to have to turn towards adding other entertainment components to them. And we see the first example of misery enjoying company, which is our friends at Taco Social I always want to say Taco Social, so Toko Social and our friends at Sandbox.
Speaker 2:VR have decided to come together and open up a joint facility at White City, where we've just been talking about our Genda friends have been. This will see 24 of the simulator bays from Toka and, I think, three or four of the VR arenas from Sandbox VR combined together in a 30,000 square facility that used to be an ex-Debenhams site An interesting thing. This site also was the location of the pop-up Army of the Dead VR experience that Netflix toured around the globe a few years back. Anyway, this is very interesting that they would merge together.
Speaker 2:Understand that this is Sandbox VR UK and Ireland, which is the franchisee owner for that territory. So this isn't Sandbox Core, this is their franchisee deciding to partner with Toka. And this also comes as Toka announces that they've received a tranche of investment to accelerate their rollout plans. So they have two facilities open at the moment, one in the O2 that we visited and one in Birmingham. This will be their third UK operation, second London facility, and they also have plans to roll out a US facility, though I'm not sure if the details of that are public yet, but that is in the works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean we talked about this on the Open and Shut on the next show just a couple of days ago, but definitely a strange mix doesn't make any sense to me at all. Really, it does that they feel like they need to partner with somebody. I just don't think that they should have partnered with each other. Um, and I'm curious is is so the toka social, this particular location, uh, franchise, is the sandbox model to bring alongside toka, or is this a true partnership? Because I'm wondering how f and b revenue would get split then between these, these two groups. You know, as I feel like toka social is going to drive a lot more F&B, especially given they have 24 bays, given that they're competitive, socializing and that's just kind of the model versus the Sandbox VR, which has historically not had F&B it's really only had some cocktails in some other locations.
Speaker 2:So I have role-played this in a couple of ways. Role-play one Toka Social gets injection of money, decides that they need to accelerate. A very interesting venue appears. They don't want to fill it all up themselves. They think let's do a Gravity, let's partner with a friend. They hunt around various possible partners and land on the Sandbox VR franchise boys in the UK. They're very nice guys. They've opened up in London. They've opened up in Dublin. They're single entertainment venues. They also have their unique F&B approach or their B approach, their cocktail robot Tony.
Speaker 2:That's one option. Option two is maybe Sandbox had the opportunity of going into this space and wanted a partner. Those are the two kinds of options. Or there is the third option and I think this is a little bit more the realistic one which is that all of these companies know that they can't carry their facility on their own and they will partner with whoever it is. This is a franchisee partnering with an established operation. So Toka Social are their own man. Sandbox VR UK and Ireland is the franchisee owner and you understand how franchisees work. You only have that for a short period of time to maximize your opportunity. And this is definitely maximizing an opportunity, and I'll go into a little bit more detail about this particular locality in a minute.
Speaker 1:I do want to ask just recall one other thing too here, maybe see if you've got some thoughts so Toka also raised a hundred million just back in October of last year, so not that long ago and obviously, as you've stated here, they've raised 35 million, a mixture of debt and equity, and so I'm just curious, especially given the fact that they did a hundred million and now it's 35, I am curious to know what the valuation Was.
Speaker 1:This a down round? Are they strapped for cash? It seems to me that it would be very irresponsible if they had burned through 100 million in just six months, which seems unlikely. So they're just padding their coffers and I do wonder, potentially, what the intention is there. Or is some of this 35, especially some of this debt, potentially used to buy out some of the early you know, the original investors in October in some form of secondary or some of the investors or existing founders, shareholders, taking some chips off the table? I do wonder why they decided to go and do another 35 million when they had 100 million in the bank just seven months ago.
