Like the little green aliens in Disney’s “Toy Story,” people — often kids — may find themselves obsessed with “the claw.” Claw machines, also known as crane machines, dot arcades, malls, even grocery ...

The crane machine—also known as claw machines, crane games and, in Japan, as “UFO catchers” due to their proclivity for aerial abductions—first gripped the public imagination in the early 1900s. Even ...

SILVERDALE — Ten-year-old Christine Werren beamed with happiness when she walked out of a newly-opened Tokyo-style arcade in Silverdale with a plastic bag of over 10 plushies in it — all were prizes ...

As school and work wrap up, crowds fill Tokyo's many bustling arcade halls -- not to battle it out in fighting games, but to snag plush toys from claw machines. In one of these gaming meccas in the ...