News

ICE Ships Hoop It Up In Full Ticket Ticket-Or-Ball Redemption Styles

CLARENCE, NY -- Innovative Concepts in Entertainment 's latest skill redemption game, Hoop It Up, is now shipping. "The project has been in our development pipeline for five years," said ICE president Joe Coppola. He recalled that some initial complexity had been overcome, and the company has since been fully focused on getting the game mechanically solid and perfecting the software. "Since February of this year, we have been testing minimally three units on location at a time," the ICE president ...

August 26, 2019

CLARENCE, NY -- Innovative Concepts in Entertainment's latest skill redemption game, Hoop It Up, is now shipping.

"The project has been in our development pipeline for five years," said ICE president Joe Coppola. He recalled that some initial complexity had been overcome, and the company has since been fully focused on getting the game mechanically solid and perfecting the software.

"Since February of this year, we have been testing minimally three units on location at a time," the ICE president continued. "More recently, we had as many as five units out, all performing reliably and all hitting some very good rankings in very good FEC locations around the U.S. and Canada. We are now 100% confident that we have a really great game here."

ICE explained that the first version of the game was previewed at industry trade shows as Wham-O. "But in our initial testing during the early part of 2019, we found lots of players did not initially understand the gameplay," Coppola reported. "At that point, we took a step back and made the decision to re-theme the game." The updated basketball concept very quickly caught on with the players and made the game much more intuitive. "They walked up and immediately understood the game," he said. Players were especially pleased by the ball launch and the gameplay, which requires trying to time the launch to get the ball through a moving hoop.

Hoop It Up will be offered in two versions, a full ticket redemption model and a unique ball merchandiser/redemption version. The second model allows for players who hit the Mega Bonus either to receive tickets or win a unique ball. Operators can choose between the two modes of play.

On both versions, players who miss the hoop and/or the mega bonus still win tickets depending on where the ball lands on the rotating playfield.

"The testing of this game over the last few months has seen some excellent results," Coppola emphasized. "The repeat play has been very strong, which is always a great indicator on a new game, and we're very excited to now be in production and shipping games."  

HOOP IT UP DEBUT: Innovative Concepts in Entertainment's new Hoop It Up game, which began as a prototype called Wham-O, has completed successful tests and is now shipping.