Speaker 2:Burning a hole in their pocket, yeah in the bank just seven months ago, burning a hole in their pocket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you zoom in on this slide, you'll see a micro dot at the end of banking and that micro dot says read the small print sucker. The small print is. And many people will have missed this because of the bad layout of my slide, which is it was Tokka football that raised the money, not Tokka social. Toka Football that raised the money, not Toka Social. And Toka Football, if you are not familiar, is a very successful football coaching and training system based upon the technology which is used in Toka Social, the ball launch projector tracking camera vision system. This money that's been raised is restructuring the Toka football operation so that they can maximize their position and release a lot more of their training aids on the international market. It is going to help the increased rollout plans of Toka Social and it is also going to address debt and financing within the company.
Speaker 1:That is an interesting distinction. Yes, very good. Thank you for making that clarification. I do now see they're using the funds, that this latest $35 million according to this article is using the funds to expand Toka Social specifically, but the original $100 million could have obviously been a key part of the Toka football element that's used across MLS, et cetera.
Speaker 2:That's why we're consulting. The devil is always in the detail and it is getting that detail down to understand the perspective. That said, I feel that there is a little hole in the boat that is being created here. Again, I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves until we see what this first facility is going to look like and we don't have to wait that long. It looks like the combined Toka social sandbox VR facility will be throwing its doors open in the next few months, but, again, this is a watch, this space. But, as I said, I would go into a little bit more detail about this.
Speaker 2:Westfield and recently the competitive socializing sector has been under the microscope of investors and the markets, and a number of companies that have established themselves in the competitive socializing sector, who have rolled out a number of facilities, have gone back to the market for reinvestment and also to promote new models. Westfield, part of the White City facility, westfield, is a well-established shopping mall in London and it has also been used, as one person said recently, as a kind of a Silicon Valley, as a launchpad for competitive socializing concepts. One of the first to open up there in this area was All Star Lanes, which was one of the first of the boutique bowling operations, but the name that many of you will be familiar with, that also used this Westfield as their launch pad, is Putshack. The first ever Putshack was opened at Westfield, still operational, and is in spitting distance of the All-Star Lanes because, funny enough, some of the executives involved in setting up Putshack also also came from All Star Lanes. There is a lot of nepotism in the sector, but this Westfield has a tranche of what I would say competitive socializing test projects. They're All Star Lanes, of course, puttshack. Of course they have Dive Labs, which is a arena-based virtual reality operation.
Speaker 2:For the sake of transparency, I have consulted with those guys. They offer a unique and compelling virtual reality adventure experience and have proven capable of surviving in the difficulties of running an entertainment operation within a shopping mall, especially as big as Westfields. We also have Moonshot. Now, many of you may not be familiar with Moonshot, but Moonshot is actually Sixes baseball derivatives. So what was in the Westfield site originally was a Sixes and then overnight that Sixes went from yellow to blue and got turned into Moonshot and then pivoted across to offering a baseball and F&B component. And now our friends at Taco Social, or Taco Social as I want to call them. Now I'm suddenly very peckish and our friends at Sandbox VR are going to throw their hats into the ring. It will be fascinating to see the vampiring, and what I mean by vampiring is other venues suffering because there is a new kid in town taking away business. But I also feel very interested on how an active entertainment model and a virtual reality adventure model will survive with those kinds of competitors.
Speaker 1:This is interesting. What is it? Do you think about the demographics of the White City region for this Westfield Mall, that where these groups like Moonshot? Right, I mean, this is the only location in Moonshot. It's not the only location so far. Right, I know, but I'm saying as an initial location right, potchack's first location, now Moonshot's first location, not Toka Social's first. But still, I'm wondering what it is about the demographics there, where this seems to be a place where these ideas tend to come first.
Speaker 2:Very, high, very high spend the ABC from. The audience that goes through this place is very diverse, very large. You have the city workers. You have a very strong tube network that goes through there as well as a train network. You have a large audience of residents as well as the catchment from the city. I would say that of the Westfields in London, in the London coverage, this is one of their most successful and profitable and this one has a unique mix. It has cinema, it has food, it has high-level when I say F&B, it has high-level F&B. It also has high-level retail.
