The LBX Show #63 - Brass Ring Winners, BW rants about IP, and more!

Sponsored by Intercard!
Sponsored by Alan-1!

On this week's show we break down the IAPPA Brass Ring winners, why Hupalupa’s guest-first design stands out, and whether an immersive museum belongs in LBE. We unpack CEC’s CEO shift, BW rants about costly IP skins on proven earners, and scan global openings from VR arenas to clawcades and F1’s mega play in Vegas.

• Brass Ring wins for FEC and LBE, with Hupalupa praised and Deutschlandmuseum LBE classification questioned
• Hupalupa's layout, videos, and clear attraction mix driving pre-visit intent
• CEC leadership change from David McKillips to Scott Drake and expansion goals
• Skeptical take on branded clones like Ghostbusters wheel vs Big Bass Wheel
• Sandbox VR Italy adding cocktail robots to lift per caps
• Twist VR’s market fit in Palm Desert and Zero Latency inclusion
• Experience Factory’s karting-plus model and Timemission tie-ins
• Grand Prix Plaza as a brand-led entertainment platform
• Clawcades scaling with social media and local activations
• Dave and Buster’s Dominican Republic launch and mix choices
• Resorts layering competitive socializing into captive-audience hubs
• Cinema closures versus cinetainment resilience
• Wahlap’s china footprint, asi teasers, and the importance of build quality
• Alan-1’s pepper’s ghost cabinets and retro-tech comeback
• Enter the gungeon support ending and lessons on industrial-grade hardware

Subscribe and visit LBX Collective for more!

Transcript

Welcome & Today’s Game Plan

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Turning you in now to the LBX Show with your host, Brandon Wiley. Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to connect, engage, and inspire.

