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Here's some information on claw, also called crane, machines. Did you ever play one of those games to try to win a plush toy, only for the prize to tumble out of the claw at first grasp, or even outright drop it halfway up? Think you just didn't play well enough? Maybe the machine just decided to make you lose by randomly reducing claw power. Here's more information . Via Dubious Quality, although I did page through a few manuals on my own....Some months ago (before the linked article and video were published) I binged on reading claw and crane game manuals online, in order to write a post on claw games that cheat. I didn't make the post back then because with everything I did, I felt it fell too far under the category of my own work. I have been waiting for someone else to write an article on this so I could present my own findings, some of which I present below.If you want to see the adjustments for cheating in claw game manuals with your own eyes, follow the links below and be prepared to search, as they're not always easy or obvious to find. When looking through crane game manuals and sifting through material like maintenance and pricing information, it helps to look for the Adjustments sections. Be on the lookout especially for settings that say "bonus power," "win percentage," or "games to win," it is generally difficult to implement win reflexing functions with confidence without sometimes monkeying around with claw power during play.) Description of Main Functions: Weak Claw Control: "If the Rate of Weak Claw Happening = Controlled Times/Controlled Base = 1/5, there is one chance of weak claw happening in every five times game. When it's controlled by weak claw power, the claw has not enough power to grab toy, and the players can't catch it. In the other four times, the claw will grab up the toy firstly by strong power, then change to weak power according to the set time and the toy will fall unconsciously, thus to tempt the players to try more times.") Contains an "auto-percentaging" mode that monkeys with the crane power to manipulate how often the game is won. The operator specifies a percentage from 20 to 50 percent; if the game hasn't been won enough to match that percent, then the claw will be at full strength more often, and if it's been won more than the target percentage, it'll be at full strength less often. See page 13 of manual. This kind of feature is common in these machines; I've even seen one manual that lets operators randomly drop prizes -- sorry, activate low power -- while the claw is on its way up, but lost the link to it. (Aside: In pinball, these kinds of techniques are used to dynamically adjust extra ball and replay difficulty over many games. But of course, pinball is a much more dynamic game that can change in complex ways over time, and there are usually no prizes.)This option is for adjusting the game payout and sets the Average Games played per Prize Won. The game sets the game difficulty to achieve a player win ratio that will average very close to the (AGW). Example an AGW setting 20 means on average a prize will be won for every 20 games played. The setting is adjustable from 1 to 200. With adjustment from 1-30 in steps of 1 and from 30-200 in stepsof 5. The default setting is 10, or one win every 10 Games which suitable for $4 Plush on $0.50 per play." Page 25, Setting P09, "Average Games Per Win (AGW)") "This Feature will allow you the operator to choose the amount of game plays until you want the claw to receive full strength. When set to (0), full power will only be received every 256 times. Factory default is (10)" Page 3, Inner Value, Item 9, "Number of times for claws’ strong power given as bonus." Note, the "bonus power" is typically necessary in order to win. No information is given in the manual for the effects of the default setting of 10.) This manual doesn't describe the effects of many settings, and so doesn't have such an overt smoking gun in the text. It does, however, list as one of its adjustments "Games To Win," and does carefully explain how to set two power levels for the crane: "STD Power," which should be just enough to pick up a "Plush Prize," and "Minimum Power," which should cause it to drop. Claw setting instructions are on page 17.) This manual is full of engrish. The adjustments on page 9, which talk about how to set up the claw so that it automatically figures out how much reduced claw power causes it to drop a prize, is kind of interesting.