Los Angeles.- 03 de Octubre del 2011 . www.zonadeazar.com As the trial surrounding Michael Jackson’s death gets underway, Las Vegas is about to make a revelation of its own: A Michael Jackson slot machine, to be unveiled next week.

It’s just a coincidence that the release of the Michael Jackson King of Pop slot game on Tuesday is occurring along with the trial of the performer’s physician, Conrad Murray, who’s charged with involuntary manslaughter in Jackson’s death, said a spokesman for Bally Technologies.

The Los Angeles trial, exposing stark details of Jackson’s last moments, began this past week.

With iconic images of his sequined glove and dancing shoes, the Jackson slot machine exemplifies state-of-the-art gaming, with a surround-sound chair that even vibrates to the pop legend’s music, the manufacturer said. The machine also has four high-definition screens for wagering and displaying his videos such as “Beat It.”

A University of Nevada Las Vegas gaming analyst who reviewed the machine Friday predicted it is “going to be a popular game for a lot of people” — though it is “unfortunate” that the game is being unveiled during the manslaughter trial, the analyst said.

Another expert on Vegas gaming noted how slot machines are programmed to guarantee a return for casinos. “Slot machines generally speaking are the most profitable for the casino, and they are the most cynical in their design,” said Marc Cooper, an associate journalism professor at the University of Southern California and author of “The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas.”

“That the manufacturers of these machines would extend the cynicism from math to popular icons should not be surprising to anybody,” Cooper said.

The Jackson game is being introduced Tuesday at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. Bally plans to show 150 games in total, with the Jackson slot machine among its top features, the firm said.

Bally executives said Saturday that the timing was accidental.

“We started the process about a year ago,” said Mike Mitchell, vice president of game design at Bally, adding that’s when the firm negotiated the licensing of Jackson’s music and videos with several parties, including Jackson’s family and estate.

The game will be in casinos by early 2012, he said.

Added Bally spokesman Mike Trask, referring to the manslaughter trial: “It’s a sad story for everybody. No matter what you think of Michael Jackson and what you think of everything going on, there’s no question that he was an amazing entertainer and he was an icon of American pop culture. It’s going to be a fun and thrilling game that millions of players are going to enjoy playing all over the world.”

The game emphasizes an immersion experience in which players sit in a chair with Jackson’s music piped into speakers behind the headrest, and the tunes are intensified with subwoofers and thumpers, said Bally video game designer David Schultz.

The music list is composed of six songs: “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Bad,” “Dirty Diana” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” according to Bally.

The game is designed so that during bonus rounds, Jackson’s sequin glove shows the player where to touch the screen to spin a gaming wheel, designed like an album, to try to win a credit, Bally spokesmen said.

A celebrating Jackson also moonwalks across the screen and gives the player wild symbols, spokesmen said.

The game targets people who grew up to MTV and recall Jackson’s original videos, Bally executives said.

“These were groundbreakers, and they still hold up,” said Bally game producer Chris Guerrero about the Jackson videos. “It’s amazing to watch them each and every time.”

Said Trask: “The person who was 18 when ‘Beat It’ came out is now 40 and now has more discretionary income and is excited about this game.”

The minimum bet is 40 cents, with a maximum of $4, Bally officials said. Because the game will be networked with other Jackson machines across Nevada — a so-called wide-area progressive game — the jackpots will start at $750,000 and extend into the millions, Bally officials said.

Mitchell deemed the game a “blockbuster.”

“We think the Michael Jackson brand, along with the energy and entertainment value, combined with the jackpot, will give us a huge hit,” Mitchell said.

David G. Schwartz, director of the center for gaming research at University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said the game is being rolled out just as the global audiences are watching the televised manslaughter trial and learning the stark circumstances of Jackson’s death. Jackson died at age 50 in 2009 of an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol, in combination with sedatives.

“It’s kind of unfortunate because there’s people talking about the last hours of Jackson’s life,” said Schwartz, “but I don’t think there’s too much they can do about the timing of it because of the expo next week.”

Schwartz tested the game Friday at Bally’s invitation, he said.

“I’ve never seen anything that integrates that kind of video content right into the game,” Schwartz said. “It’s just a fun game because you basically got Michael Jackson, the music and the dancing that is part of the game. That’s why I think it’s going to be a popular game for a lot of people.

“It has an ‘immersive’ aspect that is coming out in a lot of games now,” said Schwartz, who reviews gambling trends for Las Vegas publications and on his blog and dgschwartz.com website.

Fuente: CNN

Editó: www.zonadeazar.com @_fonta

Las Vegas .- 03 de Octubre del 2011 www.zonadeazar.com A few days before the big reveal at G2E, I got an invite to swing by Bally Technologies’ HQ across from the airport to get a sneak peek at what’s going to be new for 2012. I jumped at the chance, and after the jump I’ll share what I saw.

