th 40ANNIVERSARY COVER STORY The Aliens Armageddon design team plus support staff from Raw Thrills. Not many companies can say they have had a string of hit games for 12 consecutive years. Raw Thrills can make that claim. ver since its first game, Target: mix of these industry veterans with a Williams' Electronics. While at Terror, was introduced, Raw young, enthusiastic, and creative R&D Williams/Bally/Midway, Jarvis was EThrills has followed with one staff of some of the most talented responsible for the development of successful game after another. And designers in the industry. From gifted such games as Defender, Robotron the hits and the thrills keep coming: graphic artists to software gurus, 2084, NARC, Smash TV, the Cruisin' Fast and Furious, Fast and Furious mechanical and electronic engineers, driving game series, and many more. Drift, Big Buck Hunter HD and Big Raw Thrills' game creators are the After Midway left the amusement Buck Hunter World, Terminator Sal- best in the business. business in 2001 Jarvis co-founded vation, Sno Cross, Super Bikes, In an interview with Eugene Jarvis Raw Thrills with other Midway H2Overdrive, and Super Cars, to in the fall of 2011 on the occasion of designers. name but a few. the company's 10th anniversary, Play Meter caught up with Raw What's the secret? Talent, experi- Jarvis said, "Our foremost goal is to Thrills to find out more about game ence, and a keen sense of what make it to our 20th anniversary and development and plans for the future. appeals to players. The staff at Raw be counted among the companies Jarvis responded, with some input Thrills includes veterans like Eugene continuing to provide great entertain- from Struhs. Jarvis, President; Andrew Eloff, Exec- ment and value to our customers." What inspires you (Jarvis and utive Vice President; George Petro, The company seems well on its way. staff) to develop new games? President of Play Mechanix studio; Jarvis began his industry career at We are really a bunch of over- and Mark Struhs, Sales Manager. Atari in 1977 and in 1979 moved to grown kids. Inspiration can come But the real magic comes from the Chicago to program pinball games for from a million things. It might be an PLAY METER 66 MAY 2014 Aliens Armageddon Batman Barrel of Monkeys action sequence from a new super- Anywhere from six months to two and you have a chance. hero movie, or maybe the inspiration or three years depending on how The theme has to excite the player. of a classic game you played as a kid, much rope we want to hang our- But probably the most important or something crazy your three-year selves with. And testing is crucial. You thing is what Ralph Coppola of ICE old is doing on her iPad. Then it hits need to make sure the game is opti- calls the "play again" factor. It's the you: Wow; that could make a cool mized for fun factor and earnings. feeling you get when you almost win, arcade game! And if it truly is a dog, bury it before but you are compelled to play again. How big is the R&D team today an operator ever sees it. Cuz, if you You just can't stop playing because compared to the early years? don't, you'll never hear the end of it. you are sure the next time is going to We started with just a handful of What new technologies, such as be the big one! designers in 2001, and now we have big LCD screens, have made it pos- How has the distributor network over 60 game developers on staff. sible to create exciting new game grown domestically and internation- What's the biggest misconception experiences? ally? about what it takes to develop a The big LCD screens have been Mark Struhs: The U.S. domestic game? wonderful. They deliver huge impact, game market remains the largest and Everyone thinks it is all about player appeal, and reliability much most successful business segment for coming up with the killer idea. But greater than the old CRTs. And now Raw Thrills, thanks in large part to really that's just the start. Like Edison we have some cool interface innova- our proven network of distributors said, it's one percent inspiration and tions like touch screens and really who provide guidance based on their 99 percent perspiration. fun, physical stuff like snowmobile tremendous knowledge of the local You really have to follow up that and ski controllers. markets, innovative financing pro- idea with great execution, the total In the next few years we are going grams and promotions, used game package of graphics, game play, spec- to see some great virtual reality inter- trade-ins, consolidation of products tacular cabinet, theme to attract play- faces coming online. It seems