coin machines with slot machines and slot machines
with vending machines. The coin goes in and it
doesn't matter to them what happens. Video games
were lucky because they came out in a different
medium and time.
One of my researchers came out with this
hypothesis: Since pinball machines were electro-
mechanical, everyone could understand them and
that gave them the possibility of being tampered
with. Since video games are highly sophisticated
electronically, no one could alter them .
Video games are more generic to our technological
times. Pinball still seems to them to be a game where
there was risk, chance, the influence of gambling--all
the preposterous reasons given 30 and 40 years ago.
But that attitude evolved from the mid-30's, when
the first payout games came out as the pinball
manufacturers' counteractive measure to the success
of slot machines. They changed their thinking to an
extent to make games that gave money instead of
free games or extra balls, but it didn't make them
gangsters or mobsters. They did it because they
thought their business would die otherwise. The
smart ones got out of it at the right times.
PLA Y METER: Are there any states that still
allow the descendants of those payout games--
bingos?
SHARPE: Bingos are legal in two states, I think.
Slot machines, of course, only in Nevada. But a lot of
states are thinking about it. For example, who would
have ever thought Illinois would have a lottery? Who
would have ever thought that Evanston , ILL., which
had blue laws, would legalize pinball.
PLAY METER: With flipper games increasing in
popularity , have you found legislative bodies more
inclined to take a closer look at pinball and pass
favorabl e legi lation?
SHARPE: I think so. When I testified in New York
City, I was there, number one, as a material witness
from outside the industry. I told them Ive seen it all
over the world and seen the joy and enthusiasm it
generates. Then I played a game to show them it was
skill not chance. And I think in talking to these
councilmen there was a new attitude.
But it's still a double -edged argument, particularly
with free play, which still has that stigma attached to
it of being a reward of some value. It's hard to change
people's views.
You still have some mothers who are going to think
their kids are going to spend all their money playing
pinball. From that standpoint, the only argument
you can u e is to say to the parents , "If you can't
control your kids better than that, they'll spend their
money at some other diversion or hang out in the
treets and get in trouble ." If I was a parent, I'd view
pinball as a savior because if he's at the local arcade
or whatever, I'll have the phone number and know
where he's at . Children today are better able to
gauge the relative merit of situations and things
because they've grown up faster in a different world
from that of the '30's.
PLA Y METER: How doe the tax motive affect
new legislation?
SHARPE: That' the other thing. We're very
mercenary ociety. If it can be pointed out to a
congre man that if you let these innocuous little
54
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