As reported by Global Amusements & Play, “Innovative Concepts in Entertainment (ICE) has announced the release of its newest skill redemption game, HOOP IT UP. Many will recall the original version that was shown 4 years ago as WHAM-O.”

Joe Coppola, President of ICE stated, “This project has been in our development pipeline for 5 years, we had some early struggles and then we stepped away from it, but we have been fully focused the past two years on getting this game mechanically solid and we completely redid the original software.

“Since February of this year (2019) we have been testing minimally 3 units on location at a time and more recently we had as many as 5 units out all performing reliably and all hitting some very good rankings in very good FEC locations around the US and Canada. We are now 100% confident that we have a really great game here!”

Coppola also clarified, “At the first couple trade shows years ago we displayed this game as Wham-O, but in our initial testing early part of 2019 we found lots of players did not initially understand the game play. At that point we took a step back and made the decision to re-theme the game and the basketball theme very quickly caught on with the players and made the game much more intuitive for the players. They walked up and immediately understood the game and were mesmerized with the ball launch and the game play of trying to time the launch to get the ball through the moving hoop.”

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Hoop It Up will be offered in two different versions. The full ticket redemption version as well as a unique ball merchandiser / ticket redemption version that allows for those players that hit the MEGA BONUS to either receive tickets OR win a unique ball. Operators will of course have their option between the two versions. On both versions, if the player misses the hoop and/or the mega bonus they still win tickets depending on where the ball lands on the rotating play-field.

Coppola finished by reinforcing once again, “The testing of this game over the last few months has seen some excellent results; the repeat play has been very strong which is always a great indicator on a new game, and we’re very excited to now be in production and shipping games.”

ICE Arcade, Amusement and Redemption Games

What this could mean?I am just putting the finishing touches on the July/August issue of The Redemption & FEC Report and following the Hoop It Up test game revenues over the past few weeks. For example, Hoop It Up grossed $886 @ 21% ticket payout and Ranked #48 Overall out of 75 top games. I believe that the basketball theme will play a huge role in attracting players to this game over a longer time and am really glad that ICE changed the name and theme. The mega bonus is also a nice touch.  Thank you ICE!