Arm Wrestling Machine Recalled for Breaking Arms

Lucas123 writes "After three players broke their arms while wrestling with a Japanese arcade machine, the manufacturer promised to remove all 150 of the mechanized appendages. Said game maker Atlus' spokeswoman: "The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it.""

Beating it

[gujo-odori (473191)]

"Even women should be able to beat it"

I dunno, I think an artificial arm would work better for helping guys to beat it...

Besides, having a woman beat it would just be so out of place for most /.ers.

lol

[wizardforce (1005805)]

Arm Spirit, which is only distributed in Japan, lets gamers advance through 10 levels battling, among other opponents, a French maid, a drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua before reaching the final showdown with a professional wrestler.

that would suck, get your arm snapped by a Chihuahua... what happens in Japan stays in Japan.

Re:lol

[by Anonymous Coward]

a French maid, a drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua

Sounds like Saturday night at my place.

We had one at work

[future assassin (639396)]

My boss bought one and it was stored at one of our stores. We'd have customers who thought they were all tough use the machine and do some damage to their arms. I tried it a couple of times and had some seriously sore shoulder for a week. If you are out of shape or drunk you will hurt yourself on the machine if you try too hard or if you up the strength level of the machine.

Re:We had one at work ... Yep

[by Anonymous Coward]

You can break your own bones. People think of conditioning in terms of muscle only but bones also respond to exercise, or the lack of it. The best example is astronauts. They lose a lot of bone mass. They can become quite fragile. It's not all that hard to get yourself to the condition where your muscles are too strong for your bones.

My favorite arm wrestling story: I used to vacation with a bunch of farmers. One night in the lounge they had a bit of an arm wrestling tournament. The security guy came in. He was buff. He obviously exercised at least an hour a day. He was also no fool. He chose the easiest looking guy for his first match; the farm kid. He looked like he never exercised and was slightly pudgy. He was a bit bigger than the security guy but not a lot. I would have bet on the security guy to win.

Not only could the security guy not budge the farm kid, he broke a small blood vessel in his temple. Blood actually spurted from the side of his head. I was very impressed but the farmers weren't. In any event, the kid couldn't beat any of the older guys even if they were getting pretty lubed.

If you're too tall or too short...

[MMaestro (585010)]

The machine can twist your arm up pretty badly. I once saw and tried one of these machines and I felt like my arm was being torn out at my shoulder. I'm 6'4" and since the machine was practically designed for people a whole foot shorter than me, my arm was in a pretty bad position (since I tried to play fairly and keep my elbow down on the pad).

Worse still, if a player is shocked by something (the sudden force of the game or your friend decides to drop an ice cube down your shirt), since the mechanical hand "grips" your hand with its thumb (assuming you held it properly), you can seriously mess your arm up if you try to pull away suddenly.

how is this funny?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why this is categorized as humor when it deals with someone's pain and anguish.

Also the company claims that the arm isn't that strong. Yet the physics behind the arm and the leverage is sure to make engaging the machine in a friendly game of arm wrestling into something which is needlessly dangerous.

Re:how is this funny?

[flyingfsck (986395)]

Well, it is only fun till someone gets hurt and then it is hilarious...

Re:how is this funny?

[timmarhy (659436)]

What kind soft pussy are you? pain and anguish? these are drunken idiots paying an obviously dangerous game (which the japs LOVE btw), probably pumping up the strength level to try impress mates/girls and then getting totally owned - i couldn't think of anything funnier.

Thuuurs ur problem!

[russ1337 (938915)]

>>> wrestling with a Japanese arcade machine, the manufacturer promised to remove all 150 of the mechanized appendages

I think you probably would get hurt tangling with an arcade machine that has 150 mechanized appendages...

Re:Thuuurs ur problem!

[Spudtrooper (1073512)]

Guess they'll have to recall that tentacle rape simulator too...

Re:Thuuurs ur problem!

