Cue black and white, low-quality footage, with a dramatic voice-over: "Do you ever get that itch to play a claw machine when there just isn't one around? Well, now you can!" And suddenly we see a bright, colorful world of happy kids in too-clean homes gleefully tapping away at their phones, clearly astounded at the prizes they're winning. Well, that's not exactly what you're going to get from the new US launch of "Sega Catcher Online," but you will get to essentially gamble except without winning money using a remotely-controlled, webcam-equipped claw machine, and I think it's pretty hilarious.

Sega's remote-controlled claw machine app/game isn't precisely new, it's been around in other markets since at least 2017, but it is new to us here in the US. With it, we can all enjoy a bit of glorified remote gambling on a real-life "UFO Catcher" — that's apparently what they call them. Or, at least, we' will be able to enjoy it once everything works as it should, because right now it doesn't.

Images from the Play Store listing, but you'll have to understand Japanese to get to the same spots yourself.

The app appears to have a few hiccups having to do with this new US localization. Right now, it's hard to get the language settings to stick when you register an account, with the app defaulting back to Japanese after you log in. We had some success changing the language settings in our profile after creating an account, but reviews seem to indicate this is an issue just about everyone is running into right now, and no matter what, the initial log-in screen seems to be in Japanese anyway.

Personally, I just tapped around and forced my way into registering an account via the obvious single sign-on methods. Following that, I broke down into random guesses, box tapping, and selecting the second option in every drop-down menu. I'm pretty sure the app thinks I'm a Japanese girl. But once you're in, you can change your language in your account settings from the fourth navigational tab from the left.

Still, names for prizes/claw games remain in Japanese, so most of us will be out of luck going any further. (My dreams of forcing Artem to pay for several rounds were sadly dashed.)

At least if you do manage to get set up, play the game, and win, prizes are delivered for free in once-weekly deliveries (though you can pay for more frequent delivery). Each play reportedly runs somewhere between ~$1-4, though that's indirect and through the game's point system, which offers different prices for different volumes of points, like every modern, micro-transaction-riddled game. There's also a free practice machine, though, and a handful of engagement-based ways of snagging some extra points, according to Polygon.

If you can get it working right now, then you can enjoy thinly-veiled gambling on a claw machine from the remote comfort of your own home. But really, all this makes me want is to see Twitch Plays a Claw Game on anarchy.

Source: Play Store

Via: Polygon