Incredible Technologies Golden Tee Charity Drive raises over $75,000 for veterans

Salute co-founders receiving the check from the PCC

As the US celebrates Labor Day this weekend, a number of charitable events also get underway for various causes. Incredible Technologies already held their third Players Charity Championship this past weekend however and have announced the results just in time for the holiday. 72 Golden Tee players can together for a tournament and raised over $75,000 for a Chicago based organization called Salute Inc., who specializes in helping US veterans and their families. It’s the largest amount ever raised in the history of the IT Players Charity Championship and I have a feeling that there will be plenty more of these special competitions in the future. You can read all of the details in the press release below

An update on Golden Tee Live 2011 and Incredible Technologies again named one of Chicago’s best companies to work for

We’ve got some Incredible Technologies news today and with that we’ll start off with the company winning an award. That award is from the National Association for Business Resources (NABR) who has named IT one of Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For. This is the third consecutive year the company has won this recognition and it’s even better for them as this is the company’s 25th anniversary. The press release for this can be found after the post break

To further celebrate their milestone we have received more information on IT’s flagship title, Golden Tee LIVE 2011. 5 new courses have been revealed for the 2011 edition, which are always important for GT players but for operators, IT has three new features they have put into the game to help generate extra revenue. These include: Golden Tees (allows the player to move their tee shot anywhere in the tee box; players can purchase bags of Golden Tees for .50¢, $1 or $2 and the operator gets half of that); Anytime/Anywhere Youtube shots (builds on the previous Youtube uploading feature but allows any shot to be uploaded – costs .50¢ if the player wants, operator keeps half); New Balls and Club Sets (players can purchase a wide range of clubs, if they wish. Again operator keeps half). Microtransactions aren’t new in the arcade industry but as far as such features go I haven’t seen them work quite like this before. As long as they keep stuff like this optional for players then it should remain as a nice way to enhance revenue from the game.

Golden Tee 2011 ships the last week of September 2010. As with other IT games we expect a low, competitive price on this (GT2010 can be purchased for around $3500 right now) and kits are available on top of that. More details, including screenshots, can be found in the press release after the break.

An update on Golden Tee Live 2011 and Incredible Technologies again named one of Chicago's best companies to work for

We’ve got some Incredible Technologies news today and with that we’ll start off with the company winning an award. That award is from the National Association for Business Resources (NABR) who has named IT one of Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For. This is the third consecutive year the company has won this recognition and it’s even better for them as this is the company’s 25th anniversary. The press release for this can be found after the post break

To further celebrate their milestone we have received more information on IT’s flagship title, Golden Tee LIVE 2011. 5 new courses have been revealed for the 2011 edition, which are always important for GT players but for operators, IT has three new features they have put into the game to help generate extra revenue. These include: Golden Tees (allows the player to move their tee shot anywhere in the tee box; players can purchase bags of Golden Tees for .50¢, $1 or $2 and the operator gets half of that); Anytime/Anywhere Youtube shots (builds on the previous Youtube uploading feature but allows any shot to be uploaded – costs .50¢ if the player wants, operator keeps half); New Balls and Club Sets (players can purchase a wide range of clubs, if they wish. Again operator keeps half). Microtransactions aren’t new in the arcade industry but as far as such features go I haven’t seen them work quite like this before. As long as they keep stuff like this optional for players then it should remain as a nice way to enhance revenue from the game.

Golden Tee 2011 ships the last week of September 2010. As with other IT games we expect a low, competitive price on this (GT2010 can be purchased for around $3500 right now) and kits are available on top of that. More details, including screenshots, can be found in the press release after the break.

Playing for charity: Incredible Technologies Golden Tee event for veterans; UK Pinball Party charity event for needy kids

Two charity events for different causes are on the horizon, one in the USA and the other in the UK. To summarize, Incredible Technologies will be holding a charitable event on August 27th-29th in at Splinter’s Sports Pub in Palatine, IL and on the other side of the pond, the UK Pinball Party is organizing the Celebrity Charity Pinball Challenge on Thursday August 5th at the Ace Café London. In interest of saving space on the main page, you can read all about each event and the great causes they support thanks to the press releases we received by clicking post break below.

Incredible Technologies reveals Golden Tee 2011

If there is anything you can be absolutely sure of in the arcade industry, it’s that a new Golden Tee will make it’s way to the market near the end of each year. Incredible Technologies has unveiled the first shots of the next installment of the series, Golden Tee 2011. At the moment they aren’t talking about new features that will be added to the game but we can safely assume that it will continue to make use of an internet connection, as well as adding new courses, equipment and clothes.

