In Japan, they’re called “UFO catchers,” possibly due to the fact that the thingy with the grabby bits is shaped like a UFO (pronounced “yuufo” in Japanese). Usually, the prizes are inexpensive plushies (and yes, I’ve got a bunch of those…is there anything WRONG with that?), but in Japan, they occasionally have more expensive prizes.
In the past two months, I’ve scored:
A Zippo lighter/anime keychain set, imprinted with the logo of Lupin III, list price around $100
A cold-cast porcelain statue of another anime character (the box had little cut-outs that the claw could snag) – $70 or so
Dragon Quest VIII (American series name: Dragon Warrior) $85
…and a bunch of little plushies and plastic figurines…collectively around $10, max.
I spent an average of 500 yen apiece getting the expensive stuff. So, around 15 dollars to get $250 of stuff. That’d be even cooler if I actually needed any of it…I don’t even smoke! :smack:
I have only tried one of those once, and I did get the little plush toy. They were removed for a time in this state by the way, as they were seen as illegal gambling devices.
In the fhe few I’ve seen in the US at malls, boardwalk arcades and such, even the “Grand Prize” is usually cheap trash, and the grabber claw will not latch onto anything beyond a certain size.
Ah, but the trick isn’t to pick up the thing, but to choose a prize close to the exit hole thingy and tip it in. The claw is usually not strong enough to actually grasp tight enough to carry.
The machines are the same, it’s just the choice of prizes that are different.
(and yes, there isn’t much to do in this town, how could you tell?)
I’ve never been good at those. Most of the ones around here have plastic partitions that block you from tipping things down the hole, so you have to lift them.
I won a turtle once though. When I was 9.
If you practice enough maybe you could make a living at it. Travel around finding easy claw machines and spending minimal money getting maximum prizes.
And if you got even better, you could start training a claw machine winning army…
I won the world’s niftiest plushy for twenty-five cents at Brookshire’s last week. It is an inexplicably Scottish dragon. I named him Angus and he sits on the arm of the couch watching me type.
My son, when he was about 5, got a Crash Bandicoot plush toy on his first try. Crash is still his all-time favorite video game character, so it was like winning the lottery for him. He carried that thing with him everywhere for a year before he finally decided it could stay at home without it getting lonely. He’d stick it inside the neck of his shirt with the head looking out so he’d have free use of both hands. It looked like he had two heads.