Brass Ring Winners Announced

FEC Winner: Hoopaloopa Deep Dive

LBE Winner: Deutschland Museum Debate

CEC Leadership Change: McKillips To Drake

Strategy Outlook For Chuck E. Cheese

IP On Redemption Games: Rant & Risks

SPEAKER_02 0:23

All right, well, welcome everybody to the LBX Show for February 8th, 2026. My name is Brandon Wiley. I'm your host, and you know, we have a good show lined up for you today. It's going to be a little bit short, maybe shorter than sometimes, but we'll probably hit that hour mark. We'll see. But first, we're going to dive into some news you should know. You know, we're going to hear from Kevin Williams with open and shut to review all the openings and closing trends from the last week, and they are beginning to pick up a little bit, even though it is a shorter open and shut than normal. There are some more that are uh opening up here as the year starts and kind of gets rolling. And then we're going to round out the show as Adam Pratt on RK Corner shares the latest updates from Wallop as well as a little preview of some of the items that we're going to expect at a Muslim Expo. So uh, with that being said, let's dive into some news you should know. All right. Well, this week, IAPA announced the brass ring winners in advance of their honors program, which is taking place in Excuret, Mexico, from May 12th to the 14th. This is when all of the different organizations and all the different categories can go to a special place around the world that changes every year to receive their awards. And also, there's always some education and great keynote speakers and some tours and everything else. So it's a good thing to go and uh, you know, obviously for the award winners, but it's open to anybody. So if you wanted to go and just have a great time in Excarat, Mexico, and also get some good education and see some people and put on a black tie and all that other cool shit, then go to IAPA honors. Um, I'm not gonna be there, but you know what? There'll be lots of other people from IAPA that will, and that'll be fun. So you could do that. Um, but for our purposes for this show, there's two categories that uh were relevant, and it's the FEC of the Year category and the LBE of the year category. And if you recall a couple of weeks ago, we had Barry Zelikon on as a on a guest gap, and we went through all the top three finalists for both categories, and we had a great discussion about them. You can go and watch that. That was just two episodes ago, uh, but they announced the winners, and so the winner for the FEC of the Year award is Huba Lupa out of Istanbul and uh in Turkey. And you know what? I think of the three, as much as I am uh, you know, I I loved the um Call You Need, and then uh, you know, also the uh you know Spy Kids HQ in Las Vegas and you know, Brian is a good friend, and uh, you know, would have loved to see them in win as well. I truly think Hoopaloopa deserves it. And uh, so we will take a quick look at their site and and some of the reasons why I think that they really truly deserved this award over the others. Um, but then before we do that, uh the LBE of the year category winner was uh Deutschland Museum. And uh yeah, so they Deutschland Museum took it down. And again, we'll also look at their site. While uh I do have a problem with a museum being categorized as location-based entertainment when there is an actual constituency within APA for science centers and museums, they are of the ones in the categories. If you truly would consider them an LBE and not a museum, even though the museum is in their name and on their website and everything else, then I do believe that they deserve to win as well. They have a phenomenal experience and it truly is immersive. We'll take a look a little bit, do a deeper dive. Um, again, if you just cross out the museum and you just call it Deutschland or something, then yeah, sure, then they won. Uh, if you call them a museum and they call themselves a museum, then you know, if it acts like a duck and looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and calls itself a duck, then it's probably a museum and shouldn't be in the LBE category. But that's me. So it doesn't matter. I wasn't one of the judges. They did award Deutsche Museum as LBE of the year. All right. So I want to take a quick look here at Hoopaloopas website. And I'm gonna pull this off here, throw this up, and yeah, let's let's dig into their website because you know, this is probably gonna be the best way for you to be able to see. Obviously, they're already promoting themselves on their main website, their main homepage about being the FEC of the year. Um, but they've got a lot of stuff going on here, and it really does look like an impressive facility, not just because of their attraction mix, but because of the coloring and the layouts and the design and the lighting. And I'm sure the guest experience is excellent. Um, and it's just they've they've done some really great stuff. Their website is very functional as well, which is a big deal for me, as those of you who are regular watchers know. And so they have you know, trampoline park, a climbing wall, mini play. They have this thing called their kid venture, which is just like sort of like their soft play as well. Um, they have a ropes course and bowling and then just video games. So, like they have an arcade there as well. And uh they have you know a lot more things in addition to that. Uh, they have bumper cars, they have uh the Dolph Robotics riots, so it's a VR uh ride simulator. Um they they promote virtual rabbids, but that's just like you know, something in their you know, thing they have sports games, kids' rise, redemption games, uh a carousel, holo gate, another Dolph Robotics ride called the Hurricane. And it looks like in this particular case, it's a uh well, it is their four-seater. Okay, I don't know why I counted the legs. I was like, it's an eight-seater. Well, four people have eight legs, so you know that was just me being dumb. Um, all right, and then they have the pair drop VR, which is also something I had talked about recently. Um, on Paradrop, they have a containerized pair drop VR. This is not what this one is, um, but I am a fan of that attraction. So they've got a great mix of like VR attractions, standard redemption and arcade games, and then like physical uh stuff as well in active play, definitely targeted towards kids. But one of the things that we talked about a couple of weeks ago that I really like on their site is that they've got a uh let's see if I can even find it. Um, this one, oh yeah, here that's the map. So it's labeled appropriately. They've got a phenomenal map here on their website that just gives you a sense of the overall layout and scale of this place. So, you know, you can zoom in to the map, you can click on different areas, and it pulls up what that specific thing is with videos that you can watch then of that particular area, which is also really cool. So, like in the conventure area, it's like not just an image, but like, hey, why don't you watch a video? And we talk about that a lot on the show, being able to watch videos, getting a good sense of what that experience is going to be and getting me excited before I even walk through the doors of about what I can be able to do. And so, again, they've done a great job on really identifying and laying out their whole space. So uh they, I think, from everything that I've been able to tell amongst all the others, uh, really deserve it. The only one of the three finalists that I actually have been into personally is Spy Kids HQ, and that is also an impressive facility. I've not been in the other two, but again, you know, I do think that these guys uh were definitely the right choice for FEC of the year out of the three finalists, and you know, potentially, I didn't see them all, but out of the uh, you know, all of the submissions that came through the door. All right. Now for Deutschland Museum, we'll flip over to this one here. And this is uh again, you know, I'm just gonna let this video play, gives you a sense for what it is. It has already been voted, it's won a TheA award in 2024 for world's best themed museum. God damn it, it is a museum, not a fucking location-based entertainment facility, but whatever. Um, and then it was also one Germany's favorite museum in 2024, and now it has won the world's, they're calling it the world's top attraction. Um, but it is the LBE of the year for Iapa brass ring. And, you know, again, uh, they really truly do have a great immersive experience. And if it wasn't truly, if they weren't calling them Simosu Museum, I would say like this was a pretty cool experience that are gonna educate people, I was gonna say kids, but really people, on what it was to go through uh 2,000 years of German history. And so that's what's pretty cool about this, is it gives you like allows you to time travel through German history. Um, and uh and so anyway, it's a great facility and has a lot of you know great historical things. Like again, phenomenal museum, not a great uh overall uh you know location-based entertainment facility. But again, we're gonna have to work on what