Hello world and other fellow lurkers,

First I would like to state that introductions are not my strong point but after being just a random lurker for so long I decided that maybe I should be more active in the forums. My reasoning is at the most maybe I'll become a valued member of this community and at the very least earn some Viz to kill time at my current place of employment.

One of the things I always find interesting and a good ice breaker is to hear about a persons introduction into video games so I thought why not do that here.

Well, I go by the name sui online, as if my user name did not give that away. I was introduced to video games at a insanely young age, but unlike most people my introduction was at a time when console systems were still fairly rare and on a platform that many people did not have access to without spending quite a bit of cash. 

See, my family owned a arcade distribution company. In short they rented, sold, and ran amusement machines to and for individuals and businesses. Which to this very day I consider awesome. After taking full advantage of this for years I too became a part of my family's trade and discovered the evil behind the scenes truths behind arcade machines and their design.

I started off as a laborer, moving the machines to homes, movie complexes, corporate offices and even to porno shops. From there I moved up to a technician, then lead technician. Finally I moved on to game fabrication and design.

Then the game market began to die and I had to find work elsewhere,, where my skills could be put to good use but I still remember my roots  and made sure that new generations could have to some extent the same experiences I had as a child. I've dumped many roms, and will not say which ones, in hopes they could be made to work with the various emulators out there.

So here I am, saying hello for the first time and hopefully not the last.

Sui

Wow, you were born in the video games as I can see in your introduction

Anyway, hello Sui, nice to meet you and welcome to Vizzed Board.

Two questions I want to ask you, please: How did you find this website? What are your favorite games (if you have just one, it doesn't matter ^^ )?

I hope you will enjoy your stay, feel free to ask if you have any questions

I found this website awhile back when looking for some new on-line emulators. I have lots of favorites but I suppose Dangar is my all time favorite arcade game. For the Nes it would have to be "The Legend Of Zelda". I loved Chrono Trigger for the snes...Again though too many to name.

It does sound like you had a sweet job before, but... "evil behind the scenes truths of arcade games?" May I ask what you mean by that, or are you not in a position where you can say anything? Regardless of that, welcome to the Vizzed Board. We're glad you decided to join us. Here members like us can discuss practically anything that interests us. If you have any questions specifically about the Vizzed Board, feel free to send me a private message.

I refer to how they were design and implemented. Of course with many emulators now you can see how they were setup. Difficulty settings, maximum lives, continuation cost, and various other aspects of the games were fully controlled by the operators. These things most people are aware of but what most people don't know about were the percentage bases on crane machines or the cost per-unit for prize items. Some machines were directly designed to sub-consciously manipulate you into playing more. There is also the corporate aspect that was a huge contributor behind the fall of the arcade machines. Arcade machines are fun to play but sometimes with all the nostalgia we have for them people forget they were designed to make money, Take the current rise in popularity of video slot machines, which I sadly admit having far too much experience in building

With the current influx of video slot machines across the country most people don't know that the majority of these machines are not even allowed within casinos because they are not considered games of chance. These games are not based on odds but on percentages. That may seem strange but look at it like this,

Vegas Slot Machine:  1 - 1000 odds in winning the jackpot of a 1000 dollars.
 Video Slot Machine:  60% returned

Basically what this means when you play the Vegas slot machine you are not likely to hit that $1000 jackpot on the first spin, but there is a chance you could hit it 10 times or even a 1000 times in a row.

The Video Slot machine with return 60% of all money taken in back to the player. So if you put in a $100 , you will get $60 back. The way this is hidden is by the computer using the long terms totals for this calculation. In other words you are never competing with the "House" only with the other "Players". 

I know this isn't one of the "evil truths" of arcade machines that you were probably expecting but I've worked and operated so many various types of amusement machines that I don't really distinguish them by genre, Probably should have posted this in the proper section too.

Just wanted to intro myself having just moved from Gametap.  Wassssup everybody?