It’s time for your middle-of-the-year arcade event known as Bowl Expo, although this one is meant to focus on bowling. Since most bowling centers happen to have an arcade on-site, their annual get-together now boasts a stronger presence of arcade game makers. It’s not as well attended by those companies as something like Amusement Expo, but there is still a showing. So what will be there? Let’s take a quick look:
Bowl Expo – Games From Our Advertisers
Three of Arcade Heroes’ advertisers will be there with new product, which is always great to see. Two companies that won’t be there after appearing at IAAPA and Amusement Expo and aren’t AH advertisers as such but remain definite friends of the site are exA-Arcadia and Alan-1 – but do look out for new content on them coming soon.
Amusement Source International
Starting alphabetically, we have Amusement Source International. As will be borne out in their booth, they are now teaming up with Dreamfuns, a Chinese crane manufacturer who are most famously big on the neon crane trend, while also showing off new products that are slightly more more video-adjacent like Wahlap’s Thunderbolt Shot (which we first saw around on the Chinese trade show circuit last year) and this Augmented Reality alley bowler, Zombie Rolling:
Raw Thrills
While you can go and play it at Dave & Busters right now, Raw Thrills will show off NBA Superstars to the wider industry for the first time. I’ll have to see if I can possibly get a direct capture of this one. They will also have all of their other latest releases on hand, such as Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR (I asked the other day and no word yet on Chapter 3; Bowl Expo will have the production version instead of the prototype though) and Marvel: Contest of Champions.
TouchMagix
TouchMagix will debut a Pudgy Penguins crane, alongside the Pudgy Penguins Polar Challenge videmption game that debuted at IAAPA 2023. By the looks of it from the new advertisement that TM sent along, it looks like a standard crane with PP branding, as opposed to something like Carnival Cups Crane, which had an interactive side to it. But, it also appears to have official PP plush, which is the first time that TouchMagix has stepped into that realm.
Bowl Expo – Everyone Else
As far as I have seen, everyone else on this list (excepting one) will be reflecting their Amusement Expo line-ups. Of course they may have fewer cabinets of specific games than were there, but though possible, I’m not expecting any new surprises from the following:
Andamiro USA
Andamiro USA hasn’t sent out any release about their Bowl Expo presence, but they are on the exhibitors list. I’d guess they’ll be there with their recent redemption games like Wacky Racers and Krazy Balls.
Bandai Namco Amusement America
Bandai Namco Amusement America weren’t on the exhibitors list when I’d looked at it a couple of weeks ago, but they are there now. They usually don’t announce anything prior to shows and they have debuted games at Bowl Expo before, although I’d be surprised if this were the place where they brought Taiko No Tatsujin, Bike Dash Delivery or even Goldstorm Pirates. I wouldn’t complain if they did though! Otherwise, I’d expect Animal Kaiser Plus, Pac-Man’s Pixel Bash for Charity (the original Pixel Bash was notably unveiled at an older Bowl Expo), and Arccer Amusement’s Tower Island to be there.
Bay Tek Entertainment
Bay Tek Entertainment used to bring lots of prototypes to trade shows, but they aren’t doing that anymore. I would guess they are focusing on their sports games that appeal most to bowling centers.
Coastal Amusements
Coastal Amusements is the one exception I referred to, as they will debut a new ball drop redemption game called Level Up at the show.
Elaut Group USA
Elaut Group USA may have a video game around that they’ve imported, or they may just have a smaller version of their Amusement Expo booth like most here.
JET Games
JET Games just launched their Mega Shot game that we’ve discussed a few times, so that should be headlining their booth along with their assortment of sporting titles.
LAI Games
LAI Games will have Ace Amusement’s Air Strike, Playmore’s Cosmic Tower, Wahlap’s Dragon’s Bane, and Superwing’s SMASH. I don’t expect there will be four cabinets of it this time though, unless we get a surprise reveal of a standard cabinet (which would be nice to see for smaller operators)?
Sega Amusements
Sega Amusements plan to bring along Mission: Impossible Arcade DX (always a nice cheaper option to the SDX, though on Paramount’s side it’s a little disappointing that M:I7 Part 2 isn’t hitting theaters already), Skill Fall Revolution, and the Capto Candy crane. The press release SAI have sent out doesn’t mention Apex Rebels or any other title, either video or redemption, so it looks like they’ll have a pretty small space – the one they had last year did pack in more, but that isn’t always the case with their Bowl Expo booths.
Stern Pinball
Providing the smaller ball action for bowling centers, Stern Pinball are going to be here, so I would expect John Wick to be available. I haven’t had a chance to play that one yet, so here will be my first time on it. Stern doesn’t reveal new-new games at shows like this though.
UNIS
UNIS will be focused on their various crane options, along with Bigfoot Mayhem. They should have a bit more than that as they have two booth spaces, but if they had something new-new, they’d have probably announced it already.
The Rest
In terms of everyone else who I don’t have booth tours of from Amusement Expo, ICE and Komuse will be there with their usual stable of redemption (neither have launched anything new of interest to video game fans for a while though).
For some motion simulator fun, Rilix recently launched a new look for their VR coaster although we’ll have to see if they launch a new kind of machine or not. Also, Triotech’s presence at smaller shows may only have a game or two, which could be Super Blaster and/or Storm VR in this case.
And lastly, Valley-Dynamo do have a video game, Jet Pong, that they’ve been showing for a while, but I would be surprised if they had something else in that category. They could always show off a new air hockey table though.
That covers everything for now – stay tuned to the blog and YouTube channel for videos from the show! What are you looking forward to most from Bowl Expo 2024?
