IAAPA Expo Europe 2022 Review – New Arcade Games For Europe

That latest IAAPA event has come and gone and while I was unable to attend myself, Kevin Williams (KWP) of Spider Entertainment was there to snap some pics and send some info my way to share with you. I will also integrate some manufacturer posts from the show where I can. This expo saw 30% higher attendance than last year, which isn’t a huge surprise but still welcome.

Let’s get to it, going in alphabetical order as always:

Amega Entertainment

Every time I see this company I have to catch myself to not think of the Commodore Amiga, as the two have nothing to do with each other. Amega specializes in simulator quality products, some of which includes VR. For this part of the booth they were showcasing their Formula S simulator:

Bandai Namco Amusements Europe

BNAE represents quite a few North American brands for the European market, including Raw Thrills and Team Play. In the first pic you can see products from all three of those particular companies, with the DX version of Chompionship taking the stage for BNAE’s part:

Here’s a closer look at Raw Thrills’ Fast & Furious (looks the slightly different from the Bowl Expo version; It would certainly have newer software) and Team Play’s Carnival Wheel.

RT posted this brief video of F&F on their Instagram feed; Clicking on this should take your straight there to watch.

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DOF Robotics

DOF brought their very visible Grave Digger VR simulator, which debuted at IAAPA last year and has been installed at a small number of locations out there. This one uses the PICO XR G2 headset, although I’m not familiar with how that compares to the plethora of other headsets out there:

Electrocoin

As mentioned on the blog, the big reveal for James Bond pinball was cancelled for this show but Stern still had their other products at the Electrocoin’s booth:

Standing further back, they had their Skill Shooter game on hand; This one is available in the US as Quick Shot and is sold through JET. If you missed footage of this, check it out here.

Electrocoin also had a number of redemption games on hand, including a couple of Mr. Do! redemption games and they are selling IGS’ Speed Rider 3DX into Europe. You can see it in action (if you haven’t seen it before) here.

Luck Amusement

So this is rather interesting. Back in 2019, I came across a Chinese company exhibiting at IAAPA where they were showing off their take on Sega’s obscure light-gun arcade game, 2Spicy. If you are unfamiliar with 2Spicy, here’s some footage. But for the game I came across at that IAAPA, here you go:

In the wake of that IAAPA, I tried to get a hold of this Luck Amusement company to find out more but they never replied; Then the pandemic happened and I thought they were history. Turns out they survived and they were at this IAAPA EU with the same game but sporting a different name – Battle Heroes (much better name than Super Firing but I do imagine they might have been influenced on that name from AH here )

I don’t know if they changed anything else about the game but the font on the screen and the character roster look the same. They also have a videmption game called Cube World which should look much like another popular videmption game from ICE. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for them at IAAPA in November.

Marsaplay

They had a digital pinball machine on hand, although no info about it was passed along (whether it is using licensed tables or an existing platform like Pinball FX or something all-custom, etc.).UPDATE: The machine is called Virtual Petaco and can be seen on the front page of the Marsaplay website.

Sega Amusements

Sega had promised a packed booth and they delivered, showing off all of their latest games (MIB, VR Agent, All Stars Basketball), plus some titles from ICE such as Ship Wreck.

In VR Agent’s case, I need to ask someone if this single model is just for tradeshows, as they only show the 2-player model on their website. Otherwise if the single is available like this, then I imagine it could show up at more venues due to the lower cost:

Here’s a quick collection of videos that Sega posted to their LinkedIn page; If you can’t see via embed, here’s a direct link (trying out yet another online video service with this one, although may put this on YouTube shorts)

Slim Luke Games

UPDATE: I don’t know what to put this under since Kevin said he recalled this being Jakar’s booth but the developer chimed in to comment saying it’s Slim Luke Games – yet you can find all of these titles listed on the websites for Jakar & Wik. I do apologize for any error but it is extremely confusing to figure out when the same products end up among different producer booths and logos are so tiny that no one can tell what the deal is. Just working with the best info I have here – I did not attend the expo, as a reminder.  IAAPA also removed the IAAPA EU map already for me to be able to verify booths and such.

Either way, joining the likes of existing titles like Circus Jars and Arcade Buzzz is a videmption game called Bridge Man, a race-themed redemption wheel game, and a cocktail video game called Bumper (maybe it’s virtual air hockey?)

They also appear to have joined forces with another Polish company called Pug2Play, which provides card swipe services in Europe. Unfortunately, the English option doesn’t currently work on P2Ps website but that’s what it looks like.

UPDATE: Slim Luke Games has added this video of Bumper to Youtube. It’s a kind of head-to-head Arkanoid/Breakout game and looks complete. I’ll update again once I find out about shipping:

UDC

I shared a cool setup video of UDC’s booth which you can catch here if you missed it; Here’s one angle of the booth that shows Step ManiaX:

It’s not listed on their website yet but they did have a new pusher game called Blocks Store which offers a twist on the model – instead of using marbles like a lot of them have been doing lately, this uses Legos and appears to offer small boxes of Legos or Lego-like prizes that players can win. Even without Lego branding this will likely have strong appeal in the right location.

Here’s another video showing their booth that was posted to their YT channel, which quickly shows their other products from manufacturers like Touch Magix:

UNIS

UNIS used this event as an opportunity to debut their new Emoji Roller game, along with a few other new redemption pieces.

Miscellaneous

Both Walter Day & Billy Mitchell were there to speak on the rise of eSports through the arcade medium.

An Italian simulator company but the light blurs out exactly who it is:

I’ve seen AR Sniper previously but cannot recall which Chinese company made it, but I do recall that the price tag on this one is in the $50k range.

That’s all that I could find for now; If anything else pops up, I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more IAAPA goodness come this November.

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