55 minutes ago, Spotty said:

It also doesn't help that it's a pain to operate, and the ropes that are used are so fiddly that it greatly increases the load / unload time of the ride haha. Was prob my least favourite kids ride to operate in the park. Tweety and Pounce and Bounce were the 2 best IMO

Pretty sure they got rid of the ropes a while back, much to the delight of all the WB Kids' attendants 

3 minutes ago, GoGoBoy said:

Pretty sure they got rid of the ropes a while back, much to the delight of all the WB Kids' attendants 

Hmmm... I hope for everyone's hands that they did haha. 

The First Aid Centre has been moved to Intencity at the back of the park, and apparently the former First Aid building will be extended for the Arcade

Current state of the soon-to-be arcade building

Edited May 29, 20241 yr by Tricoart

Once again: 

Be interested to see what they do on this side and hopefully they fix up that damage to Tweety’s cage theming 

The arcade officially opened today

Photos: Jaggs Journeys

It looks alright for an arcade, only thing I would say is they should've had a door facing Kids WB but otherwise an alright job, nothing too bad

Popped in today and had a look. 
Decent array of machine - probably about 30 - all new so not ones that have been moved from the previous arcade or elsewhere 

pricing is a little crazy. Every game costs 12 credits. I’ve attached pricing in the photos 

Considering Timezone has their prices at around 2.50 iirc for non VIPs, 10 games for 35 seems a bit steep. Also, 35x3 is 105, so its an extra $15 for 3 lots of tokens.

The different pricing options seem purposefully made to confuse buyers, which is great for making money at an Arcade, but not for a whole lot else. Like:

• Why does a $70 'Bugs Bundle' get you 240 tokens, but a $50 'Tweety Treat' get you 336?
• Why is the only 'Bugs Bundle' that doesn't give more than a 1:4 ratio for dollars:tokens the $200 dollar one? 
• In the 'Tassie Tornado' option, what are 'Yellow & Green Card Reader Games', and what aren't? 
• What is the 'Road Runner Rush' option for, especially when the $12 only has a 1:3 ratio, meaning you'd get 3 arcade games at $4 a piece?

I don't know how much of this is commonplace for Arcades and how much is specifically VRTP pricing, but having all these manipulative ways of misleading those who aren't paying enough attention (like, maybe the kids who will be the main audience at a pokies arcade) out of as much money as possible, is the exact reason I steer clear of them in general.

Edited October 19, 20241 yr by Tricoart

Arcades are designed to rip people off, so of course when you mix that with a theme park of course it was going to be stupidly price. They’ve got to pay for that shiny new building somehow.

It is shiny.

12 credits is also such a random number  to choose as the base cost. I mean why not 10 and keep it all even? Hell, it’s all digital so why not just make it 1 or 2 credits? 

Also, why are they using "prize points" instead of carrots?

45 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

12 credits is also such a random number  to choose as the base cost. I mean why not 10 and keep it all even? Hell, it’s all digital so why not just make it 1 or 2 credits? 

Again, manipulation. Makes it harder for guests to see exactly how much each arcade game costs them, and makes the number of ‘game tokens’ significantly higher.

2 hours ago, Tricoart said:

having all these manipulative ways of misleading those who aren't paying enough attention (like, maybe the kids who will be the main audience at a pokies arcade) out of as much money as possible, is the exact reason I steer clear of them in general.

 

On 19/10/2024 at 6:13 PM, Tricoart said:

In the 'Tassie Tornado' option, what are 'Yellow & Green Card Reader Games', and what aren't? 

Presumably when you're standing in the arcade, that will be a bit more obvious - but anyone familiar with Timezones in the past decade would understand the card readers are different colours - usually games that have actual prizes in them (like claw machines) will be a different colour to games that spit out "tickets" and again different to those that are just an experience like racing car games.

When selling an 'unlimited' package, you don't really want people to be able to play the shit out of your claw machines which are typically geared to pay out every X number of plays, so those packages only include a limited number of plays, so you can't essentially 'brute force' a prize by playing it non stop without actually covering the cost of the prize inside.

