Play Meter

Qu igley :
Every time a player
misses hitting the ball with his
paddle his opponent scores a point .
Dixon : Do you have a name for
this-this game of yours , Homer? .
Quigley : I call it "Pong ," sir.
Dixon: Geshundtheit!
Quigley : No , sir, Pong--that's the
name .
Dixon : Pong! Did you say Pong?
Hold it a moment . (Phone dialing.)
Get me the Artistic Catchy Names
and Creativity Department. ..
Gaylord ? Listen to this . Got a guy
here w ith a game he calls PONG!
Yes ... 1 don 't know what the hell it
means either . Maybe it's a code or
som ething . .. No , he wasn ' t blowing
his nose .. . Gaylord , take it easy, I
know it took you three months to
come up with "Porno Queen " for
our last pinball ... No , I' m not making
light of you efforts and talent ... Of
course, I wouldn ' t compare Pong to
" Chicken Thi ef Rapid- Fire Rifl e"--
that was a biggie .. . 1 thought you ' d
get a kick out of Pong ... No , I don 't
t hink he means to cheapen the
profession . .. Relax , O.K., who 'd
ever market something called Pong?
(Sound of phone hanging up .)
Howard , ha , ha , perhaps " Blips"
would have been more appropriate .
Quigley: Then you 're interested,
sir .
Dixon : Ah ... no ... 1 wouldn ' t want
to leave you with that impression .. .
Frankly, Homer, I doubt if it' s got a
prayer .
Quigley: But, sir, this is just the
beginning . By using my circuit
board I can any picture-pattern on
the screen . I envision race tracks
with cars going around and tank
games and cowboys shooting at
each other and airplanes and we can
put them in table and .. .
Dixon : Hold it a minute , Harold ,
sit back, boy, just hold on a little
10nger ... (Phone dialing .) Give me
r
Special Purchase
"""
Fun Games TANKERS ... $845
Fun Games Take 5
Cocktail ................ 795
call collect
ADVANCE
DISTRIBUTING CO.
2820 N . Grand Blvd .
St. Louis, Missouri 83107
Tal: (3141652-1600
""
See our regular ad on page 12.
~
Security-- Adolph ! (lowered voice)
Adolph , get up here on the double.
I've got one of them crackpot
scientist fanatics in my office who's
going over the edge. Hallucinating .
Better bring some restraints, the
man has lost touch with reality. I'll
humor him till you get here. (Phone
Now where were
hanging up.)
we? .. Eh, what was your name
again?
The remainder of the tape con-
sists of a seven minute erasure, the
perpetrator of which we are unable
to ascertain and the contents of
which we can only speculate.
Little is known of Quigley's career
following this rebuff though it was a
well-publicized fact that he did send
a floral spray to the wake of Richard
M . Dixon after that ill -fated execu -
tive 's one-and-a-half gainer from the
central span of the Golden Gate
Bridge shortly after a new company
. named Atari burst upon the game
Wldustry . The funeral wreath was
rather uniquely constructed of dan -
delions wired to a circuit board
topped by three barbed clusters of
dirty potentiometers and the crytic
inscription , " When you hit the
water, did you go plop or pong? "
emblazoned in red on a black
banner.
(continued from page 17)
the United States, and we are trying to help create
more locations that we can turn over to our
distributors who can give these locations to the
operator. If you have new locations, of course, it
creates more revenue and more machines can be
sold.
PLAY METER: Obviously when an operator can
get a new location, that's of direct benefit to him,
but the other techniques that you're using, the
advertising and so forth, how do these help the
operator?
FISHER: The ads that we're running, for example,
in the hotel -motel association magazines through-
out the United States- these will start breaking
ometime in the next two months-on solid-state
pin balls and arcade pieces and many of our new
location pieces, will enable the operator to go in and
talk to these people. We're opening the doors to put
new equipment in many, many places in the United
States that have never had equipment. This will
enable the operator to make a great deal of money
in locations he' never had open to him before. And
locations are the key as to the return of the money.
Compare, for example, an arcade in a major
shopping mall to an arcade that is in a local outdoor
hopping center: the difference between those
arcade's takes can be five times, depending on the
people, the schools around them and so forth. The
areas that we're trying to hit now throughout the
United States and open for new arcade pieces-
because of the new equipment we're coming out
with-will enable operators to buy Allied's equip-
ment for new locations and enable them to make a
great deal more money and then buy more of
Allied's equipment.
PLAY METER: Are you doing any consumer
research or field testing for your new equipment?
FISHER: Oh yes. All of our new equipment is field
tested. The new equipment we're introducing at
MOA in November and at CES in January will be on
test locations in the next three or four weeks. Some
of our pieces, in fact, are being field tested just this
week. Our pinball micro-processor is in the field
right now being tested in large quantities all over
the Florida area. It's making a great deal of money
and we are de-bugging it. This time when it goes
out the operator will have hardly any trouble at all
with it in the field.
PLA Y METER: What happens if a machine fails on
a field test, if it turns out to be a poor revenue
producer?
FISHER: We bring it in and we re-evaluate it. We
check out the machine at this point and find out
what is going wrong with it. If there is a major ;i
problem, we correct it and put it back out and field ~
test it in different locations again until we find that l
there are no errors and it is a money making game. ;
(continued on page 49)
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47