those definitions are with IAPA, and I will continue to try to do that. But all in all, um, I think that of the three, again, if we consider them an LBE, they would definitely have been the best out of the three as well. So uh great job for those who were on the voting committees for each of these LBE and FEC of the Year awards. And that is the first thing I want to talk about on news you should know. So, next we've got up the uh big news here, a little picture of David McKillops. And so uh he has now stepped down as CEO of CEC Entertainment as of this week. Uh, he made the announcement on LinkedIn. Uh, there was no formal press release. Like, literally, the only way I found out about it, and uh and a few others in the industry found out about it is because you know we connect, we are connected on LinkedIn and uh follow each other's news and information. And so, yeah, I got that word through LinkedIn that David McKillops was stepping down at the board, has appointed their current CFO, Scott Drake, to be the new CEO, and that will take effect on February 13th. So, David, a little background here, David McKillops uh he led the company through the post-pandemic recovery. He came in in 2020, um, came in and helped with like a major restructuring after their bankruptcy as well, and then took the whole CEC system through a system-wide remodel. And uh, you know, he has said that he's not ready to share where he is going next, but that it is an all quote, an all-new global challenge. So excited to hear what David is uh has cooking and what he's up to. Not sure if it's going to be something that he is doing himself or if it is something that another company that he is joining. But uh, you know, he's certainly I have been a fan of his work that he's done at CEC. And yes, have there been some missteps, etc. Sure. Uh we actually go into it much deep, uh much more deeply on the upcoming sound off uh with Kevin Williams, and that comes out on February 10th. That's sound off number 109. If you're not watching this chronologically, you can go look up the sound off 109 and we dig into this trans uh this this transition, I was gonna say transaction transition a little bit more than. Um now, Scott Drake, the news, the current CEFO, he brings uh his experience where uh he really worked over the last year and a half as CFO at CEC Entertainment. Uh he strengthened the balance sheet, he managed strategic initiatives, one of those key things being a major 62 uh north of$620 million credit facility that allowed them to rebalance their uh balance sheet. Uh and in his past roles, he's been at Farmer Brothers Coffee prior to this uh CEC Entertainment, and then at GameStop. Again, we'll talk a little bit more about my thoughts and views on that pedigree uh and what that might mean for CEC Entertainment, but give that a listen on Sound Off. I'm not going to go into that again here. Um, but under Drake, the uh what he has said is that the company aims to accelerate their domestic and international expansion, which includes their Chuck E. Cheese adventure world in Nor Playgrounds, we've talked about here in Open and Shut and also on Sound Off. Um, and then uh their mega hero, so their mega superhero playgrounds, which you know are uh like an expansion of their small superhero playgrounds that exist in a lot of their facilities, and then um you know their first UK location. Uh just for some background, right now, as of late 2025, uh CEC Entertainment operates 657 venues, and then they just really want to focus on modernizing the brand experience, which they've obviously been doing, and also moving into more of a transmedia organization, not just a peer location-based entertainment facilities. So, anyway, check out Sound Off 109 on February 10th in just two days to dig in a little bit more to that news. All right. The last thing for news you should know is uh oh, there I forgot I put a picture of uh Scott Drake. So the previous picture was uh David McKillops. This is Scott Drake, he's the CFO stepping in, and uh, we wish him much success. All right. So the uh Betson recently announced a few new redemption uh uh items and some merchandisers, uh, some cranes this last week in advance of Amusement Expo International coming up in March. And one of them caught my eye and not exactly in a good way. And so that's kind of what I wanted to call out here. Um, look, they announced a not exclusive, but a uh Ghostbusters wheel. This comes from team play. And there's a reason I set it right next to Big Bass Wheel from Baytek. So if you're in the arcade industry or amusements industry and you don't know what the Big Bass wheel is, you should just pack up your bags and go home. Uh the Big Bass Wheel has been one of the top earners in almost every single arcade for almost nearly a decade, if I may be getting my timeline right. It might be more than a decade, even or slightly less, uh, but let's call it plus or minus two years. Um, and it's been one of the top earners and continues to be a top earner. And so one of the things I feel like you don't need to do to reinvent the wheel to no pun intended, um, is to slap IP onto something that works just fine as Big Bass Wheel. Kids don't really fucking care if they're pulling a handle and pulling it down, the wheel spins and they get redemption tickets or credits. Like that has worked for a decade. There's no absolute reason why we need to pay for IP called and call it the Ghostbusters wheel and have an additional cost slapped onto something that doesn't need to have that additional IP licensing fees. So this gets this when I saw this, it reminded me also when I walked the amusement expo floor last year and got pissed off when I saw the Wizard of Oz. Uh, we'll call it the spinning dice, even though they have like a little gem that you spin instead. The Wizard of Oz branded thing that basically was the exact same carbon copy, and the Wizard of Oz thing came from Roth Rills, a carbon copy of the same gameplay that comes from ice and their Monopoly game. Now, yes, is Monopoly IP? Yes, it is. Is Wizard of Oz IP? Yes, it is. But we had the Monopoly game already, and that fucking works. And yes, it was with Ice, and Rothhrills probably wanted to get in that that same game, and they're like, well, what if we did Wizard of Oz instead, even though it's the old Wizard of Oz and not the new, uh, then not the new Oz. So it doesn't necessarily resonate with the eight-year-old who's been, you know, watching Wicked. Uh, it resonates with the 68-year-old who remembers Wizard of Oz in black and white. Um, not 60, that was uh that was not fair to 68 years old, 68-year-olds, uh, to the 88-year-olds who remember Wizard of Oz in black and white. So um, anyway, I don't understand why we need this type of IP and paying for the extra cost of IP on existing machines that already work. Again, I understand manufacturers need to create things to differentiate themselves. Teamplay didn't have bad bass wheel because that was Baytek. Because we're like, well, what can we do to compete with Big Bass Wheel? We're gonna pay for extra IP, so we're gonna go and get the uh Ghostbusters IP. Um, okay, great. Uh, was there less expensive IP you could have got, maybe? Uh why not do Angry Birds? Because like apparently everything is Angry Birds, and I'm sure that IP is going for hella cheap right now because everybody's doing it. So why not do an Angry Birds versus Ghostbusters? I don't know how that resonates with 12 and under or 15 under kids who are going to be playing these redemption games. So, anyway, that was my little bit of a rant and a little bit of frustration. And if you are looking for these types of machines to put in your place, don't get caught up in the IP necessarily. I'm not telling you that the team play the um machine isn't great. It probably is great. Um, I'm just not sure that if there's a premium based on IP, especially outdated IP, like the original Ghostbusters or the original Wizard of Oz, it makes sense to go with something that has been tried and true for a long time. You will always find me as a uh futurist, somebody looking and willing to try new things. In this case, just slapping expensive IP on the exact same product doesn't seem to me to be the right move. All right. Anyway, that is maybe less news you should know and more opinion, Brandon's opinion you should know. But uh coming up after the break, we'll dive right into open and shut with Kevin Williams. Intercard is the only cashless system designed, developed, and manufactured all under one roof. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless systems from InnerCard increase customer spending, get satisfaction, and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is still proud to be serving the amusement industry. And if you are already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Hey, big hello to everyone to this latest open and shut. Um, it's wet outside here in London. What's it like with you, Brian?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Clear blue skies, not a cloud in the sky.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, we got clouds.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

