Usually when you open up a brand new fun
center, many adults in the area will think there are
going to be problems. They feel that where a lot of
kids congregate, you're bound to have problems.
After it's shown to them that you're going to have
adult supervision, that you really provide for a need
of the community, they're happy to have you there
and in some cases, as in Park City, will do their
very best to keep you there.
PLAY METER: We understand that you have been
experiencing some difficulty getting into large,
en<;losed malls. What's the story here? Why is
there difficulty and what can be done to combat this
difficulty?
GETTLE The No. 1 thing that can be done to
combat the difficulty is hiring adult managers or
supervisors, not, even when business slows down,
trying to reduce the expense by hiring someone
who wiJl work for $2.30/ hour. In this business, like
any other business, you get what you pay for.
PLAY METER: Why is there difficulty getting into
these malls, though? Why aren't they begging you
to come in?
GETTLE: Most of the large regional malls are
owned by people who have a number of them, two,
three, five, maybe twenty of them. Most of these
have had some experience with a fun center or an
arcade in one of their malls. Many times,
unfortunately, it's been a bad experience. And the
only thing they have to go on is their past
experience. If they've had a bad experience in
Missouri or Ohio and we try to lease space
from them in Kansas, many times they won't even
talk to us.
PLAY METER: Do you think this can be changed?
GETTLE: I think that through the efforts of
everybody in the industry it can be changed . People
that go into a mall to put in a recreation center have
a very large investment, and yet they will hire a
$100 or $125/ week man to run their business. I
think that's a mistake.
PLAY METER: How long is it going to take before
fun centers are universally accepted in en,closed
malls?
GETTLE: I think it will take a long time. I don't
think we'll ever be accepted as well as a chain of
restaurants or a chain of movie houses, but I do
think that through the efforts of everybody in the
industry, we can change our image a good deal.
PLA Y METER: Just by running the business
properly?
GETTLE: By running the business with adult
supervision and by paying the supervisors a salary
that's sufficient to get qualified help. By taking the
time that is necessary to interview, to screen, the
people so that you're sure getting someone that can
do the job. And just as important, if you find out
you have somebody that's not doing the job, by
taking immediate steps to replace him with
someone else, not letting the problem linger or
gtow into something where the only solution is
~ closing the center down.
• PLAY METER: Is there anything else you're doing
... that you feel is different?
~ GETTLE: One thing that we do that I don't think is
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real common in the industry among those that
operate fun centers or operate routes, is that we
have a retail outlet of our used pinball machines .
Being able to get a retail price for these by selling
them for home use enables us to replace our
machines more than the average operator would.
CARSON: Also, the home models actually help the
general busine s, I think. They take them home and
plkay them there, but it doesn't take away from our
business at the fun center. It only whets the
appetite to come back and try the machines we have
there. Because the atmosphere is still at the fun
center.
PLA Y METER: Have you sold a lot of pinball
machines to private homes?
GETTLE: We'll sell two or three a week, which
means 100 to 150 machines a year, and I think, as
time goes on our business will increase. But like
Dan says, it doesn't hurt your business in the fun
center. If the majority of homes had a pinball
machine , I don't think it would hurt our business
because t he people do go in for the atmosphere-that
we create. Kids go into a fun center for the other
kids.
PLA Y METER: Besides hard work and the hiring
of top-notch personnel, to what would you attribute
your rapid growth?
GETTLE: I think one of the things that has helped
is that I myself, the people in supervision,
everybody in our organization as a matter of fact,
have only been in the business a short time. So
we're not hindered, if that's the right word, by a set
way of doing business like somebody is that's been
in the business for 25 or 30 years and would rather
not try a change. We're a young organization--most
of the people in it are young--and we're more likely
to try new and different things. And trying new
and different things is what is going to make our
business continue to grow, is what is going to make
the industry continue to grow.
PLA Y METER: If you were starting this business
all over again, what sort of problems that you've
had would you be able to avoid and would you
advise the novice to avoid?
GETTLE: I wouldn't go into a mixed neighborhood.
I don't want of offend anybody, but this fun center
business I've found to be of such a nature that it
doesn't really do well in a mixed neighborhood . I
don't know that I would change anything other than
that. I feel very proud of what we've done and of
what we've accomplished and I say "we" because
it's been Dan and I and a lot of other good people ,
especially good managers, that's made it possible.
I would try even harder to get people that want
to grow with the business because it offers a
tremendous opportunity to grow. It's one of the few
businesses that I know of that when they say, "The
sky's the limit, " the terminology really applies. It's
a very small percentage of people in the United
States that play pinballs and arcade games,
and a we, as operators, help to educate people that
these are games of skill, that they are games of fUll-,
the sky indeed is the limit as to the business we'll be
able to do, as to the number of locations that we can
have and really as to the money, the profit we can
make in it--and that's what it's all about.