[sqrt(2) (786011)]

Which is any amount.

theory and practice

[l2718 (514756)]

With a reply of "the machine is not that strong" it sounds like the engineering was done on paper. It doesn't take that much force to break an arm -- it's a question of torque more than force, and I'd bet the machine has plenty of leverage.

Recall the players

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

It's really the players that are defective. The game is fine.

Re:theory and practice

[by Anonymous Coward]

The machine may not be stronger than a human--but it is uncompromising. If you arm-wrestle against a human, they will: (a) get a bit tired, and (b) usually not purposefully break your arm. That is, they will only push as hard as is necessary to beat you, and if they see that you are hurting yourself, they can modify the force and direction of force so as to not hurt you.

If you are going up against a machine, it will just keep pushing back with the same strength, even when your eyes are saying "I give up!"

Re:theory and practice

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

It would also help if they didnt plug a 110 plug into a 220 socket.

Prizes for winning

[Veramocor (262800)]

The Japanese sure know how to build a video game. This one came with a prize feature depending on how far you advanced. They had some crazy prizes for winning on the hardest level. The one that is most over the top was winning you own Mack truck.

Finally

[timeOday (582209)]

An arcade game that's *definitely* harmful to children. No philosophical and ethical debate necessary!

Violent video games

[jsse (254124)]

I remembered we had a boxing video game in a local gameshop. Players' punched on a padding sensor and the strength would be measured, and the screen will respond accordingly.

The game was just fine until one day accident occurred. As a matter of fact, this was not the fault of the game design itself. A smartass attempted to hit the padding with a jump-side-back-kick with spinning, and missed, and broke his non-kicking leg as it was landed on the wrong place (well, as a witness myself I must say I'm not so sure whether he had planned any landing afterall).

Needless to say, the game was recalled for 'causing violent accident'.

Violent video game is OK as long as the players don't attempt to hurt themselves in most embarrass ways.

BTW, below is the no-full-page-ad of the headline story:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9032180 [computerworld.com]

sigh

[friedman101 (618627)]

And yet no one will recall the real doll [realdoll.com] for breaking hearts *sob*

Re:"Even women should be able to beat it"

[tukkayoot (528280)]

Well said. You expressed your point so clearly, even a woman could understand it!

Re:"Even women should be able to beat it"

[gallwapa (909389)]

So easy, even a caveman could do it!

Re:"Even women should be able to beat it"

[by Anonymous Coward]

Shoot, I'm more liberal than most and I think the PC bullshit goes too far.

So the average man is stronger than the average woman... but it's still not OK to acknowledge that?

I took a sociology class with a crazy liberal lesbian instructor (she was nice and earnest, just not a good teacher). Anyhow, we were shown some statistic about women vs. men along the lines of "Men are stronger [taller, something like this] on average". In refuting the (larger) argument, the instructor pointed to this particular statistic and said "It doesn't take into account that some women are stronger [taller, whatever] than some men!"

I just wanted to scream out "YES IT DOES!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT AVERAGE MEANS??" but it was a lost cause; most students were just as gung-ho about being "equal" and "correct", etc. I didn't have the energy to refute every problem in that class.

Really, pointing out facts should not be frowned upon. If, on average, men are stronger than women, why shouldn't one say that? Using said facts to oppress would be a problem, but facts are facts, no matter what happen to be our beliefs or prejudices.

I mean, if I say "People hailing from Western Africa have darker skin than those from Western Europe", is there anything wrong with it? Of course not. It just becomes a problem when I add, "and so we can subjugate them." I leave it up to you to decide who "we" are and who "they" are.

Re:Ob. Colbert

[rumblin'rabbit (711865)]

/. reader's wrists are already strong enough, thank you very much.

Re:Semi-karma whoring

[mcmonkey (96054)]

Are there any pro arm wrestlers (hah)/phyicists/smart-dudes that can comment about a good arm-wrestling strategy?

Easy. Lifting your elbow up provides an advantage through leverage. AKA cheating. Next time your buddy gets his elbow off the table while arm wrestling, kick him in the nuts.