Location-Nine
has to be justif ied !
NO-ONE should be fooled into thinking that the
manufacturers of laser dise games will sell as man y
units as they did with conventional video games,
says Gil Pollock, vice-president of sales and
merèhandising for Mylstar Electronics.
The Chicago-baseù company ~s unquestionably one. of
the current leaders in laser game technology with its
highly successful M.A.C.H. 3 game.
But Mr. Pollock, white advocating the use of laser games
on ail quality sites, is keen to see the whole thing kept in
perspective. "You must remember that there is no way
that secondary locations can generate enough traffic to
justify this level of investment. That is why my company
and its competitors will continue to develop conventional
video games as well".
Asked what he considered the laser game gave the games
manufacturers, Mr. Pollock said: ''lt gives them a
product which because of the charisma of a new
technology, bas an immediate psychologically
acceptable image. There is an immediate market, a
demand.
DISCERNING OPERATOR
"The intelligent buyer looks at it to see, initially,
whether the product is truly a game. If you think about
it, AMOA showed clearly that there are already good
and bad laser games. The discerning operator could
recognise it straight away and because of that, only good
product was and still is, being sold, at least in decent
quantities".
He sees the laser disc's place in the market as one purely
of novelty which in itself should help regenerate interest
in a location. "Our testing bas shown that it can have the
effect of increasing revenues for a location".
It is not the perfect answer to the ills of the
manufacturing trade suffered over the past couple of
years, he maintains. "There is no perfect answer in this
industry. Each product bas to be evaluated on its merits
and if you have a commercial, viable product, you can
feed your factory and supply your distributor with
something which gives him decent margins and decent
returns on investment for the operators. We can
honestly expect no better from any new piece of
equipment, however good.
"The most important thing to any game, laser or video,
is that we develop a product with longevity. This bears a
direct relationship to the player's attitude. If be becomes
bored, Iongevity is not there and a return on investment
is not there".
The principal value in laser games is its rote as a new
type of technology, he said. He blamed the industry's
brittle reputation for overnight stagnation on the human
factors, the manufacturers' inability to be consistently
creative. ''If it dries up ail you are doing is producing
electronics instead of innovation. That's what leads to
close-outs".
He insists that laser games must be treated differently
from video games because of the higher costs. "The
same criteria that the operator used to judge a good
return on investment in video games can still be applied
if the operator has a set percentage of what he requires
for bis return on investment on a laser game. The
numbers are different, that's ail".
An important element in laser games which is often not
considered is the ''package", the promise of the
manufacturer to provide software to replace the original
game when it begins to "dip". This costs a fraction of the
original game as the hardware does not figure in the
transaction. Nevertheless, Mr. Pollock feels that the
operator should still treat his initial investment in a laser
game as he would any other product, for write-off
purposes. He maintains that the best business method
would be to treat new software as an independent
transaction and evaluate it separately, giving it a higher
return on software than on the original.
Mr. Pollock advocated the values of a competitor's
product, which is a surprising but true statement.
"Obviously, therefore, I have no axe to grind. If I had
an arcade location I would certainly operate a
M.A.C.H. 3 and a Cinematronics' Dragon's Lair. The
contrast between the two games is quite apparent and
therefore the players won't have to make a choice.
"Similarly, the type of games is so diverse one from
another that they will attract a high proportion of
different players. They will, therefore, tend to support
one another rather than conflict.
''lt should be emphasised, of course, that the location
should have the kind of throughput to justify an
investment of that size. I realise that the US market can
be different from the European markets, but our testing
in the US bas shown that a laser game can increase
location earnings and that two working together
increases the earnings proportionately higher".
What a laser game should be doing for an arcade
location is qui te clearcut to Mr. Pollock. It should be
generating trade, bringing customers back to the
premises and when they have played the laser game,
they go on to play other games. If it doesn't have that
effect, he says, then the site did not justify the
investment in the first place. "Most weU run, reasonably
sized arcades will find their figures swinging up after a
laser game is installed" he closed with confidence.
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