like for complete projects, and the deep ers, great sound, etc. And then the technology is only going to be limited customer relationships that some- game has to be priced right to make by our imaginations. times go back multiple generations. a compelling value to the operator. What characteristics are most After contemplating the value And it better be reliable or for- prominent when developing a new propositions, cost efficiency, and the getaboutit! game? increasing need for strong focus, Raw What is the game development No matter how sophisticated the Thrills is now even more committed process like? How long from initial technology or graphics you use, it has than ever to our distributor network. concept to completed game, and to have the fun factor. The player has The growth over the past 10-12 how much testing before it's ready to be engaged with a cool challenge. years of the family entertainment for the market? You gotta feel that the game is fair center (FEC) market segment has PLAY METER 67 MAY 2014 At the CIAE Expo 2014 in China, (l-r): Chris Kelley of Raw Thrills and Frank Ballouz with Lucy Chen and Aaron Wong of Wahlap. At the RAAPA Expo 2014 in Russia: Mark Struhs (l) with the Raw Thrills distributor in Russia, Alexander Petrov of BB&B. contributed greatly to the success of ago with the objec- Raw Thrills and our distributor part- tive to design and ners and we believe we have market arcade Eugene Jarvis (l) of Raw Thrills studio and George Petro of returned the favor to companies that Play Mechanix studio merged their two companies into Raw games that have Thrills Inc. have invested in a variety of Raw global appeal. Thrills titles. Thanks to the continued support admiration of our customers as their Those titles include: Super Bikes from our strategic partners around strongest advocate within Raw (I and II), Fast & Furious Drift and the world and the increased popu- Thrills. Super Cars, Terminator Salvation, larity of FECs in many foreign Chris Kelley, our dynamic Asia Guitar Hero, H2Overdrive, countries, we have made good Representative based in Guangzhou, SnoCross, and the Big Buck Hunter progress towards that objective. China, heads up our fast growing franchise, just to name a few. The International shipments now repre- East Asia market. He works with our latest Raw Thrills releases are Bat- sent about one third of the total Chinese partners that manufacture man, Aliens Armageddon, Big Buck business at Raw Thrills and it's and sell Raw Thrills games specifi- HD/Duck Dynasty, and our new growing every year. cally for the China market and video redemption game, Barrel of To augment the successful sales selected foreign countries. Monkeys. strategy for Raw Thrills in both the How valuable is the feedback Big Buck HD/Duck Dynasty is domestic and international markets, you receive at trade shows and unique in that we have a partnership we recently expanded the sales team other industry events? with A&E, the cable network that by bringing on two key professionals: Mark Struhs: Raw Thrills has produces the popular reality series Jeff Tash, Distributor Sales Man- learned through experience the "Duck Dynasty." We want to deliver ager based in St. Louis, Mo., works importance of listening to feedback something fresh not only in content, through our distributor sales force. from our customers, people who but also in the business model. He spearheads the Raw Thrills have invested their hard-earned While our roots are here in the domestic sales strategy by calling on money in our products and who U.S. amusement game industry, Raw street operators and FECs around now have personal experience. We Thrills was founded over 12 years the U.S. Jeff has earned the trust and learn a lot from the strategy of lis- PLAY METER 68 MAY 2014 At the CIAE Expo: Chris Kelley of Raw Thrills and Raylee Wu of UNIS. Mark Struhs with Jeff Tash, Distributor Sales Manager. RAAPA Expo attendees play Aliens Armageddon. tening to our customers and we What's next on the drawing games, what can be better? actually enjoy the process. board? Where do you see the company Raw Thrills has been exception- We have some real cool simula- in the next five years? ally successful in the video game tors and gun adventures coming up The downside of being in a really category. Will the company branch with a number of blockbuster licens- fun business is that it is rapidly out into other products? es. We are also reimagining a couple changing, and product lifetimes are That has always been the crazy of golden eight-bit classics into com- very short. So every couple of years thing about our industry.