Speaker 2:It was interesting this venue used to have a Kidzania. It was so coverage but funny enough, the Kidzania didn't survive that it only managed, I think, about 10 years before they had to close down this particular site. But I would say that, from the research I did when we were looking at this installation, this is a very good net worth location and it does have a repeat visitation component, as the Putshack, as the All-Star Lanes, has seen. I think Sixes found it difficult with their offering and that is why they've gone for the more populous moonshot and I've already touched upon previously what is the difference between a sixes and a moonshot in comparison to the F&B and entertainment approach that they're trying to offer Geico. It was a simple one to go for because of the Japanese center they also have a large Asian mix, a well-rounded international mix to this venue, but for me it will be fascinating. This is not the first time that there's been an active entertainment space within this Westfield. There was another company that we had dealings with that ran a football clinic, a kind of test your skill, physical football shooting experience with a little bit of training. That was a very pop-up-esque kind of approach. What our friends at Toka Social are going to be dropping in will have to generate a strong repeat visitation or else they will fall by the wayside. Will have to generate a strong repeat visitation or else they will fall by the wayside anyway.
Speaker 2:Moving on and uh, talking about diversity, and we wake up to the news that our friends at top golf have confirmed not an exact date but a quarter. They they say that by the fourth quarter of this year that they will have separated themselves from Callaway. They have already started the process of laying off certain executives that are surplus to requirements, but they've also admitted that they have seen a drop in their traffic across their facilities. We knew that Callaway wanted to divest themselves of Topgolf because it needed a lot more TLC and a lot more management. We didn't know that part of that TLC was needed to redress an 8% decline, which is quite considerable compared to all the other entertainment venues that have been seeing a decline, which we've touched upon again in previous, entertainment venues that have been seeing a decline, which we've touched upon again in previous.
Speaker 2:You know that event business is down and site sales is down is concerning and at the same time the management in the statement said that they are working on various processes to redress the retail attainment, or should we say the sales being generated from these facilities. And we've seen examples of that. We've seen the first of the Topgolfs parachuting in a mini golf facility, which we touched upon in a previous SoundOff, and we've also seen in the UK a partnership with Bandai Namco that saw the first addition of an arcade to a Topgolf facility, which was quite a considerable pivot, and I'm led to believe that these are not the last, shall we say, additions of entertainment to the Topgolf model to try and address the shortfall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the arcade seems like an interesting grasp again grasp at straws. But I think the real telling thing about Topgolf isn't so much that their regular play foot traffic is down 8%, but that their business events are down. I mean, that has been a core component. Corporate events, group events for them is essential to their business model, their business model and I think this is the biggest area of concern that they've got to figure out how to shore up and I don't know what they're doing to do that. But adding a Topgolf arcade is not going to bring their group events back.
Speaker 2:Adding mini golf in a cold and windy locale, adding a hit and mix arcade. No offense to our friends at Bandai Namco. I'm sure the pound signs popped up into their eyes as soon as they were told that Topgolf wanted to build an arcade in one of their facilities and they picked everything off the top shelf and put it in the space and I'm sure it was well laid out and applied. But Topgolf's model isn't a model that I would have led to believe would support a off-the-shelf arcade room, and this is what it was. I would argue that Topgolf's model wouldn't support an off-the-shelf mini-golf experience and that's what our friends at Greenspan supplied them. There are nothing wrong with what was supplied them. It was just that opening up a vegan restaurant in the middle of a McDonald's is not a good idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, different audiences, your guest experience needs to be manicured and massaged and encouraged, and if you are seeing a downturn in your events business, those are not the ways to massage the problem. So we will wait and see. I am sure there will be a rise in their numbers after they part from Callaway due to the obvious bounce that that move will generate. We still haven't been told if the Topgolf golf simulator business will be coming across which has about 80 to 90 facilities on top of the existing Topgolf shooting range experience. And again, we haven't been told if the new management that will be restructured for the new look at Topgolf are going to be looking at running the operation as it is or as looking for a partner or buyer or new investors. I would say that they're going to be looking for new investment to go across the whole of their operation and rebrand and reinvent themselves after the separation, but that's a personal opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think. One last thing I'll just say here is you know, I'm on their, I'm on their site. Actually, I'm on the Watford site, which is where the Topgolf arcade is located, where they added that in, and maybe in one or two other locations, but that's yeah. Okay, so it is this one. But when I go and I look at the games that Topgolf has, this is one of the problems that they haven't evolved their gameplay at all right, so it's just become a tired model. They have five games, the same five standard games they've had since I've been visiting Topgolf for at least the last seven, eight, ten years.