While I was cooling my heels in the reception area, I played Cash Wizard, a game that’s been out for a few months. It’s fast-paced, with a ton of bonus rounds–I played through at least $300 in credits during my time there and got to see several. My favorite played Pilot’s “Magic” while the bonus reels were spinning. Good licensing there, since just about everyone knows that song. Well, everyone who’s old enough to gamble. And, I as I learned on YouTube, a Selena Gomez cover has introduced the song to a whole new generation.
Back to the slots. I spent most of my time with four machines. The first was a new Betty Boop model, Fortune Teller, which had a bunch of fun bonuses, including Palm Reader, which lets the player put their hands on the iDeck interface before “reading their fortune.” I can see this one being pretty popular.
If you haven’t seen the iDeck, it basically replaces the button pad (the space where you hit the buttons that activate the reels) with a touchscreen that lets you do several things. In regular gameplay, you use it to select credits, etc, but in bonus rounds it becomes an extra screen, showing content and letting you interact with the bonus.
The next was Total Blast, one of the first games to use Bally’s U-Shoot mechanics. Essentially, U-Shoot turns the iDeck into a controller for a video game within the bonus round. Tapping the iDeck sends up a “plasma cannon” (definitely not “photon torpedo”) blast that shoots down the spaceships (with oversized guns that look suspiciously like warp nacelles to me)that are flying horizontally across the screen, Space Invaders style. I can definitely see this one appealing to people who came of age in the early 1980s.
Bally’s has two big licensed properties coming out in 2012. The first is a slot machine based on Grease. When I toured the facility back in April, design team Alpha Team Four was still working on the game, so I got to see it as a work in progress, without much of the content added. I thought it was pretty neat then, and seeing what they’ve added, I’m even more impressed. The game is a lot deeper than many of the other licensed titles I’ve seen, with tons of clips from the movie. Here’s an example of one of the bonus rounds:
http://youtu.be/y0i91FR1uoE
Grease really isn’t my thing, but I can see how it would strongly appeal to a certain demographic. I think this is going to be a successful title. It’s the first game that John Travolta’s given his permission to use his likeness, so hope still flickers that one day we’ll see that Battlefield Earth slot machine. Grease is a wide-area progressive that should be showing up in lots of casinos next year.
The real star of the show, however, is going to be “Michael Jackson: King of Pop,” another wide-area progressive (top jackpot starts at $750,000) that I think is poised to become the next “Wheel of Fortune.” I don’t say that lightly, but between the immersive gameplay and the cachet of Jackson himself, this is going to be a huge, huge title.
When I first heard “Michael Jackson slot machine” I wasn’t that impressed. Like the Sinatra machine, it seemed like a way of putting a popular singer’s name on a machine. Sinatra at least had some connection to gambling thanks to his long career playing in casino showrooms, but Michael Jackson? It just didn’t seem like a fit.
I was wrong. I think this is the machine people will be talking about at G2E, and I think it’s going to be an incredibly popular game.
First of all, the licensed content is incredible. They’ve got about five of Jackson’s most popular songs in the game, including “Beat It,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Dirty Diana,” “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough,” and “Billie Jean.” When you’re sitting in the surround-sound chair, the music is absolutely enveloping.
Second is the way that the game integrates the music and video and Jackson into the gameplay itself. Here’s the “Beat It” Bonus round:
http://youtu.be/jEZk7pI0KS4
Go ahead and play it. As you can see, MJ actually becomes part of the game, with video footage seamlessly integrated into the bonus round. He’s an integral part of the game, too, since when you see him you know something good is about to happen.
Adding the surround-sound chair to the mix just makes it incredible. It probably helps that I had game producer Chris Guerrero demo the game for me, but I think the appeal of this one is going to be pretty obvious. It might become the “Wheel of Fortune” of the 2010s.
At the very least, I’m predicting this will be the big story coming out of G2E’s expo floor. I hope I’m able to snag a seat at one of these during the show and try out some of the other features.
Going back to casino design, I think games like this, American Idol, Star Trek, and others are going to be taking up bigger and bigger pieces of the casino floor. As branding becomes more important and you have more casual visitors to casinos, it’s easy to see that a game like this is going to have an appeal that, say, Double Diamonds doesn’t.
I remember that a few years ago licensed properties were on the decline, but I think that they’re back in a big way. I’m looking forward to seeing what other manufacturers roll out at G2E. I’m planning to do a quick “report card” that shows what I think of what each one has on display.
This year, like last, I expect traditional game cabinets to be only part of the story, with mobile and Internet gaming taking up progressively more space.
Fuente: ratevegas.com
Editó: www.zonadeazar.com @_fonta