I didn't even wear a jacket to the office today, so oh wow, nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yeah. Well, it is that time again. Uh and we let's get in.

unknown 17:56

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

So we have quite a selection, uh, as was uh speculated previously, that uh things would start to return to the chaos and confusion that we were seeing um near the end of last year. We have uh pause, and now we're getting back into the high teens again. So, as always, pause if I zip through any of these. But our friends at Sandbox, uh, their franchise partner in Italy has uh started to ramp up their production. We are seeing an interesting uh deviation from the norm here with the return of uh our friends the cocktail robot, uh, but you know, within the 5,000 square meter facility, um, we have the usual layout, and we're now up into the uh high 70s.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yeah. You know, I'm I'm glad to see that they're putting in the the robot. There's they really need that as just a way to increase the per cap and just get people to say and spend a little bit of time talking about everything. Like, you know, and it's it's a cool little gimmick too. It kind of fits the sandbox VR vibe. Um, but uh yeah, I'm glad to see that at least the franchises in Italy are putting them in.

Sponsor: Intercard Cashless Systems

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And if you know anything about the particular robot that uh uh this uh this group have been using, um you'll know that it's not a million miles away from where they're located, uh this facility. But hey, let's hope that it works for them. As we both agree, uh a hospitality component to uh their particular entertainment offering is essential, I think. Yeah. What we know. Uh VR still continues to find a home. Uh California gets Twist VR Arena, um, a mix of different uh components. So it's not uh a single offering, but it is a multitude of VR offerings. This site includes a zero latency installation, uh free roaming installation, as well as others.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Okay. I mean, I I I'm a fan of the zero latency product. Um Palm Desert. I mean, you know, yeah, there's not a lot of actual entertainment out in Palm Desert. There are some casinos out on the outskirts and the lots of resorts. So this gives maybe some families some things to do. Although it tends Palm Desert, Palm Springs tends to draw more retirees on vacation than it does the young or the ones looking to do something different. So it's interesting, interesting location for it, I guess I'll say.

Open & Shut With Kevin Williams

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I get the feeling that the team behind this particular project knows their audience relatively well and they have deployed something that will fill a particular gap. We will wait and see how well it does, and if that calculation was correct. Moving on, and we have the museums or the edutainment uh components being fulfilled here. Uh the Pali Museum uh in New York. I I really see this as one of those many pop-up installations based on celebrating Put Man's uh particular anniversary, 45th. Uh, the the issue here with this particular one is that it has amusement machines in there as well as other type of machines, but it is following a familiar format that we've seen other museums around the globe emulate. It's just nice uh to see another one pop up. I again I can't tell you for how long this will be in store, but I think it will be there for about nine months.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Interesting.

Sandbox VR Italy: Robots And ROI

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Moving on, and our friends at Experience Factory in the Netherlands, they have uh got up to two facilities now, this latest uh Antwerp installation. It has A mix. It is an experienced factory. They're not leaning heavy on their go-karting component. They are also promoting their um karaoke escape rooms and other entertainment elements that they have in their mix. And we know that another experience factory is in the works.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah, and this is interesting. Um I know there's some there's there's some Belgian connectivity to Time Mission. Um so the Time Mission is in here as well. The founder uh has some connectivity there through other partners and founders, I think, in uh you know, in the Belgian area in the Netherlands. So maybe this is why, because like it's just surprising to see a time mission pop up uh you know in an international location like this when they've been so focused on the US market, I think is my my issue. Um this is very looks like very similar to um R1, which is where the first time mission was established. And so it's got the go-karting, it's got axe throwing. I mean, it looks like almost an R1 carbon copy, which is not a bad thing. R1 is a great facility. Um, but it is not surprising to me that there may be some actual joint ownership going on there.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

The European approach to mixed use leisure entertainment using a karting foundation is a model that others will be emulating. And I wouldn't be surprised to see our friends at Andretti's looking more towards pivoting to this kind of approach uh rather than just focusing wholly on the karting uh element. But again, uh we need to see a wider penetration of experience factory into the market.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Uh you know, R1 has quite a uh quite a footprint uh to keep.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

It is a big footprint there. It is an impressive facility. I also did notice they have it under interactive darts, but when I look at the darts, it is actually the Dart City darts that was also developed by uh developed and placed into R1. So definitely some connectivity there.