Speaker 2:But they wrapped it in the Red Hulk and Captain America and remember how disrespectful I was about that IP previous to that. So you've blown a vast amount of money on licensing IP from another company when there's a big hole in the bottom of your boat that needs to have your attention more than just wrapping Captain America on your tired three golf experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know they have themselves to blame for that. Again, there are many companies that point out the issues of franchise and how some companies just try and roll them out as fast as possible and then sort the problems out at a later date. Callaway definitely didn't want to sort those problems out. Moving on and the wrapping of IP and brand has really accelerated. We touched upon this a couple of sound offs when we were charting the success of the Minecraft film a Minecraft film. We have now touched upon the ubiquity of this IP going everywhere, from the arcade industry all the way down to your fast foods at McDonald's. Everybody's wrapping themselves in Minecraft. And this is an important point to be made because, as we're recording this, the licensing expo IP and franchising expo it's not franchising but the licensing of product and brand is taking place, and we're seeing an increased interest by brands to be involved with bricks and mortar, and so I wouldn't be surprised that we're going to be seeing a lot more of the Minecraft property in our sector.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is going to go the way of Angry Birds, absolutely so I can guarantee you the next IAP Expo we'll see an explosion of Minecraft-related IP attractions and pieces, arcade pieces and this will be again will be one of those IPs that is five years from now is we're going to see everywhere and it'll be very much like Angry Birds and we're going to be tired of it.
Speaker 2:But while the sun is shining and they're making hay, they are definitely going to be trying to get as many companies on board and I'm looking forward to seeing, after Raw Thrills, what will be the next amusement product that feels that they want to fill up the coffers of the team behind Minecraft and Microsoft. Anyway, watch this space. But talking about wrapping your IP across products, and as we continue the licensing and IP theme of this, we have two interesting IPs from our sector. Number one, of course, is Chuck E Cheese, which is one of those companies that has a second life outside of what they have, a third life if you include their Pescali's pizza operation and wings and their Pete's pizza, but they also have their pizza in the grocery aisle that you can purchase for home use.
Speaker 1:Because everybody wants to have mediocre pizza frozen and then cooked at home.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it is fantastic. Pizza, Brandon. How dare you say that? I am sure every mouthful is a joy.
Speaker 1:Like look at, I mean just okay, real quick. I mean I'll just say like, look, we all know what you're getting when you go to Chuck E Cheese. But the mere fact that they can sell Chuck E Cheese pepperoni pizza in the frozen food aisle, what do you think you're buying when you go to Chuck E Cheese?
Speaker 2:Something that will stop the kids shouting at at you yeah, of course. All right, there you go, that's fair but the other thing that's interesting is that they've done a pivot and taken something from the theme park industry and brought it into their facilities in the food components. So along with your cardboard piece no, no, I don't mean it along with your fantastic gourmet pizza, and it is a gourmet pizza they've spent a lot of money improving their restaurants and offerings.
Speaker 2:I haven't tasted the latest pizza, but I'm sure it is something different to what I remember from the last one that you can wash this down, kind of wash this down uh with, uh, you know, the dip and dots, uh, and I think the dip and dots in chucky cheese is a good find I'm actually led to believe that uh d and Buster's have done something with Dippin' Dots, but I think I may be misremembering.
Speaker 2:But definitely Dippin' Dots getting into Chuck E Cheese is going to be an interesting one. I'm looking forward to seeing all the kids with the unique colored mouths from all the different flavors. But again, it is the IP, the crossover and the embracing of the brand, and an example of that was the McDonald's Minecraft Happy Meals and another example of that is the Puckman 45th Anniversary Donut Selection. If I needed to put more weight on I could rush out and get the full selection, though, unlike your Lego P-Man machine in the background, if I had the donuts on the back of me, they would be empty by the end of this. Sound off.
