Pokies and Slot Machine Information

Gaming expo exhibitor - pokies manufacturer Aristocrat

September 26, 2006 on 7:56 pm | In Australasian Gaming Conference |

Aristocrat was easily one of the largest vendors displaying its wares at the convention - and right inside one of the two entrances.

Exhibitor in a nutshell:
Display area : large.
Gaming machine selection : very large.
Staff knowledge/approachability : good-excellent.

We found the quality of the Aristocrat display to be every bit as good as that of the poker machines they create. From the wide range of machines to the obviously high number of staff present, there was no problem in having questions answered.

Linked Jackpot machines were set up so that they would be triggered every few spins on the demo machines, and there were some impressive new jackpot designs on display.

Artwork on the new games is fairly standard Aristocrat stuff - nice, clean, uncluttered matching graphics. Interestingly, though the game graphics were fairly basic, the company has gone all out in creating a 3d visual feast in the overhead plasma/LCD displays. Fully rendered 3D ‘movies’ provide immersive depictions of the jackpot storylines, from the Pharaohs sarcophagus in the “Pharaohs Fortune” linked jackpots to the soccer themed display of the “Golden Goals” jackpots.

It was not clear at the exhibition whether the latter jackpots will be available in Australia.

This particular exhibitor catered for several markets - Queensland, New South Wales, New Zealand and Macau amongst others. Different brochures were provided for each region.

New Zealand customers were able to see their new multigame Aristocrat products with full popup displays. The multigame units allow the player to select one of four games to play - simply by activating the touchscreen. This is a precursor to the new download technology, where players or venues will eventually be able to choose to play any game on any machine. The popup displays reveal player win/loss data as is now required by New Zealand legislation.

There were a few new games on display. Most were variations on existing games - new graphical themes with a free games feature borrowed from an earlier release. There is a lot of sense in this, the quality of the features in these games tends to be good.

Its also likely to be much easier to gain regulatory approval if you are just changing the theme rather than the structure of a game.

There were also some remade games - such as Peacock Magic. They provide updated graphics and sounds, but little else is new.

One innovative twist is the introduction of 5×5 reel pokies (5 images wide, 5 images high). These extra horizontal reels seem to be activated when you bet more. Its a new capability, but the images become quite small and the paylines hard to follow.

Aristocrat also demonstrated some ticket in ticket out (TITO) machines. These games accept cash and pay out in the form of barcoded tickets which can in turn be accepted by other machines or cashed in at the players discretion. TITO machines are rare to non-existent in some Australian States, but are extremely common in the US market.

Overall rating: 4.5 / 5 stars. Easy to recommend the pokies games for any venue.