Evolution of the Claw Machine

I know, Claw Machines are not video games but they very prolific in the arcades. In fact it seems most arcade machines now are Claw Machines. But with their huge popularity how much do you know about their origins?

In the early 20th century in Panama a group of diggers were photographed holding a steam shovel (a large vechile like machine with a large claw on the end). This inspired a trend of candy dispensing machines which were designed of the steam shovel. Players would put a nickel into the slot and crank a wheel to turn a series of internal gears would power a series of buckets which in turn would close over a piece of candy. The candy would be dropped down a chute so that the player could retrieve it. There were many candy digger machines and the technology in these machines were the basis of how we know the machines today.

The idea of putting toys inside the machine is not a modern concept, in the US the 1939 cartoon "Naughty but Mice" featured a machine in a drugstore known as the "Toy Steam Shovel". However, they boomed in popularity in the 1980s, especially due to their appearance in Pizza Hut. Later on the machines began to expand beyond arcades and Pizzerias and expanded to the world of NFL. The NFL began to put stuffed "footballs" (american footballs hence quotation marks) to advertise the sporting event. Other sporting events did this in the 1990s like the NBA but many stopped this as a means of advertisement.

Later in the 1990s claw machines appeared in supermarkets and hotels across America. These featured stuffed animals like most claw machines but leave it to Asia to put some unusual things in their claw machines. In China and East Asia many Claw Machines contained live animals as the prize but this practise is understandibly under scrutiny. With all this said and done is there a way to beat the system? We'll save that topic for another time but at least you now know where they came from.

#arcade #clawmachine