Speaker 2:I'm a sucker for a Krispy Kreme, definitely. The issues again here are recognition of IP, recognition, the recognition factor, with your core audience here. The audience of tired businessmen with a coffee and a donut in each hand, harking back to their arcade roots, or the tired parents in the grocery aisle harking back to pacifying the children with a pizza that reminds them of the time that they had for their birthday party at Chuck E Cheese goes a long way to establishing IP, yeah yeah, that's a good and one thing that I like that Krispy Kreme is doing with this Pac-Man IP is that they also have a six pack that they're distributing.
Speaker 1:as you have here a six pack they're distributing to grocery store chains. Obviously, we all know that you can also get your Krispy Creams at grocery stores where they have distribution, and the fact that I can get Pac-Man branded donuts at my grocery store without having to go to Krispy Kreme is also a really great play.
Speaker 2:Very clever play and I'm expecting that they're going to go the Funko route where they're going to look for a suitable IP brand that can be put into those six-pack. The originality of the styles on the donuts are okay. I'm not going to say they're earth-shattering, but I'm sure they're saving themselves for the 50th anniversary in five years. Yeah, interesting, yeah Interesting. We've kind of talked about filling our faces and also the comfort factor. One of the best comfort factors out there is ice cream.
Speaker 2:Now, each country has their own interpretation of the traveling ice cream van. Some countries have it as the guy on the scooter ice cream van, some countries have it as the guy on the scooter, some people have it as the ice cream van physical van. Some people even have it as the unique venue, the pop-up venue In North America. The ice cream van, you know, sets off a kind of mental picture the silver truck parked at the side with the Watch Out for Kids symbols on it, a tired vehicle only offering a very small selections of lollies and ice creams. Funny enough, I was having a conversation with my daughter about the difference between a lolly and an ice cream, because where I am in Spain, lolly is not a phrase, that's a phrase from the UK Lolly, referring to anything that's on a stick.
Speaker 2:But now we have seen the what was it move fast and break it culture of the internet and pop-up and apps and social engagement turning its gaze on the ice cream van. We have a company called Scream Scream Trucks who have taken the traditional ice cream van and pimped it. They have digital screens on it, they have big speakers and music and apps where you can actually find out where the ice cream van is and encourage it to come to your area and order special ice streams. This is the boutiquing, this is the gamifying, this is the explosion of app technology onto the ice cream truck. We don't know if this is going to be a unicorn or a dud, but the company has started to roll out and they have seen initial success and gained a lot of coverage. And the only reason I bring this up is because why can't we do this kind of thing in our facilities? Why can't there be a screen truck pop up in our facilities?
Speaker 1:something to think about. Yeah, this is an interesting company. They are currently based in New Jersey that's where they've started and they call themselves a neighborhood on-demand food truck, or, in this case, ice cream food truck, and you can actually add your house to one of their reserved routes so that it'll swing by your house specifically when you want, and I think that's really interesting. They do have pop-ups available so you can request a pop-up so it'll come by your facility. So there's no reason why you couldn't you know, potentially do this for the New Jersey area. And then they have franchising as well, right? So they're offering this as a franchised option and opportunity to obviously expand beyond New Jersey. But the on-demand food truck is really interesting, especially to come through your neighborhood. That was always one thing that I always missed the ice cream truck when it came through my neighborhood because I was busy or away or whatever, and being able to at least have some modicum of control is really interesting.
