I've criticized M&D's for not having a single permanent structure in the park, but if it had one, I think it would look something like this.
I don't know what's worse. The expanse of patched asphalt, the drab, greige building stripped of all decoration, the general misery of the facade, or the long row of claw machines - widely known (but not widely enough, apparently) - to be money-sucking total scams. There is an algorithm that determines how often the claw will apply enough strength to grip an item, so even with perfect skill you're not likely to ever get a prize. Usually it's cheaper to just buy the prizes online anyway.
Yeah, I think that's the worst thing. That Thorpe stripped down the facade of the building to a colourless husk, but let the claw machines remain on prominent display. They've taken away the ornaments and decoration there once was, and set up a row of scam boxes instead. It so clearly screams "This area is not here to improve the visit you've paid for - its only purpose is to suck more money out of you while lowering the costs for us".
I noticed on my trip two years ago that Thorpe has a lot of those claw machines. Like,
a lot. Evidently they must make money, so Thorpe's spamming them like a kid who's gaming a parameter in a videogame. There are dozens of them around the park, four on every corner. Which is okay enough if they blend into the scenery, but when the scenery looks like the back of an abandoned mall, they don't really enhance the overall impression. The way the area used to look (center of the picture below), the claw machines looked like something you could hit up for fun while standing in the shade of a lovely veranda. Now the area could illustrate the dictionary entry for "cheap cash grab".