Record Turnout Marks 7th Big Buck Hunter Championship In Minneapolis Play Mechanixs Petro Discusses Future Of Arcade Gaming

MINNEAPOLIS -- The 7th Annual Big Buck World Championship late last year was an unqualified success, according to sponsor Play Mechanix. The recent event, staged Oct. 24-25 at the Pourhouse bar and restaurant here, saw competitors from across the country and around the world compete for sizable prizes. It drew roughly 700 people, including players and spectators.

"We were thinking about where we were going to go this year, and since Minnesota is the No. 1 state for the number of [Big Buck] units, it seemed natural," said Play Mechanix founder and president George Petro. "Then we scouted venues. We know what we want these days, and the Pourhouse set up nicely."

The Pourhouse, which offers food, drink, and live music, provided not only the requisite space, but also a light atmosphere that blended nicely with the coin-op competition. With regular events such as "Cheap Ass College Night" and a DJ'ed fête, with live music, called The Sh*tshow on weekends, the venue represented a good match with the Glen Ellyn, IL-based videogame company.

Aiding with the contest organization were Dean Vending and American Amusement Arcades in Minneapolis, along with Lieberman Cos. in nearby Bloomington. The event featured an assortment of games from Play Mechanix and Innovative Concepts in Entertainment (ICE) that were set up to mimic a miniature FEC, called "Arcade Alley," to entertain players and onlookers.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

While this effort was aimed directly at players, there was also a renewed push to engage operators in the competition through online promotions, as well as giveaways. Operators could earn points for each qualifying player they enrolled in the competition. Those points, when added up, could be redeemed for things like free service, replacement guns and T-shirts, among other items and prizes. There was also an operator raffle, with the winner receiving a new Big Buck HD game unit.

"My goal is to engage the operator. We need operators to take the product and rally around it," said Petro. "The guys who put effort into it do well with the product. There is no easy path with this stuff. If you want to be successful, you have to put energy into it."

The promotional effort continued straight through to the tournament with a steady stream of social media output by way of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a YouTube channel. All this was coordinated by the company's social media director. There was also a live stream on Twitch.tv, the premier platform for streaming videogame competition. And if that sounds like a hopelessly niche, small-time website, it should be noted that Twitch was acquired by Amazon this past August for more than $900 million. Play Mechanix also posted a replay of the livestream of the competition on its own YouTube channel. See video recordings at the end of this article.

"We did the livestream last year, but it was a test run," Petro explained. "This year we bumped up the production quite a bit. And we had 9,000 viewers on Twitch with an average view time of 26 minutes, which is excellent."

As Petro said, the lighthearted tone of the event is a critical factor. While some videogame competitions have become do-or-die contests with all the seriousness of a chess match, the annual Big Buck promotion remains a fun event. "One of the things you find when you come to our event is that it isn't a bunch of guys focused on videogames," he said. "There are guys and gals there, it's a coed event. We like to have a good time with it. This is just for fun. We don't take it too seriously." And, apparently, neither do the players and their supporters, some of whom have taken to wearing unconventional hats and uniforms.

FUN, FUN, FUN!

As Petro sees it, the key to a videogame competition is to make it a social event. This makes sense, as it not only mirrors the communal spirit that coin-op always has inspired in bar and tavern locations, but also provides the human interaction not found in mobile apps, however popular those apps might be.

"This tells us that playing games in a social setting is valuable," Petro said. "But you have to build these events. Some operators do a great job with it. We publicize all kinds of promotions and events through the online system, and we assist if an operator wants to design a special promotion. The bottom line is that promotion works. If you build it, they will come."

Play Mechanix Inc. has created more than 40 arcade videogames since 1995. It merged with Raw Thrills, another coin-op game studio, in 2006. In addition to the Big Buck Hunter series, the company's products include Dirty Driving, Terminator Salvation and Super Bikes.

Big Buck World Championship 2014 (Day 2) »