I drafted this piece this after I played maimai DX PRISM+ for the last time… only to finish this after CiRCLE hits our arcades.
I’ve already seen fellow players complain to Quantum about the price increase for a single game credit. Here’s what I was thinking as I try my best to understand and sympathize with the rest of the player base:
- Prior to the increase, you play a single game credit for 10 regular tokens. Soon, it will be a single Gacha token for a game credit.
- Both cost Php50 anyways, so why the fuss? One factor to this is the bonuses (or discounts) everyone gets when playing at Quantum. For example, (at some branches) you place in a single Php100 bill in the token changer and it will give you extra 2-3 tokens. It accumulates enough to give you enough tokens to play more maimai DX.
- Another factor is that Quantum didn’t even announce the change at all, players just saw the coin slot got upgraded (?) along with the game cab.
- Quantum’s Gacha tokens are specifically used for crane games, as well as the newly-arrived Pokemon Mezastar machines, and both gives tangible items for each win. There’s no tangible item in maimai DX other than your Amusement IC card (aime, Bandai Namco Passport, e-Amusement card) which you need to pay for one yourself to save gameplay data.
- In comparison, you can play maimai DX at Timezone for Php60 per game. I’m already anticipating that Quantum’s Q Power Station will match this rate once the cabinets are updated soon (and damn, I was right).
- Before the increase, I can play maimai DX 3 times for Php100. Now I can only play two for the same price, which of course is saddening. I saw myself no longer affording to choke on charts to increase my DX rating.
- Yesterday (Sunday), I taught my good friends and fellow maimai DX players how to leverage Timezone’s ‘Buy One Get One’ (BOGO)1 offer which was extended till the end of the day. It was a bit of a hassle navigating through the transaction on the app, but at the end of the day, my friends got the sweet deal.
Doing the Math (?)
Casual players who don’t regularly drop by the arcades can at most play maimai DX twice for a hundred pesos.
| Quantum | Q Power Station 2 | Timezone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate per Game | 50 | 60 | 60 |
| Cash | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Bonus Load | 0 | 20 | 0 |
| Credits | 2 | 2 | 1 |
Power players however did the math and figured they’re better playing maimai DX at Timezone. For a regular Php500 credit, they can play around 8 times, same as Q Power Station—but if they go to Timezone and use the BOGO offer, they can play up to 16 times.
| Quantum | Q Power Station 3 | Timezone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate per Game | 50 | 57 | 60 |
| Cash | 500 | 500 | 500 |
| Bonus Load | 0 | 200 | 500 |
| Credits | 10 | 12 | 16 |
As someone who got used to tapping the card instead of inserting tokens, I sympathize with the rest of the players who play at Quantum with the fact that whatever tokens they currently have can only be used at other games instead of maimai DX, which was their goal in the first place. 4
In Australia and other countries, we refer to this as the ‘Double Dollars’ promo. ↩︎
This scenario accounts for using the Yellow ‘Yeyo’ card which offers no discounts. ↩︎
Provided you use the Blue ‘Zap’ card which has 5% discount per tap. ↩︎
At least in Quantum, you can still play a single game of CHUNITHM for 8 tokens. Q Power Station still fixed the price per game to Php50, as it was before. Only Quantum has those games. ↩︎