Review: The Infinity Game Table from Arcade1Up is Cool, but Needs Time to Flourish
Arcade1Up is known for their retro arcade cabinets bringing arcade memories and fun to homes. Next month, they’ll be releasing the Infinity Game Table for lovers of board games. The table will be available exclusively at Best Buy starting July 17 and comes with a library of 40+ games that is constantly growing. The company has been extremely kind and sent me one of these tables to play around with. There are two models, a 24” and a 32”, and it’s been an interesting experience.
First things first, let’s talk about some of the nitty gritty. The Infinity Game Table (IGT) runs Android 9 with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (a microSD card slot is there), features a 1920x1080 screen resolution, and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi allows you to connect with up to 6 players remotely and enjoy a game together even if you can’t be together. It also lets you purchase additional games as they’re released. One more quick feature of the IGT is the tactile feedback. It can vibrate and it has built-in speakers to play music and sounds as you play games.
This sounds really cool. This is also the part where I start scratching my head. For many, this sounds great. Play board games on a digital table so you don’t have to pull out the board and deal with clean up afterwards. You can even save the game and come back to it later without having to take pictures of the game state. This is all fantastic. The problem is, I don’t know how much this is going to cost. Yes, this was funded on Kickstarter and at the time, the MSRP was advertised as $599. I don’t know if this has changed. At this price point, I really am scratching my head, trying to figure out who this is for.
While this is a great idea, the games that come with the table are all the old classics: Monopoly, Battleship, Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Operation, Yahtzee, etc. They are the most basic games out there. There are also jigsaw puzzles, a coloring book app, and a couple other non-conventional games included as well. We do know that Pandemic and Ticket to Ride will be coming to the IGT as well as more games in the future. Some may be put off though at having to purchase these new games. Now, I have been informed that future games will have similar pricing to other digital platforms which means you’re probably spending about $5-10 per game. This is cheaper than buying the physical versions of these games. I just struggle to see who this is for? Most people who are into board games that I know would want very different games than the Hasbro childhood games that come included and everyone I talk to balks at the $600 price tag for what is essentially a giant tablet for playing the most casual of games. Maybe I’m just forgetting about a demographic?
There are a few other concerns that I have with the IGT though. First, the height is really awkward. My knees are always at least at the top of the table which is a little awkward. It’s about the size and height as a coffee table, but most people I know don’t play games at a lower coffee table. It guarantees a nice aerial view of the board though. Another problem is that I would have the IGT all set up and depending on the game, I would have to physically rotate the table to have the proper orientation. In Settings I found ways to rotate the display, but it was always a 180 degree turn, never a 90 degree turn. I also don’t like the Power button, it’s a springy one instead of a nice click-y one. Finally, I wish all of the games allowed for AI players. Some of them do like Candy Land, but others like Monopoly do not.
That’s enough hating on the IGT though. There are some positives. First, it is fun to play. My daughter loves it and it’s great for helping her know where she’s supposed to go in games like Candy Land. I also appreciate that the games (at least the ones I played) allowed you to toggle various popular house rules on and off. This includes different rules for Free Parking or speeding up a game of Monopoly or just making it so you can’t go backwards in Candy Land when you spin a symbol you’ve already passed. This is a great feature. The music is usually a lot of fun and adds something. If you don’t like the music or sounds, you can always turn the volume down no problem. Of course, you also get the benefits of not needing storage for all the board games and you do have the convenience factors of not needing to pull out the pieces and it automatically calculates things like money in Monopoly. As the game library grows, this has a lot of potential to be incredible. I have a few games that I love playing, but they’re so big with lots of setup and clean up, that they almost never see the table. Those are ones I would love to see added.
One more benefit of the IGT is the autosaving feature. Arcade1Up invited me to play a game of Monopoly with them and a few other press members. There were a few hiccups with people becoming disconnected, but the game had autosaved and we could reload the game and pick up where we had left off when we started having problems. This was fantastic. I also, must give credit where it is due, the assembly of the IGT is extremely simple. You just need to snap the legs into their slots and you’re good to go. You can even take off the legs if you want to have it on the floor or a different table.
Something that I would love to see with the IGT is for Arcade1Up to work with The Op and other companies to bring skins to your favorite games. There are a million licensed versions of Monopoly. I would love to be able to just change skins on the fly to my favorite one. Even if you had to pay $0.50-1 per skin, that could be very much worth it. I know that Clue is coming to the IGT and that also has a ton of licensed skins. While I normally wouldn’t buy a licensed version if I already have a game, I would be much more open about buying a skin of it for the digital version.
On a final note, I’m interested to see what is in store for the future of the IGT. I don’t know who it’s really for at the moment, but it’s got a decent future ahead. It’s also got a couple of USB ports that are currently meant more for developers to use, but I’m interested to see if any peripherals could come out and what they’ll be.
