Mark Rober
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2019–2023
7:09 · 51M views · Jan 3, 2018
Mark Rober builds a machine that plays the Cyclone arcade game with perfect timing and discovers the game is rigged so that perfect play still loses. The video explains the physics and electronics tricks behind carnival-style skill games.
Cited in threads on rigged arcade machines and gambling-like games as the clearest demonstration that skill games can be tuned to be unwinnable.
6 comments from Hacker News
Back in the legacy world of arcades and carnivals, Mark Rober did some nice videos about the analog/physic and electronic tricks of scam games: [LINK] this video It's quite a problem that all these gambling scams are (to more or lesser extent) regulated in geographic jurisdictions, but Internet-bsaed systems bypass all local sovereignty. How long before the governments step up and demand that all Internet businesses get import licenses and traffic must pass through "customs" at each ISP "port of entry" for their goods and services?
> You aren't just using skills and competing with physics. You are competing with software that is affecting the outcome. Mark Rober covered this in a pretty decent YouTube video: this video
Yeah, that's also along what I was thinking (as noted later), but also I think you can also get close or achieve if you can prime yourself because you know the event is coming, and get the timing down. Sort of like the cyclone arcade game (if it wasn't a scam[1]). I think there's a huge difference between hitting a random 100ms time and hitting a 100ms time that's coming at a set time that you can see and judge. That's what I meant by "planned", even if it poorly encapsulates that. 1: this video
Also applies to other supposedly skill based games at arcades, like "Cyclone"[1]. Interesting to contrast this to how pinball machines were considered gambling for a while, even though they were not[2]. [1] this video [2] [LINK]
Reminds me of this one: this video Guy builds a robot to time pressing the button to get the light to land on the winning sections and demonstrates it is not skill but a random number generator.