Twist VR In Palm Desert: Fit And Audience

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, we're seeing a war in the uh AR darts and social darts sector at the moment. Um our friends are F1, they've been pushing themselves very hard. They closed down for a period of time their uh F1 experience that they had in Las Vegas, and then it's thrown its doors uh wide open again. Now Grand Prix Plaza. Um it is it is just the mixed experience, it's got the drive in there, the carting element, it's got the museum, it's got the active entertainment, it's got the simulators, it's got the F. Uh a definite uh approach towards how you do the big uh uh stylized presentation of the brand as an entertainment offering. Uh, and I expect to see this rolled out at other uh cities internationally that have an F1 race take place uh in their locale, kind of as a base to be used uh during the races. This is uh actually their uh VIP area, uh an entertainment and social uh environment. So it kind of gives them a showroom, uh so we say, um, F1's Netflix house approach.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

Yeah, I mean this it is uh it is really interesting. I mean, then you can even sit here and yeah, like have a whole yeah, really a full like F1 experience. Is this actually by F1 or or is you know you know Formula One, like the group that's behind all the F1 arcades and and everything else, too? Or is this something totally different? They're just licensing the F1 brand.

Pop-Up Museums And Arcade Nostalgia

SPEAKER_00 25:47

The original concept before it was rebranded was uh as you kind of allude to, a franchise offering through a third party. This one has been rolled into the F1 Experience Group, understanding that F1 Arcade is a separate operation, but is rolled in under control. And we we saw with F1 Arcade going through a change in their management recently. So we're beginning to see a consolidation of the F1 out of home entertainment offering under a single umbrella.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Quite a large one there, you know, 100,000 square is nothing to sneeze at, even with a go-karting component. So yeah, you know, that is the same size as a uh Netflix house.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Yeah, and their retail their retail space looks probably about as big as the Netflix retail space as well. Um, and so that alone is going to fill up quite a bit of space. And the karting experience looked uh alluring. It it was very well done.

Experience Factory: Karting Plus Mix

SPEAKER_00 26:47

They they put some energy into this. The F1 drive, as their carting experience is known, uh is being rolled out. Uh again, it is interesting to see how they did the simulation here. It wasn't an F1 arcade, but it was their interpretation based on their experience. We will be talking about future versions of this, I am very much sure of. Um, our friends in the Clawcade Arena are continuing to grow. I will I will casually pick one out of the flood of new openings just to talk about. Um, our friends at Clauzania, uh, they threw their doors open in Texas, a crowded market for uh uh clockades. From what I've seen, it falls into a retail unit. It offers the standard mix of Asian themed merch as well as uh high-level cranes with quite a high level of themality or brandality, I should say, uh, to the mix. Um, and there's six venues in, so again, part of a chain opening.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

I'm really curious. What really's got me curious actually, the picture you pulled has these uh looks like maybe some Hummers out from some H2s, uh H3s, yeah, uh Jeeps. Okay, Jeeps, but they they uh they're fully branded Clause Clausania. So I'm really wondering like what sort of local community activations they're doing with those, or if the owners are just driving them around to just advertise, or if they're doing some actually interesting activations uh with the brand in the local community to drive people in.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Looking at the owners behind this chain, they're very much about community and they're very much about publicity if you look at their link. Uh sorry, if you look at their Facebook, uh at their X and at their Instagram, they're very much front and center, as is the rule when you're doing uh clockades, it seems. You know, clockades are the the pinnacle of uh social media promotion for your venue and for your customers. Uh also wrapping uh your vehicles or sorry say wrapping the family vehicles in the company uh branding is tax deductible, if I remember correctly.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

It is, it is. No, they're super savvy to do that for sure. Yeah, and and look, the location for these things does matter. And the fact that they've put themselves next to a gelato uh location, it makes perfect sense, right? Kids and families going to get some gelato and then going into the clause in now. Question mark for me is whether they own both and they just happen to take the retail space next door, and that's uh how they're kind of treating them separately, or if they just pick the location really well.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Well, you're spotting the similarity in the sign manufacture, like uh exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Yes, the coloring looks very similar, yeah.

F1’s Grand Prix Plaza Playbook

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah. Uh whatever the reason, my main uh interest regarding the clock 8 is to watch the longevity uh and how long the momentum can keep up and what they're going to do as their secondary and tertiary entertainment mix. And at the moment we're riding high on the wave. Uh let's hope that continues. Moving through, and we're going to touch upon this in sound off, uh, a little bit about what's happening with Taito, but we're lucky enough uh to see another opening, uh, the F-Station uh approach. So Taito Station comes in three fruity flavors, and their uh their F-Station is aimed more at a mall internal mid-scale offering. It is amusement, it is crane machines. Um, and of course, our friends at Taito uh or the game station division is celebrating its 55th anniversary at the moment. So, you know, it's an important milestone for their 160 venues. Moving on, and we jump into the world of Dave and Buster's franchise. Uh they celebrate their uh Dominican Republic first facility, uh big opening launch party, uh well attended. This is a 3,200 square meter facility, and it does have a social base inside. Uh, so they do actually have the Dart and Shuffleboard system. I didn't see an arena system, but uh it was interesting to see that this franchisee had uh taken on board the full gambit of uh the Dave and Busters mix to put into their location.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Yeah, I mean they went full gambit with the uh I mean it's not a small square, well, square meters where small square footage space, but yeah, 92 machines, probably a little bit lighter on the number of machines as far as uh the typical Dave and Busters, they're usually north of 100. But uh, but yeah, to have the bowling, uh the social bays, and obviously they're full F F. Um, they they went all in on their mix.

