Technology: Table manners
Pub games tables are back - and you can go for classic arcade games or, if you prefer, something more sophisticated, thanks to the latest digital technology.
Whatever happened to those old Space Invaders tables? The ones where you could sit and drink face-to-face with a mate and play games at the same time? They've mostly finished up in skips and on rubbish dumps. You can still find the odd one in a pub where, although no longer working, it's still used as a table.
But now, like any alien invaders worth their salt, games tables are back. Strictly known, confusingly, as "cocktail" cabinets, they are being built once more to the old specifications under the name Lizard Lounge by a company called Digital Tables.
After exhibiting earlier this year at the Pub & Bar show demand for the tables has outstripped the speed at which the company can make them - and they seem to be still popular among pub customers, too. Where they have already been installed, and the customer base is right, takings are £150 a week or more.
Digital Tables director Stephen Knipe believes the new opportunity for video game tables has arisen as a result of rising customer expectations. "The consumer has changed, they are looking for somewhere to drink that isn't choked to the gunnels with fruit machines. When a bar takes out machines it might gain in style but it loses machine income."
Stephen thinks the tables, which reproduce the former smoked glass tops and are finished in black and chrome, are the answer.
Digital Tables is making them in two versions. The Retro Table carries "old arcade classics" including Asteroids - but not Space Invaders. "It's too difficult to get the rights, but we don't mind as people play it for five minutes and that's it. It's boring," explains Stephen.
The other version has a touch screen and a more SWP-type content with quiz games. Both are a big step on from the original tables as they are based on the latest PC software.
Surprisingly for the company it's the Retro Table that has attracted most interest initially. It is in demand from pubs with a young, trendy student audience who like the quirky retro feel. "It's the quiz game machine that we believe has the wider appeal for pub-goers, though," says Stephen.
"The tables don't work in every kind of pub. The right pub is difficult to define but it will tend to be in the top 25 per cent of the market."
Business is Buzzing
Another entertainment innovation that seems to be catching the imagination is Buzztime, an interactive TV channel for pubs featuring networked games and quizzes.
Games are broadcast on the channel 14 hours a day, from 11am to 1am the next morning, and include quizzes and casino games and a "Big Game" every day at 7pm, inviting customers to test their knowledge against other pubs in the network.
Currently completing a successful trial in a dozen pubs it will be launched to the trade early in August.
