from the editor
PLA Y METER received a letter this month from an operator
complaining about location owned equipment. In addition to our
reply in this issue's Mailbox section, I would like to say something
here regarding this, one of the more serious and less talked about
problems facing the industry.
It should be noted here that when I talk about "location owned
equipment," I am talking about a location whose main business is
concerned with something other than recreation or amusement. I
can understand an arcade or recreation center operator carrying
his own equipment--amusement machine operators operate
amusement machines--but bar owners and restaurant owners have
no more business operating machines than an operator does mixing
drinks or scrambling eggs.
Why do location owners want to own their own equipment? Be-
cause they think they can do a better job with it than their present
operator, and because they're greedy and want all the money for
themselves. What they eventually learn is that 100 per cent of
nothing isn't anywhere near as good a deal as 50 per cent of $100.
Where do locations buy their equipment? Where else but from
desperate manufacturers about to go under, greedy distributors
loo~ng for a fast buck, unethical operators unloading surplus
eqwpment or down and out location owners selling to their
successors.
Location ow~ers tend to neglect their equipment. Few, if any,
know the meanmg of "upgrading." Most don't know how to fix the
equipment they own; they fail to maintain it in clean, working order
and therefore create a lot of ill will from enraged customers. And
that's bad for business, theirs AND ours.
A location owner like a bad operator makes business worse for
everybody. People get turned off on coin-op equipment that is
dirty and inoperable.
They may begin to think that all
coin-operated devices are the same way and they may not be quite
so inclined to approach another machine at some future date. When
that happens, not only has that machine lost a customer but the
industry loses the customer as well.
As members of the same profession, operators owe it to
themselves to recognize that they share the same customers. The
player seldom notices the operator's decal on the equipment he is
enjoying; rarely is he even aware of the brand of machine he is
playing. All he knows is that that machine caught his attention, he
wants to play it, and he expects it to work. If it doesn't, he'll get
mad not at the operator, not at the manufacturer, but at the
machine itself.
And believe me, that's bad for business
EVERYBODY'S business.
'
It is bad enough that there are still a lot of operators who
opera~e poorly. Location owned equipment can only make the
situation that much worse. Usually a bad operator does himself in
and eventually goes under, but a location owner, with the support
of his main business can continue to grind out a living regardless of
what his machines are bringing in. And the bad machines remain.
Location owned equipment is like a cancer living within the
industry, eating away at its foundation. We can only hope the
disease is not terminal.
Ralph C. Lally II,
Publi her & Editor
8
Calendar
August 19-22
Michigan Tobacco & Candy
Distributors & Vendors Ass'n.
Boyne Mountain Lodge, Boyne
Mountain, Michigan.
August 27-29
North Carolina Coin Operators
Association, annual convention.
Charlotte, North Carolina. Site
not yet selected.
September 16-18
Music Operators of Virginia,
annual convention. Hyatt
House, Richmond, Virginia.
September 17-19
Florida Amusement Merchan-
dising Association, annual con-
vention. Deauville Hotel, Mi-
ami Beach, Fla.
October 2-3
Wisconsin Music Merchants
Association, annual convention.
Holiday Inn, Wausau, Wisc.
October 2-3
Coin Operated Industries of
Nebraska, meeting. Ramada
Inn , Omaha, Nebraska.
October 7-10
National Convention-Exhibit of
Vending and Food Service Man-
agement, Civic Center, Phila-
delphia, Pa.
October 14-16
West Virginia Music & Ven-
ding Association, annual con-
vention. Sheraton Inn, Clarks-
burg, West Va.
November 12-14
Music Operators of America,
Expo 76. The Conrad Hilton
Hotel, Chicago, Illinois.
November 18-21
IAAPA [Parks howl. The
Rivergate, New Orleans, La.