Clawcades Grow: Community And Brand

SPEAKER_00 31:55

You know, 30,000 square feet's worth of uh facilities, nothing to sneeze at in the Dave and Busters, but I would agree the mix does seem to be heavier on the food, social base uh components leading towards the amusement going back to its midway approach. But again, from the video, it's interesting to see how they've laid the space out. Moving through, and we have more of that uh resort entertainment edition that I touched upon last year, have a uh a resort, tourist entertainment venue, and add a competitive socializing component on top. Center Parks has been dabbling with uh this concept for a number uh of years, and they have already released their first entertainment hive. Uh obviously, entertainment hub must have been taken. Uh, the entertainment hive has the mini golf, uh, it has the uh shuffle board, you know, it has the dart system, it has the bar. So we we are seeing uh you know uh uh the creation of a brand within a brand, as it were, trying to deal with the captive audience that they have at Center Park. It was interesting to see that their golf is done by our friends at Puttify. Um, it was also interesting to see, you know, that this is the second interpretation of this, and they still haven't got a you know a unique brand, but they have started pushing this as their, you know, as their addition to their number of entertainment venues out there.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah. And you know, it's nice to see that they didn't just phone it in, like throw in some components. I mean, they've really done a great job with their overall theming and tying the different attractions, right? So Potify, they went with, like, has very specific look and feel to it, but then they tied that look and feel into the rest of it. So they're not in juxtaposition with each other. Uh looks like they used a shuffle. Um, maybe I believe that's a shuffley uh there as well. So they've um yeah, they've done a great job really making this um feel like you're going into an actual venue instead of something that they just had an extra space at the resort and they just filled in some stuff.

Taito F-Station: Mall-Scale Amusements

SPEAKER_00 34:19

What we saw with our friends at Butlins doing, they they are following this, and I would expect to see some of the other parks going down this competitive socializing additional elements to their mix. Uh, the replacement of the sports bar, I think, would be the quickest analogy. Our friends uh at Lucky Strikes will be talking about them also in Sound Off. Um, they in January had five facility openings. I picked one of those five to talk about, uh, and I would have to pick uh uh the one that uh is still questionable if they did throw their doors open when they said uh according to their social media they're about to, according to the TripAdvisor that they have. But anyway, so um the latest addition to their high brand, high quality uh edition, you know, the new what I like to call the new wave of uh uh Lucky Strike uh entertainment venues rather than the refurbishment we've seen of some of their uh older venues.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That's what I was excited to see here was that at least it's uh Lucky Strike is continuing to open new locations using their brand, taking all their learnings they've had from their 360 uh locations and begin still continuing to infuse them in new higher-end locations that really um I think like really define the Lucky Strike brand, um, and instead of just trying to refresh old bolero locations or other acquisitions.

Dave & Buster’s DR Launch

SPEAKER_00 35:58

And I'll I'll give a more uh detailed high-altitude view of what's going on at Lucky Strike Entertainment, uh, as I said in the in the next sound off. Going to the shots, and we're lucky we only have one to talk about, and really it's on the periphery of our sector. Um we have taking place while we're recording this the uh independent cinema conference, and that kind of shakes the tree regarding information uh what's happening in the uh the independent cinema scene, which is predominantly going for the dine uh and watch approach, uh, or going for the VIP uh cinema uh application. Our friends at Look Dine In Cinema have been feeling the pain post-COVID. Uh, and they finally uh bit the bullet and closed down three of their Southern California venues. I'm not sure if one of the uh one of those was also a Texas venue, but uh again, we didn't jump on this information as much as we would normally do regarding an entertainment side. These these venues don't have any sinatamin, and maybe that's kind of an indication of why they uh why they uh have found themselves in this particular difficulty. They they have part of the puzzle in having the dine-in component, but they also seem to be missing uh a secondary uh entertainment component that could have helped. Anyway, don't want to get too far uh ahead of ourselves here, but I think we'll be hearing a little bit more about the difficulties of the cinema sector and the successes from the cinetainment sectors in the next couple of weeks. But uh here is some news, sadly.

