There are many amusement-related anniversaries being celebrated this year, but Pac-Man & Sega aren’t the only ones marking important dates. Another game that is reaching a milestone is Big Buck Hunter by Play Mechanix /Raw Thrills. Where the game has enjoyed annual championships, the effects of the pandemic have meant that they needed to adapt certain things about the event, since most users haven’t been able to access a Big Buck unit to participate in the Qualifiers.
To help, Raw Thrills has announced an extension to the qualifiers as they push the date for the Championships back. Per the release:
The event, officially called the 14th annual Big Buck World Championship, will now take place on Friday, October 1st, and Saturday, October 2nd, 2021, at Joe’s Live in Rosemont, Ill. The World Championship Qualifiers will continue to run unimpeded until Tuesday, September 7th, 2021, with all current Qualifiers scores remaining valid.
To keep the spirit of competition alive in the meantime, we have announced the Big Buck Regional Series! A series of “pro” and “casual” Big Buck Hunter tournaments will take place across eight different regions – U.S. – Northeast, U.S. – Southeast, U.S. – Central, U.S. – South, U.S. – Northwest, U.S. – Southwest, Canada and Australia – throughout the fall and winter of 2020 with a $5,000 prize pool up for grabs at each event. The specific dates and locations for the Big Buck Regional Series will be announced soon.
To learn more about the Big Buck Regional Series, please visit bigbuckhd.com/world/regional.
Last year’s event took place in Las Vegas this past October, and further cemented Big Buck as one of the most visible eSports arcade games around. The prize pool still stands at $100k; If you have an online connected Big Buck machine near you, and the business is open, then you have plenty of time to rack up those scores and sharpen those skills.
There is one other thing I noticed of interest in the press release that’s on a very different tangent:
Raw Thrills™ is the world leader in amusement game development and manufacturing, creating over 150,000 games that have generated over four billion dollars (USD) in revenue worldwide.
I don’t think I’d seen this line before, but it provides some data that we haven’t heard in a long time as to their status. The 150k games would mean individual units that they’ve produced across the 36 or so games that they’ve produced since 2004. I think that the revenue generation is talking about how much money their games have collectively made (obviously it would be an estimate) as well. If we were to combine all of the manufacturers out there with that kind of data, it would certainly be billions more. For all those who still cling to the “ARCADES R DEAD” mentality, get rekt. 😛
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