What it had to solve
The House of Seafood wanted an attention-grabbing machine at its Punggol restaurant and said it spent a month of planning designing it so the crabs would not be harmed.
How it works
Introduced October 13, 2019 and believed to be the first of its kind in Singapore: an elevated, cushioned tank to minimize any drop, only the crabs' pincers tied, crustaceans replaced every hour, $5 per attempt.
What it did
Videos went viral and sparked a public outcry; the SPCA demanded a full and permanent stop, the National Parks Board's AVS opened an investigation, and the restaurant paused the machine, apologised, and had won just one crab for a customer.
Background
In October 2019, The House of Seafood, a restaurant in Singapore's Punggol, introduced a claw machine where customers could catch their own live Sri Lankan crabs — believed to be the first machine of its kind in the country, launched on October 13 at $5 a play. The restaurant said its team took a month of planning to design the machine so it would not harm the crabs: the holding tank was elevated and cushioned to minimize any drop and impact, only the crabs' pincers were tied, and the crustaceans were replaced with a new lot every hour.
It took ten days to unravel. Videos of the machine went viral on Wednesday, October 23, sparking a public outcry, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals called the restaurant out on Facebook as being cruel to the crabs, arguing the machine could inflict unnecessary harm and distress if crabs were dropped by the claw. The next day, CEO Francis Ng apologised: 'We did not intend to use animals as play things. We noticed a lot of children at The Punggol Settlement and we wanted to educate them about marine life.' The restaurant said it had stopped using the machine temporarily.
The retreat did not end the matter. SPCA CEO Jaipal Singh Gill told The Straits Times the measure was insufficient: 'We appreciate this clarification and are very happy with this news. However, what we are asking for is a full and permanent stop to the use of this machine.' By then the machine's commercial record was one successful catch — a single customer had won a crab, while three or four had tried and failed.
Why it lands
Live animals in a game machine crossed a line for Singapore audiences regardless of the safety engineering behind it.
Viral video removed any control over context: the cushioned tank story never competed with the clip of a dangling crab.
The SPCA's escalation to a demand for a permanent stop and a government investigation made 'temporary' untenable.
The stunt's own numbers — one winner in ten days — showed the attention came from outrage, not play.
What you can take
A gimmick that wins attention can fail on ethics within a day — test the stunt against the audience's values before the videos go viral, not after.
Since then
As of October 25, 2019, the machine was out of use, the restaurant had apologised on Facebook for 'causing public unhappiness over its gimmick', and the AVS investigation was open, with the public invited to submit evidence.
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