Medal games

Medal games. Of all the stupid money wasting habits in Japan, I had to get addicted to this one. You get neither the possibility of winning money as is with pachinko and it doesn't give you nearly the satisfaction of smoking. Yet there I was again last night, wasting another 2000 yen.

Imagine going to Vegas and playing blackjack with chips but knowing that you'll never be able to trade the chips in for anything. You have to pay to get the chips originally, but there's now way to get anything back for them. This is the premise of the medal games you find at Japanese arcades.

You basically play these games just for the fun of playing. They're all set up the same way: each game has you put some medals (small tokens) in with the possibility of getting more medals out. Many of the medal games are actually casino style games. An arcade in Shibuya actually has a large digital roullette table where about 8 players can play at once. Other games have you put the medals in at the top with the hopes that they will push some more medals out of the bottom. They also have games/events that you can set off if the medal drops in the right place. The ultimate goal is to hit the jackpot and win several thousand medals at one time (keep in mind the medals can't be traded for anything). It's all very high tech and surprisingly fun.

If you do manage to win a bunch of medals, the only thing you can do with them is put them in a medal bank. The medal bank is a machine that counts and collects/dispenses the medals from your account. You need to enter both a password AND have your finger print scanned to access your medals. These security measures greatly confused me at first because they made me think the medals were actually valuable in some way.

The machine I've been addicted to lately are the mario bros. game . The mario bros. game is basically a lot like the mario party games. If the coins fall in the right place they will release a ball into the bottom of this spinning cylindical contraption. The ball will then fall into a hole which determines how many spaces mario will move around the board. If he lands in the right spot then you get your chance at the jackpot. How fun is that?!