www.intergameonline.com MIDDLE EAST SPECIAL ISSUE APRIL 2010 ??

MIDDLE EAST SPECIAL ISSUE

ARACHNID hit the jackpot when it launched anew sports game, the Super Shuffle, and hasbeen running overtime and extra shifts on itsproduction line in the US ever since it began toship the game. Its sole distributor DianaMarketing from Spain sees the Middle East as anatural market for the product.

At DEAL this month, Nicholas Buckley fromDiana Marketing will bring information and DVDfootage to Dubai with the intention of presentingit to a primary market, the family entertainmentcentres owners who will visit the expo. “It is anatural for the Middle East,” said Nicholas.

“Everywhere you go in the region you see airhockey games in the big FEC locations. We seethe Super Shuffle as an exciting new concept inskill based sports games but with a much widerpotential."

Super Shuffle is a reality/virtual sports gamebased on the traditional shuffle games that usedto dominate American bars and arcades yearsago, with playfields up to 20ft long. The Arachnidversion, however, uses modern technology to bringthe game down to 6ft. A player will use a puck andslide it down the track to try and get it to stopbetween two lines in the target area. The otherplayer will use his puck to achieve the same objective

­ or better still, ‘knock off’ his opponent’s puck. It is allpicked up on a monitor and shown with greataccuracy according to the direction and speed of thepuck.

Points are scored for landing in the target zoneand/or for knocking off the opponent’s puck.

In some locations, tournamentswould be very appropriate andleagues – something whichArachnid with its long tradition ofhigh­quality soft­tipped dartsgames has great expertise. But inthe Middle East environment, it isan ideal fun game for all of thefamily.

Mohamed El Sawy, vicepresident of EngineeringConstruction Co. of Nasr City,Cairo, Egypt, has confirmed hisorder for the new Super Shufflegame from Diana Marketing. Thedeal was concluded at the IMAshow in Düsseldorf.

Sawy said that the game will gointo his Bounce bowling centre inCairo. “We have a sports theme toour coin­op at the location –

snooker, pool, air hockey, darts and now thiswelcome addition as many bowling centres areopening in shopping malls in Egypt”. Nicholas wouldbe delighted to meet with interested companiesduring his visit.

DIANA - HITTING THE JACKPOT

Mohamed El Sawy and Adrian Buckley

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T he optimum time for taking a newamusement­ only device into Germany maybe now, says Adrian Buckley. “Everyone is

always looking for something really different andwith Germany now getting towards the end of theprocess in re­equipping its AWP market, operatorswill seek something to supplement them.”

The Diana Marketing boss launched a prototypeof Arachnid’s Knockoff shuffleboard game at the FERshow in Madrid in September. Now production linemodels are just arriving, but the launch was sosuccessful in Spain that order books are alreadyoversubscribed. “We have consignments on thewater right now,” said Buckley, “so we hope to beable to deliver from stock very shortly.”

Arachnid has taken a traditional amusementtabletop sports game and transformed it intosomething really different and capable of beingoperated in a small area. The playfield issurmounted by a large monitor. The player uses areal puck to slide down the playfield towards targetareas at the end of the runway and his results arereplicated on the monitor.

“Germany is ideal,” continued Buckley. “Themarket there loves sports games; it is perhaps oneof the few non­gambling areas which has expandedin Germany in recent years. The success ofelectronic darts, pool, air hockey and table soccer inGermany illustrates my point. And players inGermany are often grouped into teams and leagues.The new game lends itself perfectly to that kind ofoperation.”

The Barcelona­based Diana Marketing is theEuropean distributor for Arachnid and continues tomajor on the American company’s iconic electronicdarts games. The arrival of a totally new product for

Arachnid has created a real stir at itsSpanish agent. Buckley’s son,Nicholas, has been to the USfactory for an extendedfamiliarisation programme and isnow Diana’s ‘Mr Shuffle’ incharge of technical services, andwill handle marketing on thenew game.

Since the prototypelaunch in Madrid, newgames have beenloaded into KnockoffShuffle, including CrazyShuffle where the puckdisappears down any of aseries of ‘virtual’ holes toscore a point. The virtualholes move around atrandom with each round. There is also a tenpinbowling game. Any of the games can be played byone or two players – the single version against themachine – and top scores are registered in thesoftware. The week’s top 10 players in any locationare shown on a list that is then uploaded to create adatabase for a national event.

In Düsseldorf, Knockoff Shuffle will be shown onthe stand of Bally Wulff Entertainment and onDiana’s own booth. At the London EuropeanAmusement Expo, the week after IMA, the gamewill be on the stand of Sound Leisure.

At just 6ft long – the traditional wooden­basedshuffleboard games can be 20ft long – KnockoffShuffle offers something really different andBuckley believes firmly that Düsseldorf will providethe ideal launch pad for the new product.

Adrian Buckley (right) with son Nicholas.

The new Knockoff Shuffle game.

Diana Marketing -the time is right

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EEn DIANA MARKETINGadoramos la competi-ción –comenta AdriánBuckley– y hace muy

poco que hemos vuelto de Ja-pón, de Osaka, de una fase denuestro Campeonato de Dardosque continuará en Las Vegas, enChicago y después en Europa,donde en Holanda creo que po-dremos ver un encuentro de ma-ravilla. Eso supone miles de ju-gadores y también cientos denuestras Dianas, que ponemosnuevas para cada ocasión, ma-nejando cifras económicas muyconsiderables. Pero es que lacompetición también tiene toda

su emoción en lo pequeño y, porejemplo, acabamos de celebrarun torneo de ‘Knock Off’ en unbar de Cataluña con 16 jugado-res en el que había más de 40personas como espectadores yha sido una verdadera gozada”.

Y es que es verdad que los juegosde DIANA MARKETING son juegosde campeonato a cualquier escala:“Knock Off” es una pequeña pistasensible de alta tecnología para lan-zar discos deslizantes cuya trayecto-ria queda registrada en la pantallafrontal del modelo que es un comple-to ordenador que recoge además dela trayectoria y situación de cadalanzamiento, los datos de cada juga-

dor y los cuadrantes completos de lapartida. Es un juego deportivo apa-sionante para probar el pulso y lapuntería que DIANA MARKETINGha perfeccionado en su formato yfuncionamiento electrónico hastaconvertirlo en un elemento ideal pa-ra zonas de ocio y establecimientosde hostelería. Y sus posibilidades sonilimitadas al poderse conectar conWIFI para celebrar ligas o torneos enconexión desde cualquier punto.

Es una gran oportunidad que seune a las Dianas de la empresa que conmodelos como “G-2.5” y “G-2.5 WM” pa-ra pared o con peana y con dardos plás-ticos o de tungsteno, ofrece las mejoresoportunidades para el subsector.

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Divertirse y competir es la fórmula de éxito que DIANA MARKETING llevapor todo el mundo con sus juegos y los nuevos modelos expuestos en la Feria

JUEGOS DE CAMPEONATO

No hay que ser un campeón para disfrutarplenamente con las Dianas Arachnid o con elincreíble modelo “Knock Off” de lanzamiento defichas de DIANA MARKETING, pero estos juegossí pueden crear campeones gracias al espíritu

competitivo que define la vocación de estaempresa, con el que constantemente organizatorneos con miles de participantes. Y la calidadde los modelos garantiza que cada jugador puedadesarrollar siempre sus mejores cualidades.

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