Avengers assemble

20 June 2017

By Frank Scoblete

I am sitting at a slot machine lazily hitting the credits/spin button, not particularly paying attention, not even hearing the muted echo of today’s simulated sounds of coins and music.

This is routine slots play. I am almost not thinking, being lost in some altered state of consciousness; which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this exciting and exacting world in which we all live.

Suddenly I hear a whirring sound; I feel a tug on my whole body – and then I am sucked into a different machine, one I had not seen before. I mean I am sucked right into the machine. I am now a part of the machine! I am part of the game. An interior part; not just some lazy, half dreaming guy sitting and facing some slot machine and hazily wondering if something will heat up or what I will order for dinner. Or whatever.

But now my world has been turned inside out. I’m inside, not just outside. What the heck is happening to me?

What game am I in? Oh, man, I am a part of the Avengers in the new Mighty Avengers slot machine. This is called an interactive game on an interactive machine. What the heck does that mean? Doesn’t a player interact with every machine he plays?

No, this is different. I am part of the machine. What game am I in? What control do I have of this game – if any control at all?

Oh, my word, there is Thor – the Mighty Thor – motioning me to join the Avengers in their war against Thor’s greatest enemy Loki, the Norse god of mischief, and a whole bunch of other misshapen Marvel Comics’ villains.

Oh, man, over there is the Hulk, looking really big, really strong and really mean; and Iron Man and Captain America and the Black Widow and Hawkeye and me! We are the Avengers. I am an Avenger. And I am taller than Ant Man!

I get to make decisions as to what superpowers I will have. If I want to fly and have great speed and amazing strength I pay “X” amount to play; if I only want to fly, I play less. The idea is that I pay to play however I want my play to be. I’ve gotten the powers I’ve paid to enjoy.

I am voted the leader of the team. I make the decisions of whether we go directly after Loki or start taking out members of his villainess cohorts. Sometimes we nail them and they die (or disappear); sometimes we miss and my credits are lost on that decision.

These supervillains are tough to beat. I can see that over time I will wind up losing in my efforts to protect earth (or my city or hotel or this magazine) from being overrun by the meanies but I can’t resist the fight. “Hulk, smash that ugly beast over there!” “Hulk smash! Beast dead.” My machine registers some more credits.

Sometimes I win the day in a big way. The credits come pouring in. If I quit now I have saved the world!

Of course, at this moment in real time, I will not be sucked into the machine to fight alongside my fellow superheroes or be a shepherd protecting my sheep against wolves or be a werewolf trying to defeat my curse during the full moon. Those machines are not yet out there.

But that doesn’t mean the forerunners of such machines are not at this very second (maybe) being sent to a casino near you (fellow Avenger).

These new interactive forerunner machines – with you inside them (well your picture at least) – incorporate you into the very fabric of the game. One of the first to be revealed is a machine titled TMZ after the television show of the same name.

The TMZ machine (created by slot giant IGT) takes your picture and puts you into the game as one of the symbols – in fact, even the background of the game might show a picture of you. Now that is somewhat interactive. Hey, spin some pictures of your face on a line and you could win a bundle (or get sick of seeing yourself).

Yes, even more interactive games are being developed — games similar to my fantasy Avengers machine, where you are in the game and able to actually make decisions that move the game along. In such machines you will not be just another pretty face.

So why are slot manufacturers going in this direction? Take a look at anyone under 55 years old and ask yourself the question: What have many of these folks been doing ever since their childhood years? Playing video games where they are part of the action.

Certainly check out the under 40 crowd and you can see that the traditional slots don’t have the appeal of war games that can be played in the videogame world. If casinos want to continue to have slots as their explosive cash cow, they are going to have to bring in the crowd that literally wants to be a robo-slot-player as opposed to a passive viewer.

So my fellow Avengers, get ready to enter the machines in a very new way. Be prepared to fight villains and evil creatures. Be prepared to win money and have fun – or at least have fun.

Avengers assemble!


Frank Scoblete’s new books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, Confessions of a Wayward Catholic and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. Frank’s books are available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores. Visit Frank's web site at www.frankscoblete.com.