On 19/10/2024 at 6:13 PM, Tricoart said:

What is the 'Road Runner Rush' option for, especially when the $12 only has a 1:3 ratio, meaning you'd get 3 arcade games at $4 a piece?

yeah see I think this is the option many parents would opt for with multiple kids. Drop $50, give 4 kids a card each and off they go, thinking "shit, 36 tokens should keep them busy for a while" only to have them back inside of 5 minutes with all their money gone. I think there's going to be a lot of pissed off parents when they find out those 36 tokens only bought 3 games. 

Yes, for the price you'd expect somewhere around 4-5 games for that price, and it is a theme park so its not ludicrous for the price to be bumped a little - I just think the '12 credits per game' price is a bit misleading. The $35 bugs bundle seems like it'd be a good middle ground, and 120 tokens sounds like the kids will run off some steam - then you figure out its only 10 plays and you feel a little ripped off. 

The psychology is understandable - it'd be a bit crap to advertise "3 games for $12!" but at least it's honest. I feel like for many people this will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of families. 

On 19/10/2024 at 6:37 PM, themagician said:

They’ve got to pay for that shiny new building somehow.

What was wrong with the arcade building they already had? /s

 

I also noticed in the JJ video from last night that they're all prize and ticket games, no story games. Which probably doesnt make monetary sence that much unless you want to keep paying out, unless the cost was based off upfront pricing where they're a bit more. But that also means you're done alot quicker and feeling a bit more ripped off.

56 minutes ago, jjuttup said:

Which probably doesnt make monetary sence that much unless you want to keep paying out

Prize and ticket games are programmable. there's rarely luck involved. each machine is cailbrated to pay out a certain amount of prize or ticket based on how many plays, or how much it costs to play. the value of what you win will always be covered by the cost to play. 

No story games kind of makes sense - you can typically play these in any arcade. Having prizes that are 'exclusive' to the park means the experience (even if its the same type of game you see on Cavill) is something you can only get in the park.

4 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

What was wrong with the arcade building they already had?

I’ve been wondering the same thing, but also, what was wrong with the existing first aid building? Because they essentially just swapped locations!

There is a chance that building was having issues and needed to be removed and it did also mean they would finally remove the thatched huts. But was it all necessary?

Don’t get be wrong, the new building looks pretty decent (don’t love the colour scheme, but that’s a personal preference) and having an arcade next to the kids area is likely going to bring in a greater return for the park. But I’d argue that money could’ve been used a lot better to build a new kids ride or use those funds to go towards refurbishing the entire kids area because right now it’s very tired.

the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the intencity building is right next to the parade entry, which essentially means big vehicles (like fire trucks and ambulances) would enter the park there. 

The old first aid building was landlocked. there's no way to get a patient out of the park without wheeling them back through guests, or admitting an ambulance into the park. Neither of these are a good idea, so it kinda makes sense to put first aid there. The rest of the building could still have stayed an arcade. Probably doesn't get the foot traffic that main street \ wb kids does though...

Looking at the photos there, the exterior actually looks kinda cool. The interior does look a bit bare and feels a bit like they put too much effort to the exterior and not interiors. Let's hope the arcade can bring at least some revenue to keep the rides up at least.

The main reason for it would be accessibility. The old building backed onto the stunt show stage so there was no direct ambulance access in the event one was needed. The current location backing onto the service road means that an ambulance can be hidden from view if needed and can get a patient out of the park in a much quicker manner. 

I agree with you Spotty.  Good businesses are always reviewing how they work and what can be improved.

19 hours ago, Spotty said:

The main reason for it would be accessibility. The old building backed onto the stunt show stage so there was no direct ambulance access in the event one was needed. The current location backing onto the service road means that an ambulance can be hidden from view if needed and can get a patient out of the park in a much quicker manner. 

This is correct accessibility played a part however the arcade was in the mix well before First Aid was even considered being moved. The arcade was originally an Intencity project that was being scoped post pandemic. However its my understanding Intencity dropped it, the site sat dormant longer than originally anticipated and the project was pick up by VRTP as a capex project. The scope then grew to encompass the relocation of First Aid with improved facilities/services, an indoor ambulance bay and new BOH space/offices for other shared services for the parks.