Monday, July 20, 2015

Microblog Mondays--Needs Improvement

I took Lotus to Chuck E Cheese for the first time today.  I had promised her Mommy and Lotus time and it seemed like a good idea.

And it was.

She played games and got four tickets from each game that had one.  Fine. Then after playing one for a few times she had a great game and really racked up the points. Over 300 points. I wondered how many tickets she was going to get.

Four.

The same as when she got 15 points.

This strikes me as pretty damn stupid.

Seriously, how do we show them that they get better if they get the same number of tickets for a shitty game as they get for an incredible game? I shook my head but thought maybe it was just in the little kid's section. Then we had Lotus' first experience with skee ball. It was like all of my experiences with skee ball except she is better at it than I am but we're both pretty crappy.

How many tickets did she get?
Four.
How many tickets did the skee ball hot shot get after a pretty amazing game?
Four.

Something seriously wrong with this picture.





6 comments:

  1. Haven't been to ChuckECheese in many years (my son and daughter are 30-ish). I recall spools of tickets spitting out when the higher points were reached. But I also remember a lot of dramatics over a kid having three times as many as others and how to "spend" the tickets. I suspect, though, that if the numbers of tickets being given out has been changed it has more to do with ChuckE wanting players to play more games, more often rather than avoiding guest dramatics.

    Still, a pretty good time.

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  2. I also wonder if it's how they set the machines because I know in other places, when I've had a great game, I get more tickets.

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  3. It could also have been a problem with that particular machine or bank of machines. I would have mentioned something to the management.

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  4. When we were living in NJ, they didn't allow tickets at all; I heard because that would be like gambling so they may have locked the games to 4 so they could win tickets, but not allow "gambling" -> set prize.

    We get different numbers of tickets here in MA depending on scores, so Bethy prefers to play here. (We still go to CeC.)

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    1. I doubt the reason is "no gambling" - skee-ball games on the OC NJ boardwalk (and the really tiny Avalon NJ boardwalk) tie the number of tickets to the score. Those machines have taken many of my quarters over the decades…

      I still vote for a malfunctioning machine.

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