The world of casino gaming machines is changing. Revenues are declining from traditional and video slot machines which don’t appeal to younger gamblers. A company named GameCo recently entered the market to attract those younger players with a new type of “skill-based” gaming machines that are designed around video games, even including an Xbox-like controller, but still offer rewards and money payouts like slot machines. GameCo machines are already available in a number of casinos with their own titles and some licensed titles and this week they announced a deal with CBS to produce new Star Trek gaming machines.
The first GameCo Star Trek machine is due this fall and will be titled Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Adventure, where you control the U.S.S. Defiant. The game promises to feature “highly polished 3D models of the iconic spacecraft that will attract fans of both Star Trek and the space combat genre alike.”
GameCo DS9 Skill-based video game gambling machine
GameCo sent TrekMovie this description of the gameplay for the DS9 machine:
The USS Defiant has entered hostile enemy territory and must fight its way out to survive. Destroy enemy ships to bring your ship and crew to safety, and win incremental cash rewards as you succeed. Players will navigate a 3D space environment, firing weapons to disable or destroy enemy ships while avoiding asteroids and the wreckage of previous battles. Intense flight and battle simulation will be combined with fast paced timed objectives to make for a 60 second thrill ride!
The below video describes the “Video Game Gambling Machines” (or VGMs) which GameCo makes.
GameCo are planning on following up the DS9 game machine with others from the Trek franchise. Their licensing deal covers all of the Star Trek TV series: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise.
In their release Rich Maryyanek, Global Business Development, GameCo Inc said of Star Trek:
“This fan-favorite franchise has been entertaining people across the globe and is established as one of the most iconic and popular brands ever. We are excited to work with CBS Consumer Products to bring a space battle action game to casino floors that highlights the entertainment value Star Trek is known for,”
No word yet on which casinos will be carrying the Deep Space Nine game, but GameCo tells TrekMovie “the Star Trek VGM will be offered to all customers and given the historical and passionate fandom for the property we expect the game to be prominently installed across the globe.” It is no news, that not only land-based casinos had started using the Star Trek movie’s theme in their games, but online casinos as well. Read this article and you will see, that many online casinos use the theme to make gambling interesting for Star Trek fans.”
This report from Fox Business after the first GameCo games were introduced late last year shows off their first title and explains more about how these Video Game Gambling Machines work.
More information about GameCo is available at their official site.
If video games aren’t your thing, but you still want to put some Star Trek into your gambling, then don’t worry CBS still has a current licensing deal with WMS Gaming who make more traditional video slot machines. Their their latest machine is “Star Trek Starship Enterprise” which is currently in casinos around the United States.
Keep up on all the Star Trek licensing and merchandise news here at TrekMovie.
And there goes my money…
I can hear people yelling DABO!!!!
They need to get Chase Masterson doing the PR videos for this thing.
Star Trek Online beat ’em to it by like 5 years.
You’ve never seen star trek fans blow thousands of dollars on a mediocre product ’til you’ve seen STO fans
Using Star Trek to promote gambling is classless in the extreme, but then Star Trek is owned by Ferengi, rather than by the people who love it.
Corylea,
Ever since Shatner uttered the line “Not chess, Mister Spock, poker.” as Kirk, it’s been canon that starship captains are gamblers.
A friendly game of cards with friends is different from slot machines.
A million quatloos on the warrior in the silver bikini….oh, never mind.
Phil,
Precisely, and let’s note that Kirk didn’t have a quatloo to his name when he made a bet with beings that had all the quatloos in the world.
Corylea,
When Kirk said that to Spock, Spock hadn’t the faintest idea of what Poker was, but after watching Kirk play it for the non-friendly stakes of life or death and win, he asked him to teach it to him.
Poker wasn’t a friendly game of cards the way Kirk played it. Now, Fizbin on the other hand….
Disinvited, with respect, a few lines from a fifty year old show (the first one ever shot after the pilots at that, while the show/franchise was largely still undefined), designed to illustrate strategy, is hardly the same as the real world use of the brand to making money via commercial gambling.
El Chup,
No one said that it was, but neither is the whole real world enterprise of making the show hardly the same as the fiction depicted in its stories.
And THE GAMESTERS OF TRISKELION, in the SECOND season cemented that the phenomenon would be out there and it would have to be dealt with, as it was throughout all the various series’ narratives.
“Risk is our business, gentlemen.”
Precisely!
Now, there’s a question. In a cashless society, what’s the point of gambling, anyway?
Phil,
Cash is only one of the things people are willing to risk — it isn’t the ONLY thing people are willing to put on the line for a bet.
Maybe this will finance the DS9 Remastered project? Maybe not.
Shameful use of the “Star Trek” name.
Kinda like having “Star Trek” brand heroin — same potential for abuse and addiction.
Ugh.
Marja,
Re: the “Star Trek” name.
I saw this coming when they put THE EXPERIENCE in Vegas and never doubted for a minute that they would go this far when they used Spock to sell alcoholic beverages decades before that.
But “heroin” seems a bit extreme. I only wished they used the aspects of Trek that were already established as exploiting gambling and not cutting Starfleet in for a piece of the slot machine’s on screen action.
You know, the Triskelions, Iotians, Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorians.
Even though we don’t have a leg to stand on in regards to my wish to keep Trek’s iconic heroes off such devices as the franchise jumped the shark on this when it had Dr. Bashir prescribe gambling for Major Kira as part of a “healthy” regime to relieve extreme stress and borderline exhaustion — thankfully, it was only one of five options from which she had to pick two and NOT mandated BUT it was made very clear she could have chosen gambling with Starfleet’s complete medical blessing.
”BASHIR: Stop right there, Major. When was your last day off?
KIRA: I don’t know. What does that have to do with anything?
BASHIR: If you can’t remember, then it’s been too long. You’re off duty as of this moment.
KIRA: What do you mean, I’m off duty? You can’t do that.
BASHIR: Oh yes I can, And not even Commander Sisko can overrule my judgement as Chief Medical officer.
KIRA: Now, wait a minute, Julian. Just because I snapped
BASHIR: My diagnosis is that you’re overworked, and suffering from extreme stress and borderline exhaustion. As for my prescription? Follow me.
[Quark’s]
QUARK: Karvino juice, Lorvan crackers, a holosuite programme, a jumja stick and gambling tokens.
BASHIR: Now, at least two of these items must be used and fully enjoyed before you can leave this facility. ” — STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, episode DEFIANT by Ronald D. Moore
http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/455.htm