Claw machines are a fixture at every German fairground, rows of glass boxes, packed tight with plush toys stacked in precarious piles. The mechanical claw is famously weak, designed to grip and slip and grip again, often dropping its prize half a second before the chute. Most machines run on cycled odds rather than pure chance, meaning the claw's grip strength varies from pull to pull regardless of skill. Despite this, they remain a popular attraction, drawing small crowds of people feeding in coins with more determination than success.
Many contain prizes like plushies from famous video games or tv shows like: Mario, Luigi, Sonic, Toothless (black dragon), Hedwig (snow owl), Bernd das Brot (rectangular curmudgeonly Pullman loaf with hands and feet directly attached to its body), Totoro (big roundish grey with beige belly, pointy ears, a little cat-like).
