Take aim: Bar bathroom features hands-free video game

When it comes to bathrooms in Delaware bars, there aren't any in the First State that get more of a workout than those found in party town Dewey Beach during the summer.

Those long nights filled with beers and drinks regularly send the hard-drinking and sun-kissed to the bathroom in search of some relief – and one bar owner has decided to keep his male customers entertained even at the urinal.

The Starboard was the first bar in the U.S. to buy a pair of urinals outfitted with a new hands-free video game system that allows men to control a cartoon character on a television screen with their, um, urine stream.

That's right, the urinals have several sensors built into the basin, allowing men at the bar to control an on-screen video game and keep the good times rolling, even during a pee break.

In one game called "On The Piste," the customer's character is riding a snowmobile with penguins coming at him. Points are scored with each penguin that the snowmobiler runs into, controlled by where the man at the urinal directs his, well, you know. Scores and leaderboards are maintained, just like any other video game.

But as summertime Starboard regular Brent Rohm, 33, of Hockessin, points out, there could be a messy side effect to the urine-fueled video games.

"I really don't think they need any help getting any piss on the floor of The Starboard," jokes Rohm, who works for a local utility company and has used the urinals at the busy beach bar.

The specialized urinal games are the creation of U.K.-based Captive Media Ltd., which calls them the "world's first contact-free, networked, interactive washroom media system."

The company claims users playing the games are more focused on where they are urinating, so less of it actually ends up on bathroom floors. Starboard co-owner Steve "Monty" Montgomery now agrees after having them in his bar the past couple of months, even though he admits he initially had doubts of his own.

Montgomery discovered the urinals in March when he first walked into the annual Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show in Las Vegas. He was immediately hooked and he paid $11,000 to get the urinals in his bar, which has had a high-tech summer, also embracing TabbedOut, an app that allows customers to pay their tabs using their smartphones.

So the question needs to be asked: Why would anyone pay that much money for something so silly and frivolous?

"Conversation pieces is what The Starboard is for me. Anything that will put a smile on somebody's face, I will spend money on," Montgomery says of the urinals, located in the bar's Shark Tank area, which is now open year-round. "The funny thing is watching the women try to sneak into the bathrooms to see them."

The urinal games are about to make a splash on national television. The games are slated to appear on an episode of the new bathroom-themed show King of Thrones, airing Oct. 1 on Destination America. (Yes, that is actually a program on TV.) It follows the work of bathroom maestros Jeff Hoxie and Dave Koop of Waconia, Minn.-based Hoxie Homes and Remodeling.

After the urinal was installed for the King of Thrones segment, Hoxie and Koop tested it with a friendly competition using water guns, says King of Thrones executive producer Matthew Ostrom.

"I'd say it's one of the more unique amenities featured this season," he adds.

Marketers have been targeting potential customers in bathrooms for years, whether it be with posted advertisements above urinals or even digital screens that run commercials. Now, some bar owners are looking to their bathrooms as another way to keep their customers coming back. (The Starboard's other bathrooms all have televisions, for both men and women.)

Having a little bit of quirky fun in a restroom in our region is nothing new.

At 1984, the pop culture-themed Wilmington "barcade" outfitted with video games, the men's room is plastered with a floor-to-ceiling collage of photos of The Golden Girls cast and the women's room is decorated with a similar collage featuring images of Michael J. Fox. Across town at Trolley Square's Añejo Mexican Grill and Tequila Bar, a giant poster from the Steve Martin comedy Three Amigos hangs in the men's room as a cheeky nod to the bar's Mexican theme. And at the old Blue Angel restaurant in Philadelphia, a French bistro, there were French lessons piped in through the stereo system in the restrooms.

So far at The Starboard, the games have been more of a conversation-starter than anything else. After all, almost everyone who encounters the intuitive video game urinals for the first time have never even heard of such a thing, never mind urinated into one.

"When I first saw it, I didn't know what it was, but once I started going to the bathroom, it automatically started and I figured it out. It's pretty hilarious," says Rohm, who has a friend who actually keeps track of his best scores. "When you have a high score, it gives you a link to post your score online and he actually did it. Some of the scores are pretty phenomenal. That's a pretty long stream."

For Rohm, it's a novelty that only works in Dewey Beach at hard-charging bars like The Starboard, which prides itself on an oversized party atmosphere.

"I don't think it's anything you'll see in [Hockessin's] Six Paupers anytime soon," Rohm says. "I don't necessarily think anyone would even admit to playing a pee game up here."