Speaker 2:One of the most impressive FEC's food beverage offerings that I saw when I was doing some research a couple of years ago was a location-based entertainment facility in Illinois that actually had built into their parking lot an area for all of the food trucks to be able to park and so, rather than actually having to have a diverse menu for their facility at certain occasions or certain points during the week, all of the food trucks would turn up and park and you could leave the facility and walk up and, you know, get your Mexican meal or get your Indian or get your Korean. And that was, you know, a real nice opportunity. It gave the food trucks a confirmed ordering process and dedicated hard stop, as it would be called, and it gave the patrons of the facility a unique occasion to go there and not just enjoy the entertainment facility but also try out the food trucks. And you know, diversity of food trucks is interesting. I would argue that the food truck model is kind of similar to how the container hospitality venues are. You know, you have multiple different types of food offerings in a kind of food truck environment, what I see with Screamtruck and all of the ones that will follow behind this, because I'm sure that this will not be the only one that will approach this is that while they're doing their circling around the locale, it might be an idea to make sure that your facility is on their route to stop off, and maybe you could make a promotion and say that at five o'clock at your facility there will be the unique ice cream offering outside in your facility. These are part of the boutique. Have it your way. Hospitality entertainment, experiences that I keep on going on about and what, sadly, certain parts of our industry are not willing to embrace because it takes them out of their comfort zone. But it is interesting to see. I wish these guys a lot of luck. They've started off in, I would say, one of the hardest locales to run these. I would have not been surprised if they had started off in Texas as their first locality, but we will see. We will keep an eye on them and let's hope they become a unicorn rather than a dropped ice cream on the floor and moving on.
Speaker 2:We touched upon this a little bit in the open and shut, to give the clip notes version. Our friends at Evo Entertainment had partnered in the Texas area with another company. For various reasons, that other company has parted ways. Yes, vedas Cinemas get that right. Vendra Cinemas, thank you. They've decided that they are going to keep from the parting of the relationship a number of sites. They've kept a Evo entertainment site and they've kept two other venues which I think are part of the other chains in the Evo brand and these will be reb brand and it has opened up in Hato. It's an interesting brand name. We discussed its issues, but fundamentally we have an EvoSight repositioned under a new operator who also has intentions to roll this out. It has 12 lanes of bowling, it has screening rooms, it has an IMAX, it has amusement. So it is that bit of everything. It also has some other entertainment, but it is an interesting example of when a brand separates itself from a core brand, how it will go forward and live its life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did talk a little bit. I'm not going to repeat the things that I said on the LBX show and in the open and shut segment, but I will just quickly pull up the website here to call something out here. So interestingly, you know they clearly are very focused on their elevated F&B. When I go to their bowling page, this is their bowling specific page.
Speaker 2:And this is their second site update, because the original website has just been changed to the one you're looking at now.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and so when I go to their bowling page, you'll notice it's really a lot more about the food, Like when hunger strikes. Here's this kind of elevated presentation of their fries and their chicken sandwich. The popcorn big groups are right up our alley. They talk about big groups, what are they doing? They're sitting around eating and having drinks. You come down here again eating and having drinks. I'm on the bowling page, have they actually? And I have not yet to see a single person actually bowling other than this woman with her fingers in the ball. So it is interesting to me that this is clearly they are leading people towards this idea of eating and consuming. Their game section is a little bit more, but again, they still have the F&B component down at the bottom.
Speaker 2:It's a bit too generic for my liking. The update to their site their last, the previous page of this pushed a lot more the reason why it's called hooky You're playing hooky by going here, and now they've spun it much more on the food. But also I'm not seeing as much push on the entertainment component. So again, it feels to me that this new operation has taken on board a giant. So let's use a nice euphemism or analogy A stable has managed to get their hands on a racehorse and they're now learning how to ride it. I think that we will see Hooky reinvent itself away from the Evo concept that it has been cut free from. Whether they'll be able to create their own USP and their distinctiveness enough, we will have to wait and see. It is a very crowded market in Texas for this kind of brand. That said, I think there's an opportunity. If they get the mix right, they could be serious competitors to some of the other Cinnatainment environments in that area. But there is a lot of things that can go wrong with running a mixed-use leisure entertainment facility in the Cinnatainment sector. Moving on, and we have the whole issue about rebranding. So we've seen an Evo site change its name from Evo, which again is a name that you kind of have to explain to people what it's referring to, to Hookie.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a very well known and traditional uh theme park in germany that was known by millions of people under the holly uh holiday park, germany uh branding.
