Walt Disney World removing redemption games, possibly due to broadly written Internet cafe law

How do I read the article without paying?

Copy the Coasterbuzz headline above and paste it into a new tab, or type the Orlando Sentinel headline above into a new tab, and search. The first link I got was to the Orlando Sentinel story. That'll get you past the firewall.

If you use Chrome, you can just highlight, right click and choose "Search Google for..."

Nothing to do with either the story or how to read it, but useful still. :)

Well, so you can. I will make use of this in the future.

What can I say? I'm old. Heck, I still write letters. On paper. In cursive. With a fountain pen.

Good to hear that Disney is removing their redemption games. These kind of games have no place being at the WDW parks and resorts. Redemption games belong at Chuck E. Cheeses and Dave & Busters, not at a world class property. Shame on Disney if they were using these games to boast their revenues. I can see these to keep games used to keep guests marginally entertained. Good riddance to the redemption games!

I've never before seen such animosity toward redemption games.

A redemption game killed my father.

I don't understand any position that says something shouldn't be at WDW. Disney is not a charity, and if the market wants to play redemption games, so be it. My kid loves to play Deal Or No Deal, not for the prize, but because hundreds of tickets coming out of the machine is the coolest thing he's ever seen.

Which makes me wonder why the hell they're taking out that arcade next to Space Mountain. It's one of the few places we've found kid-sized air hockey tables. There was also an attendant there that would routinely open a junior basketball game so Simon could get his hoops on.

I would just like to see a resurgence in non-redemption arcade games.

Even better, I'd like to see a resurgence in pinball.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Agreed on pinball. When my boys have their friends over they are enthralled with my pinball machines. They had never seen them before. A sad time we live in.

~Rob

Lord Gonchar said:

A redemption game killed my father.

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.

Thumbs up for pinball. Way...WAY back when Pleasure Island first opened it had a "carnival" feel to it. So much so that they had a Weight Guessing game (and other fair games as well). I'm not saying it is the reason they got rid of it but they did get complaints from guests that felt that everyone should win a prize...even when the guesser got it right.

I think the real reason that they got rid of the games was strictly appearance. It gave a carny feel and that is not what they wanted to represent.

Concrete Enchilada said:

Shame on Disney if they were using these games to boast their revenues... Good riddance to the redemption games!

Yes, shame on them for providing an entertainment option to people willing to pay for it, and actually making money off of those people. Shame shame, indeed. How can the people in charge of the company sleep at night knowing that people actually pay for the kind of entertainment that they seek out.

You, Sir, are cracking me up.

I read the story and...

I find the situation sad. What's wrong with redemption games? I'm an old fart, and I still love to play these kinds of games. It's worth the money to me just to play the games. I usually end up giving away my tickets/points to someone who will appreciate them more than I will anyways.

Hopefully the wording of the law will be further explained to make it unmistakable that these kinds of games can be allowed.

It's always terrible when a company says, "Hey customers, do you want to pay for this?" And enough customers say, "Why, yes, company, yes, I would like to pay for that" that the company makes money. :-)

My parents sometimes decide that Thanksgiving will be best enjoyed at a casino. (For many years, my mother turned out astounding Thanksgiving dinners, so I can't begrudge her wanting to let someone else do the cooking while she does something she enjoys.)

I play the penny and nickel slots, not because I expect to make any money -- because I won't -- but because the slot machines are entertaining. I especially enjoy the Alien Vs Predator slots, since they involve a bit of gore, and I nearly swooned when I came across Judge Judy slots at the Four Winds.

A nice thing about the Space Mountain arcade was that if you had someone in your party that was too small for the ride, they could play games with someone to kill the time while everyone else rode. Beats sitting on a bench.

Yes, that's why I know that arcade so well. Diana and I would get Fastpasses for Space Mountain, and we would trade off with Simon playing games in there. Now what? I suppose yet another lap on the People Mover, but I enjoyed playing the games with him.

LostKause said:

How do I read the article without paying?

Supposedly, you can also circumvent many paywalls or article limits by using the Incognito Mode in Chrome or the Private Browsing Mode in Firefox and Safari.

Awesome tip, Gonch. I'll remember that next time I need it.

Some paywalls exempt users coming from search engines, so try searching Google for the headline.

Every time I see a newspaper site with a paywall, I see a newspaper that forgot the business model that the newspaper invented. That's especially true when I see a newspaper web site covered with advertising material that the newspaper didn't sell, and therefore didn't get adequately paid for.

Newspapers used to be a license to print money, and the subscription and newsstand revenue was all about paying for printing and distribution. Now that they have a medium where they don't have to print and the distribution is relatively cheap to get out to exponentially more eyeballs, you would think they would have this Internet thing figured out...!

But then, a nontrivial number of newspaper sites can't be bothered to put the name of their home city and state into the Internet masthead, so.......

--Dave Althoff, Jr.