Resorts Add Competitive Socializing

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Yeah, and and I won't go in because we're gonna talk about it further and sound off, but I will just say a few things here. For first of all, there's a look in downtown Chandler, which is you know, maybe about a 10-minute, 20-minute drive from my office here. And uh they closed down as well earlier in the year. The you know, they have uh look Dynan Cinemas has filed chapter 11 as of February. Um and so they're closing multiple locations and uh you know, I think looking to potentially restructure, I'm not sure. But uh I'll I'll I'll listen I'll give my opinion on why they they you know struggled on the sound off.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Agreed. Anyway, that kind of wraps it up for us. Uh, if you have any information or clarifications or corrections, please hit me up on LinkedIn or via the email. We have new stinger reports out there. Make sure that you're receiving them. Uh, and uh also, you know, I had an interesting conversation with someone recently who didn't know that you can listen to the audio of all of our uh uh emails and articles. Go on the website and check it out. Yes, you can, and it makes a great aid to fall asleep when you're at the wheel driving home. Anyway, that's it from me, Brandon.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

All right, perfect. Well, another great open and shut, and uh, we'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Have a good one.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Whether it's perfectly fine to me to get a couple of things, official things for defending cities with many reaching. This is AlanDash1.com to learn more.com. All right, well, that was a great opening chat with Kevin Williams. Coming up next, we've got Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt. Let's uh let's give it a roll.