Speaker 2:That woke up one day and learned that, uh, they were going to be called Plopsaland and there was a lot of mirth and laughing because Plops has different connotations in different areas. The Plops operation runs a number of entertainment facilities and a lot of these facilities are based on the IP from Studio 100, which is an animation and children's IP network of films and animated shorts. Anyway, the Hollywood Holiday Park I always want to say Hollywood the Holiday Park facility had been there for over 52 years. It was a well-known name and there was a lot of uproar. But plopser has stuck to their guns, as it were, and they're going to still keep uh, the the new branding. But they are kind of relinquishing a little bit. There's talk about it being holiday park plops, the land and stuff like that. We we will see how the dust settles on this one, but it is an interesting example of trying to shoehorn your IP and your brand onto an existing formula.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this seems to be clearly it was a misstep according to their fans. But it just when you take a 52-year-old brand, this is not something that you change lightly without really going out to your fans, to your guests, change lightly without really going out to your fans, to your guests and doing some real significant work to understand if this is something that they would be comfortable with. It feels like they just didn't do that work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the intention you know. The CEO made a statement as he was being deluged by the social media complaints about this. He suddenly worked out who his audience was and you know the reason given for why they decided to go for the Plopsaland Germany moniker or Deutschland moniker was to give it a stronger international appearance. But we all understand it was to push the plops uh, ip, uh, whatever, uh the derision from the internet. The internet could be very cruel and how they were deriding the plops brand uh can't have been felt very happily by the corporation, let alone the backlash from the local audience. I think that they will meet in the middle and this, this will go down as a wonka moment, I think in the black eye kind of approach.
Speaker 2:Be careful, especially with vintage brands, on how you handle them. Moving on and a correction we were talking a couple of sound offs ago about Bolero and I wanted it to be clear, as a couple of people pointed out to us, bolero, and I wanted it to be clear, as a couple of people pointed out to us, that bolero doesn't exist anymore, that they have rebranded themselves and that we should have been saying lucky, lucky strikes entertainment was the company in question, with their over 360 bowling facilities, all kept to the highest standards and worked out regularly. The issue that we're seeing with Lucky Strikes is that, after rebranding themselves, they're now taking a cold hard look at their entertainment business and they're even expanding into other markets. We reported recently about them acquiring a resort entertainment facility that seemed to be away from their bully wick of being involved in mid-scale bowling entertainment chains. Anyway, just to round up very quickly, we have the Texan Trends going there.
Speaker 2:I was covering the AAA show Gajong in China and one of the big surprises was the appearance of SNK, the venerable video game developer, and it seems that a licensing deal has been done with SNK China to bring back certain of the SNK brands into arcade colors.
Speaker 2:A number of machines were seen on a manufacturer's booth at the show that were popular. The Metal Slug King of Fighters, samurai Shodown, was there. Just for clarification, snk Playmore was acquired, or the majority of it was acquired by a Saudi fund linked to His Royal Highness, who is an avid fan of the SNK fighting game history, so much so that you know, for transparency, I was actually involved in consultation on the possibilities of an SNK theme park being developed in Saudi. The issues here is that this looks to be a deal between SNK China, the Chinese operation of the Japanese core company, with this Chinese manufacturer, and it does look like these will not see Western land full, but it was interesting to see a blast from the past, as it were, from our industry taking shape on the Chinese show floor. I think if these machines were released outside of China and given a chance in Japan and especially in the Western market, they could find a loyal following. But that's just a personal opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even if they don't find a loyal following inside of FEC, certainly in homes, right, those people who have the nostalgia component of the old Neo Geo console and then some of those games, I think they would find some interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't think Arcade 1-Up has done any.
Speaker 1:Not that I'm familiar with.
