Patent ID: 8152632

Claim:
A gaming machine system comprising: a remote display; a system controller connected to the remote display; a plurality of gaming machines, which are remote to the system controller, and linked to the system controller, each gaming machine having a first display, a second display, and a game controller arranged to control images of symbols displayed on the first display, the game controller being arranged to play a game wherein at least one random event is caused to be displayed on the first display and, if a predefined winning event occurs, the machine awards a prize; and wherein said game controller being arranged to play a feature game where, during play of the feature game, feature images associated with the feature game are displayed on the second display, and wherein the feature game is arranged to award a progressive prize and a fixed prize, wherein: a) awarding the progressive prize is caused by the system controller, the system controller notifying one of the gaming machines about the progressive prize being awarded; and b) awarding the fixed prize is caused by the game controller of one of the gaming machines and wherein one of the gaming machines notifies the system controller about the fixed prize being awarded and in response thereto the system controller causes details of the fixed prize to be displayed on the remote display that is remote to the gaming machines; and the remote display being visible to a player playing any one of the gaming machines, at least certain of the feature images having first image content occurring on the second display of a said gaming machine during the playing of the feature game on that gaming machine cooperating with different feature images having second image content different from the first image content, displayed on the remote display to communicate an outcome of the feature game on the gaming machine, wherein there are a plurality of different outcomes possible from the feature game and wherein feature images displayed on the remote display during play of the feature game represent that there are a plurality of possible outcomes of the feature game, and wherein the determination of a feature outcome for one of the gaming machines affects a subsequent determination of a feature outcome for another one of the gaming machines.