Since all they are showing right now are some shots of course then all we can comment on are appearances. These are beta shots so the final version will look different but if there is anything that they do add graphically I hope they turn on anti-aliasing as in all of the screens shown the jagged edges stand out. Of course what would really be nice is to see the game move on to a level one would expect to see on a modern graphics engine such as Crytek or Unreal 3. Not that such a thing will probably happen as there are licensing costs involved with such engines and the costs behind HD artwork for such engines is high but it still would look much nicer.

There are a few more details on the Golden Tee Blog

[Via HighwayGames] [GoldenTee.com]

Amusement Expo 2010 wrap-up (part 1)

Since this probably won’t be the very last post I make in regards to the Amusement Expo that happened this week (we’ve got a podcast coming next week which will talk about it and Kevin Williams has some extra photos of things I missed), I’ll call it wrap-up part 1 until I get to those other things.

My overall feelings about the show: this is the best March show I have been to so far, since I first went to ASI 2008. That first ASI was slightly disappointing and I left a day early because of that but this time it was quite satisfying and fun. The combined shows was a great idea and I look forward to them expanding in the future.

The content to be found at the show overall was great. Some things we have seen or heard about already  but even then there were a few little surprises tucked in. I’d like to thank everyone involved in the show and the different people who went out of there way to get me all of the information I could want about the games. There are a lot of people I could name but I

Thanks to Phil Arrington for his hard work in getting that live broadcast on Vokle put together, while it was frustrating how the connection and/or the power on his laptop kept going out(he was more frustrated about that than anyone else), it was a lot of fun and next time we’ll make sure we get it down so everyone can enjoy it.

Here is a look at the Stern Pinball booth. They had a couple of Big Buck Hunter Pins in operation and there was a tournament running on Shrek as well. If anyone wants video of BBH my local distributor has one so I can run over there anytime and record that in action, it’s actually a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure what to expect with it being based upon a video game but they did a good job.

Here is a cool thing I just happened to come across, a redemption game based upon the classic board game Operation. Unfortunately my camera battery was in the final stages of dying so I couldn’t get any video but it was a cool idea that was implemented well.

As I stated earlier, we’ll have a little bit more for you next week but this and the other AE posts take care of pretty much everything.

[Discuss on the forums]

Silver Strike LIVE starts shipping next week

Incredible Technologies has announced that their latest game, Silver Strike LIVE begins shipping next Monday. If you missed out on the details regarding this new title, you can find out more by clicking here. For a quick recap, the new version of SS uses more online features and the game has a large number of customization options. IT says that they have already sold over 3000 updates of the title, which goes to show the strength that the series carries at locations which carry a Silver Strike already as numbers that high before the game is available is quite impressive for coin-op. I was able to play the game at IAAPA and it looked pretty slick although the online features weren’t available at the time.  For more details, check out the press release below.

Golden Tee Connect integrates with Facebook

Golden Tee is one of those games that is everywhere, with roughly 10,000 machines in operation worldwide ensuring that it remains a constant feature of the arcade scene. If you’re one of those who just can’t get enough of it, you’ll be pleased to hear that the Golden Tee Connect service means that the game can now integrate with Facebook, allowing the game to automatically update your status with “[person] is playing Golden Tee LIVE 2010 at [location]”. That’s free publicity for both the game and the operator! Incredible Technologies has stated that 80% of Golden Tee players are also Facebook users, representing a significant overlap in demographics.

This won’t be the first time that Golden Tee has ventured onto the intertubes at large, as current versions allow players to upload replays of their best shots directly to Youtube – and upload they do, with over 70,000 going up in the past year!

[Via betanews.com] [Discuss on the forums]

Incredible Technologies brings Carnival King to WiiWare

News has been slow this week – which I will blame on the upcoming IAAPA show as companies hold onto announcements for the big event. But one piece of news that is sort of arcade related that has been brought out before the show is that Incredible Technologies is embracing the Wii once again(they had ported Target Toss Pro: Bags to the Wii a little while ago) and they are bringing one of their older games back from the coin-op world, Carnival King. If you are unfamiliar with Carnival King, it is a shooting gallery style game that IT released back in 2002 and the WiiWare port will only run you $7. IT sees this plan of bringing some of their content to home consoles as a way to develop interest in their current coin-op market titles. For more details on this new WiiWare release, see the press release after the break.

Incredible Technologies announces Silver Strike LIVE for Q1 2010

With Incredible Technologies rolling out the latest iteration of their Golden Tee series this month, I was wondering if we were going to hear anything about the other series they have been promoting heavily for the past few years – Silver Strike. As it turns out they have a new edition of that game preparing for a release in Q1 2010 and after the post break we’ve got plenty of details on the game. One of the most interesting aspects they have revealed about SSL is the increased focus on internet connectivity. Players will be able to win cash with every game if they so choose (although that will cost an extra $1 to play), which should prove to be a popular aspect of the game. The customization options in the game are also pretty substantial, you can find out more (including more screens) after the post break.