NEW 1st Killer Queen in TEXAS!

CPJoe

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For the past year I've been begging the owner of Pinballz to bring a Killer Queen arcade to Texas. That day is now here! I've followed in the footsteps of blkdog7 down to Logan Arcade and met with the scene in Chicago and caught the bug! I've met in person with Nik Mikros, one of the game's creators, and have an ongoing dialogue with the Chicago scene to make sure we are off to a good start and to apply the lessons learned from other scenes.

I've had the rare pleasure of seeing the game unboxed (pictures in the link below) when it arrived 2 days ago and have started a Facebook page to document building this community from the ground up. The success and performance of this game will rise and fall based on the support of the local community. If you'd like to follow our adventures and see this community grow right at the start, follow us on Facebook! Also if you're in Texas, you are IN, and want to get involved with the scene, hit me up on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/killerqueenatx/

^Details on BumbleBash I, the National Killer Queen Tournament, at the Belmont, in Austin, Texas, November 4th and 5th also in the link above!
 

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Let me know when you come down! Happy to get your team all setup and pull in challengers. It's only 8 min from my house LOL

Tell all your friends in College Station to follow us on FB!
 
My 8 year old son was hooked on this game at CAX this year. Looks fun.

Are they readily available to purchase?
 
You send an email to [email protected] apparently.
Pro level stuff.

No distributors.
No published collection reports.
No clear support channels.

If they had proper distro channels, it might
even have had a chance.

It used to be this way. I don't know if you saw the Raw Thrills logo on the side art, but the game is now produced by RT. Available through Betson.
 
Killer-Queen-image.jpg
 
Gameplay looks fun. One article quoted pricing @ $11,000 for base model and $15,000 for higher end version. Yikes.
 
Believe me, we are on a short leash with this game due to the revenue sharing agreement Pinballz has with Betson and the high price of the game. Owner wants this game to produce NOW hence my *motivation* to get the word out.

The first night we had a solid crowd for 2+ hours of nonstop play to it can produce but the task before me and the FB group to ramp up the local community so it can deliver consistent revenue and have anchor people there each FRI/SAT night to pull people in.

After a while the Chicago folks and game creators promise we won't need to "seed" the game once it catches on, but I'm hacking through the weeds right now waiting for the bulldozer to follow.

I'm already on the discussion with the Pinballz staff about league nights, local tournaments, and Nationals coming to Austin, but we need the game to produce by the community.
 
game is now produced by RT. Available through Betson.

OK now we're talking.
Missing such links on their website, both the devs and the distro.

I could buy 2 pacman royales for what KQ costs, so I would want
to see how it holds up against that title and others, and trend
that for a couple months. New games always attract attention
at first, but can it bring people back for more repeat play?

It's very refreshing to see something completely different come to coin-op.
 
Indeed that is the question. Killer queen is more of a community. People won't show up to play Pac Man 4x a week but regulars with KQ will, esp with Tournaments and Leagues forming.

Pinballz Lake Creek has a Deluxe Pacman Battle Royale right next to KQ ($1 per player at Pacman vs $2 per game of KQ) so the metrics will be interesting to track over time. Owner has his doubts about ROI esp with revenue sharing
 
OK now we're talking.
Missing such links on their website, both the devs and the distro.

I could buy 2 pacman royales for what KQ costs, so I would want
to see how it holds up against that title and others, and trend
that for a couple months. New games always attract attention
at first, but can it bring people back for more repeat play?

It's very refreshing to see something completely different come to coin-op.

I've had people ask me to get this game for my venue but I've yet to be convinced that it would make its money back in a reasonable time frame. I hear about the community but there's no guarantee of "buy it and they will come". People were talking about this at the Vegas expo but more than one op told me privately that they were not seeing good numbers. Add to that Betson/Raw Thrills did not bring the game to the show but it was installed at some location near the Vegas airport. That's an odd vote of confidence, if you want to call it that.

I would think that you would want to use every avenue available to promote your game but both they and Betson are kind of acting like the game doesn't exist. Raw Thrills only mentions it if you search for it and then half way down tucked between cabinet specs:

http://rawthrills.com//?s=killer+queen

Nothing about it on Betson:

http://www.betsonparts.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=killer queen

I can't imagine that there's a contract in place where the devs don't want their distributors to promote the game...that would be crazy. But this is the arcade industry so I'm not surprised that it's entirely up to the buyer to do the promotion.

Hopefully the unit at the Pinballz location follows the earnings trend I've heard of from Grond Kontrol and Logan's Arcade, where it earns well from what I've heard.
 
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I played this game at ZapCon in Mesa, AZ this year.

I have mixed feelings about this game. I really draws a crowd and kids pick it up really quickly. Faster than most adults.

However, it basically requires 10 people to play it simultaneously to get the full experience.

Also, it's difficult to find your character on screen because the gameplay is pretty chaotic.
 
10 for the full experience, yes.

But the latest software release allows drones to collect the berries and return them to the hive, so if you are one or two short on your side, not as big of a deal as before.

Will share if I hear anything back from the game devs regarding increased visibility
 
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