Saturday, March 25, 2017

Deloitte Canada Turning Into Chuck E. Cheese

A more accurate, but still wildly figurative headline would be "Chuck E. Cheese passes the token torch to Deloitte."

Or something. You decide.

From Going Concern, your source for the accounting news you won't find elsewhere:

Accounting News Roundup: PCAOB Transparency and a Deloitte Cafeteria Accepts Bitcoin | 03.22.17
... Bitcoin
Here’s an actual press release from Deloitte Canada boasting about their employees are using the bitcoin ATM the firm installed last fall.
Since the installation of the BTM in the fall of 2016, Deloitte’s Toronto office has seen tremendous adoption and understanding of the cryptocurrency, and its underlying technology blockchain.
“After placing a BTM in our offices and seeing Deloitte personnel downloading a wallet and buying their first fraction of a bitcoin, it seemed natural to enable the next step of the use case under our own roof,” said Ian Chan, Partner, Deloitte.
Yes, “Deloitte Canada has announced that it is now accepting bitcoin at Bistro 1858, the Toronto office’s internal restaurant.”

This sounds just like a carnival. You take regular money to obtain this mysterious other currency that you have to spend on delicious, overpriced food. I really hope the next thing at Deloitte Toronto that accepts bitcoin is a Skee-Ball machine. I would seriously consider getting some bitcoin for that....MORE weirdness
The reason for my confusion on the proper headline was because of this Bloomberg story from last October: 

Chuck E. Cheese’s Embraces a New Form of Cheddar
The decision to swap tokens for rewards cards could roil the collectors’ currency market—which, yes, is a thing. 
Chuck E. Cheese’s—the pizzeria-slash-video-game-arcade that bills itself as the place “where a kid can be a kid”—has been making some changes of late aimed at appealing to millennial moms and dads. Thin-crust and gluten-free pizza have been added to the menu, along with wraps and an expanded beer and wine selection. Some locations have free Wi-Fi. Chuck himself, the chain’s guitar-playing mascot, has even grown up a little, exchanging his skater look for a pair of well-fitted jeans.

Its most sweeping change is yet on the horizon: After 39 years, it’s phasing out tokens in favor of rewards cards. Christelle Dupont, a spokeswoman for the restaurant’s parent company, CEC Entertainment, says the cards “will be easier for everyone.” Easier, of course, for Chuck E. Cheese’s to collect data on customers’ gaming habits and easier for gamers to track their scores and recover points if they lose their cards....