Speaker 2:yeah, so, yes, I agree wholeheartedly with a number of rec rooms, let alone arcade rooms, would be interested in having some S&K goodness, a third horse's head or is it a fourth horse's head turned up in my bed recently, pointing out that I need to point out some of the other of the VR arena-based systems that are out there. So, spawn, point our friends out there. They do arena systems of Flexible. They have a partnership with HTC as well as with Pico, and they also have versions of their environments that supports the Striker VR gun system that is pictured there Again, one of those arena based VR platform, free roam VR platforms that can be flexible on its side and comes with a special licensing deal.
Speaker 2:I mentioned a number of times our friends at TrueVR Systems. They have over 200 installations dotted around Europe and North America and they offer two flavors. They offer a smaller Gen zone vr enclosure as well as the normal traditional free roaming up to six players uh, I think they even go up to 10 if their systems, if I'm certainly right with their true vr environment all turnkey, all supported by uh, you know, very unique, unique business approach to allow operators of any size and any spending habits to jump into the VR market. And then finally, in this quick rundown, octipod Again.
Speaker 2:Octipod VR offer a selection of VR enclosures. They offer a small arena free roam. They offer tethered a small arena free roam. They offer tethered blocks, which you kind of see in most VR arcades that don't have an arena component, and then they offer the full big multiplayer arena enclosure. More details can be found on each one of these companies' websites and I am going to limit the number of horses' heads that can appear in my bed now and say that if the sector wants me to go through all of the different free-roaming companies and my database is up into the high 20s at the moment regarding all of those if they want to go through that, they're going to have to come up with some donations for me to actually take the time to do that. I do it every year.
Speaker 1:Come up with some donations for me to actually take the time to do that. I do it every year.
Speaker 2:One of the offshoots from the what I would call the free roaming arena VR systems and an outlier that doesn't get a lot of mention is our friends at Ubisoft, the video game consumer. Video game company actually has a division called Ubisoft escape games company actually has a division called Ubisoft Escape Games and they have installed over 700 of their unique enclosure systems. These are tethered VR, so there is a cable, and these are not free roaming but they do offer some mobility, more of an escape room experience, more of an escape room experience. But they also have a very unique revenue share and revenue generation model to the way that operators can run this game and it's quite nice to have this option. Recognized IP from the various of the Ubisoft titles turned into location-based game experiences with a unique payment model and an easy-to-install operation has proven a very strong success. That doesn't get a lot of publicity and I felt it was important that we should mention that before they sent a horse's head around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Just real quick. I think it's worth mentioning them, but where the fuck are they? Which locations? I've never seen an Ubisoft escape game installation at any FEC I've visited.
Speaker 2:Oh, but if I take you to an escape room that has VR, it's most likely that you will see that the escape room is running a VR experience that is based on the Ubisoft escape game system so.
Speaker 2:I would argue that they have placed themselves. They have sold 700, I over 700. I'm not saying that there's still 700 of them operational today, which again is something I would like to find out if they were to answer emails of how many machines that they still have operational. It is a division of a division and I would argue that they have found success outside of the norm. So a lot of the independent mom-and-pop VR arcades were recipients of this product. A lot of the escape rooms and command rooms that added a VR secondary entertainment component used these platforms.
Speaker 2:Okay, some housekeeping and some bad text from my point. Due to the Spanish power outage, I was unable to present at the World Experience Organization event in London. They've been very kind to invite me this month in May, at the end of on the 28th, to present two fireside chats where I will go through the slides that I was going to present at the event and answer some questions from the audience. So please follow that link if you need it I don't know what happened there. Go over to the World XO Organization chart and all the dates and timing for that. It's free to jump into the fireside chat and throw your questions in. The more the merrier, and again, I wasn't able to attend the Amusement 360 for the same reason. So I will be presenting in September at the Creative Works event there, making up for my disappearance, unless the international cabal that is shutting off power across the world decides that they want to stop me flying. Am I tempting the fates?
Speaker 1:I hope not.
Speaker 2:But anyway, I'd like to thank the WXO for the opportunity to present to their audience. Anyway, that's it from me, unless I've missed anything, Brandon.
Speaker 1:Nope, another great sound off and good finish to episode number 75 looking forward to number 80.
Speaker 2:See you guys.