Cinema Closures Vs Cinetainment

Open & Shut Wrap-Up

Arcade Corner With Adam Pratt

Wallop’s China Footprint And Data

Amusement Expo Teasers: ASI Lineup

Tech Quality Matters: Frame Rates Count

SPEAKER_05 40:04

Hey everyone, it's Adam with Arcade Heroes. Uh just uh a little sleepy here, so apologies for any grogginess sounding from my voice. Um, hasn't been a super busy week in arcades, but there have been a couple of things uh popping up out there. Uh first with a Chinese company known as Wallop, where they have been on the I mean, they're not newcomers to the industry. Uh they recently celebrated 35 years in existence, and they uh really hit the US scene, I'd say, in um around Ayapa 2011, 2012, somewhere around there with their racing game Storm Racer. Um, they recently won some top honors from the Chinese game industry where they shared some interesting data as far as uh what the Chinese game industry is like, including uh that there's over 60,000 venues, and they they've been very busy on their social media lately, particularly LinkedIn. Um, for a long time they didn't do anything with it, but uh recently I guess there's a lot of people in the industry have been using LinkedIn more, uh, have been posting there, and this is where they also pointed out that they have uh wallop-owned arcades over in China. This one's called Funloop Land. Um very impressive setup of equipment here on this top photo. Those that's uh Sega's MyMai, uh, which sells for around 32,000 uh for the a pair, and they they have several of them. Uh Wallop also recently worked with Konami to launch a game called Jubeat uh that uh has existed in Japan in previous years. It was known as UBeat here in the States, and they um but they've recently relaunched that game in China, uh, but only in China there. But as you can see from some of the games that they have, uh these are some of these, uh I mean actually all of these should be recognizable to you because they've existed in one form or another over here, except for maybe like this racing game in the background there. But uh like Kaiju uh Rampage Unite, which is now current being carried by LAI Games. Um but in China it's known as Monster Eye 3. Uh there's an old uh Time Crisis 5. It feels weird to call Time Crisis 5 old. I remember what it was, just a baby. Uh or uh Phantom Vanguard, and uh which is also like I need to double check on this, but this is launching pretty soon from LAI Games within North America, but it's already been available since last year in China through Wallop. Uh, there's the Chinese version of Minecraft Dungeons Arcade and uh Marvel Contested Champions. So uh yeah, they're um keeping busy uh with stuff. I I imagine we won't hear about any new new games that they will have until later this spring. Um although speaking of spring, um we have in a little bit over a month now is going to be Amusement Expo 2026 down in Las Vegas as it happens every year, about the same time of year. What is that, the third week of March, I think it is. And already we're having some teases uh or just some straight up information about what's going to be there. Amusement Source International is one that's been keen to be posting what they are going to bring to the show or to a show in several weeks in advance. Uh, they did this with IAPA last year, uh, promoting their stuff. But uh this year they are for Amusement Expo. Uh they mentioned that they're at booth 1327, they're gonna have 1400 square. Square feet of 20 plus new game titles like uh the crossbow fishing here. See if this will okay, Dragon Kingdom, Trick Pong, which they had another post about uh talking about how innovative this game is. Unfortunately, I missed this one at Iapa. Uh, it wasn't at the ASI booth, it was at uh uh some partner booth, but it wasn't close by, and I it was just one of those that flew under my radar, unfortunately. Like I knew it was there, I just couldn't find it. And uh Stormracer 2, which is currently available and selling through them. Um Betson's also selling Storm Racer 2 there. But yeah, if you're curious about uh some of the things that we had Amusement Expo, this is a preview. I'm hoping that they fixed Dragon Kingdom. I was kind of shocked by how poor the quality was. Like the frame rate on this game was absolutely atrocious. Uh yeah, you know, it was almost slideshow quality, and so it's like throwing a more powerful PC at least, or something there. But uh so that's where it was a little hard to tell if the game was any good or not because at least just when it when the frame rate's so low, it I mean, it obviously makes it bad, uh, but you can't really tell if the gameplay there is actually going to be solid or not just because it's so choppy. Now, um, I don't have any photos or media of this, but Allen One has also been teasing about their lineup at Amusement Expo. They're going to have a massive booth, they're gonna have a bigger booth than Amusement Source. Um, I think maybe even bigger than Bedson's booth, but I'm not 100% sure on the exact sizes there. Aside from Alan One has a 40 by 40 booth, which is going to be the largest that they've ever had. And uh they are going to debut a new Vedemption game. Uh, they're also going to be debuting three Atari recharge titles, but they're using a new cabinet design with some new uh what's you usually call Pepper's Ghost technology, pseudo-holographic technology. Now, this this effect has been around since, well, a very long time. Pepper's Ghost refers to the Disney effect uh in the haunted mansion, where it just used a display and an angled piece of glass or half-silvered mirror to bounce that off and it makes it look like the image is floating. Uh, but this has been used in the arcade industry since before the video game days, where you had those electromechanical gun games would use that. Uh, some racing titles uh as well would use it, but uh more famously within the industry, Space Invaders did that, uh, Asteroids Deluxe did, uh, and there were a few others, but it's an effect that really hasn't been used in a very long time. Uh, the last one that pops into mind is something like the Holosseum by Sega, uh, but that used a curved mirror and such, but and it was tied to a laser disc player. But um, it still was um yeah, it's tech that's just kind of disappeared from our industry in the past 30-ish years uh or more. And so Alan One's looking to bring it back. And so it'll be very interesting. I haven't seen the cabinets yet. I know that uh they're currently building one, but once it's done, since I live relatively close by, then I'll have to go and check it out. Now, uh one last thing for our arcade corner this week. And I don't know how many operators out there watching this might have this particular game. But um a few years back, a company called Griffin AeroTech based out of Indiana, uh, they had created an indie side-scrolling shoot-em-up game called Sky Cursor back in 2015 or so. And that but then a few years ago, they got a license with Devolver Digital for the very popular home console game Enter the Gungeon. Uh, but they completely changed it, created a totally new game out of it called Enter the Gungeon House of the Gun Dead, and turned it into a first-person light gun shooting game and made it almost like a dungeon crawling game and stuff. I actually did buy one. Um I do have to say I haven't been particularly happy with the some of the quality on it, as they the developers Griffin AeroTech decided to use the Sindang guns, which were uh created for home use, and they do not hold up very well at all for arcade use. But on top of that, uh it's not just that, it's that they they're horrible to calibrate, they lose their calibration all the time, and then recalibrating them is not easy. It's not like um most light gun games of the past where you just you know shoot the targets on the screen and it calibrates it for you, you have to go in and manually uh change numbers, and then even then it seems to not get it right. And uh, and then I've had to replace the guns multiple times and they break very easily. And so just if there's any indie developers that ever see this out there and you're thinking, hey, it'd be cool to make a light gun game, yeah, it'd be cool, but don't use any sort of tech that was designed for homes because it's not going to hold up under the physical abuse that light guns regularly get. This is a problem with VR too, that I know a lot of people in the VR side of things don't want to admit, but uh like when I saw the Arsenal come up with their guns where they could hang off the side, it was just like that is going to destroy the thing. And um, it did. Uh it's just it's a it's a bad idea to have something that isn't designed for this industry's physical abuse that happens, but anyways, um Griffin AeroTech is ending production and support for this game. Um, they also I I did unload a new software update to it. I haven't had a chance to really test it out yet and see if it makes the game more stable. It's been having a problem where it would crash in a lot of certain parts of the dungeon. And uh the problem with this, with both the hardware and the software being unreliable, is that I had a lot of people come to my arcade just to play this game. They were very interested in it because it carries such a name with it amongst uh console gamers. But uh because the experience was so poor, because the controls wouldn't work right, or because the game would crash or or the controls wouldn't work at all, um, a lot of people soured on it and I never saw them again. And uh that that didn't leave them with a favorable impression of the game either. And even if the a software update could improve it, they probably wouldn't come back just because it was like I had such a poor experience with this previously. And so it sucks, it really does. I I would really love to see somebody grab this and essentially resurrect it to fix it, like create uh more stable software that doesn't crash so often, but primarily software that supports industry-style guns. Like there is a company out at Taiwan called Zero Plus, and they've uh designed a gun system that's been used in various different modern arcade games, uh, or uh working with SUSO Hap or somebody who has experience in this thing uh to be able to release an updated version. Like I would pay for a conversion kit to essentially fix my gungeon if such a thing could exist. Um, but um chances of that, I guess, are pretty low. But uh yeah, that is the arcade news that we have this week. So, yeah, if you have a Enter the Gungeon game, then um keep that in mind, get it updated, and maybe buy some extra Sindon stuff uh to hold on the side. And uh that gets us covered for this week. We'll catch you on the next arcade corner as we'll probably have more stuff as we approach Amusement Expo International. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

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SPEAKER_02 52:55

All right, well, thanks, Adam, for that great rundown for this week. And you know what? We've got sound off, as I mentioned earlier, 109 with Kevin Williams coming out on Tuesday, February 10th. And then we also have several several Stinger reports coming out over the next two weeks. We've got one coming out this Tuesday on February 10th, also, then one also on Thursday, the 12th, and then one the following Tuesday, September or September, good grief, February 17th. So we do have multiple Stingers coming out with lots of great information. So if you aren't subscribed to the Stinger Report, go to LBX Collective.com, click on the Sting Report page, and go and put in your email address and subscribe, and that gets you all the good stuff that we send out on a regular basis. All right, well, that is a wrap for this week's LBX show. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking at the