Claw Machines Are Fun Now?
When I was little claw machines were tucked into the outer edges of the arcade or near the door of your favorite pizza place. You could just throw quarters into it hoping to win a really shitty stuffed animal or bouncy ball. You weren't going to win it though because the toys were all sitting against the glass walls of the machine where the claw arms couldn't reach. If you did manage to grab something the claw would just go limp and maybe lift it up in the air an inch or two before dropping the toy.
There were easier ones for kids with cheaper stuff in them. The ones filled completely with individually wrapped candy usually had a "play till you win" feature installed and some proper robot jaws to grab something. But for the real ones with real toys in them, you were just throwing your quarters away. They weren't fun to play. In all my years of playing on arcade and claw machines I've only managed to win once. It was a green and black alien zombie stuffed creature that weighed almost nothing.
But, what I didn't know is that claw machines have a counter in them. After a certain number of attempts, it will actually apply more force to the claws keeping a grip on it until it drops into the bottom. You don't know when that 4th or 8th attempt will be, but if you're lucky enough to make every single attempt count, you can win if you just keep trying. Mind blown.
Anyway.
Cut to the last few months and I have been putting on random background slop on Youtube in the living room. Just chill, no talking, no music, stuff where someone walks around a street in Japan for an hour. Or someone who goes to random food vending machines in Okinawa and tries them all so you don't have to, but doesn't say a word. Lately our favorite ones have been the Japanese claw machine arcade videos.
Japanese claw machines are an entirely different beast. They don't have a pile of $2 Aliexpress stuffed animals in them. They have collectible tins of cup noodles, Bandai model toys, the most random thing you can imagine but with Crayon Shin Chan on it, and my favorite: Onions. You know those are some good onions too.
If I were running an indoor farmers market I'd absolutely have a claw machine full of onions or sweet potatoes. Something that doesn't bruise. But back to the point here. These Japanese claw machine arcades have attendants who walk by and adjust the toys so you have a better chance of winning. Some machines have an elaborate setup designed to knock the item off a ledge or whatever to fall to the bin below. If someone wins it, the attendant comes by and resets it with a new item or adjusts it if you screwed the setup up with too many attempts.
But here is the kicker, the folks doing the claw machine videos will win after a few attempts. They show the prize in their hand with how much they spent attempting it and it's basically break even for buying it at a store. You just got to have fun doing it. The prizes are designed to be won, not eat your quarters or yen.
My youngest loves to watch the claw machine videos and has to attempt one in real life if we ever see one. She is always disappointed when the one at the laundromat or the pizza place doesn't pay out like the videos do. But then we found something fun. The mall near us has an entire store that's just Japanese style claw machines, with the attendant and everything.
So for her birthday we took her there. Instead of coins you buy a card as most arcades use these days. We loaded up fifty bucks on it and let her run around trying. The attendant told us we should let him know if we didn't win at least 5 items. You are guaranteed to win stuff because, you know, you paid for it. That's ten bucks a stuffed animal that are in no way worth $10 for the shop to buy, but the kids get to play and win and everyone is happy.
We let her walk around and pick which machines to play, she loves hello kitty so we won about 3 of those. We had plenty of attempts on our card and after about three tries if we couldn't get it the attendant would come by and stack it right next to the edge of the bin so you were guaranteed to get it. My daughter had a blast playing the "claw masheeeens!" for her birthday. We will absolutely go back next time we are at the mall.