from the editor
Welcome to the year 1977 and welcome to
Volume III of Play Meter. It is with a great deal of
pride and satisfaction that I can look upon the first
two years of Play Meter. They were two years that
saw the beginning of a new era of technology and
enlightenment, and from the beginning Play Met er
was designed to serve the needs of the operator
during such a period of rapid growth and soaring
costs.
Helping the operator to survive was the focus of
Play Meter's editorial content then and it al'Yays
will be. That was a time to dispense with a trade
journalism that only concerned itseH with gossip
columns, smiling faces, music news and loads of
manufacturer propaganda. The time had come to
provide this industry with a publication that would
serve the operator rather than sell him. It was a
time to inform the ope.r ator not deceive or patronize
him. And as an informative vehicle, Play Meter has
since become the leading and most respected
publication now serving the industry.
But so much for the past. What everyone is
interested in is the future. As I gaze into my
"bionic" crystal ball, the year ahead seems to be
clouded with question marks. While many of the
question marks concern themselves with the new
Carter administration, it's far too early to say yet
what effect that will have on this country much less
the industry. But I think I would be safe in saying
that the amusement machine industry has little to
worry about politically on the national level. Indeed
the industry was born into the worst economic
depression the country has eve~ seen and should
nourish forever in good times and bad.
What this industry is selling is an attractive,
compact, efficient, miniaturized amusement device,
which is fully automated and provides entertain-
ment for millions of people, young and old
everywhere. In the days of old when a nickle was a
nickle and with one you could muster up a loaf of
bread or a bottle of beer, pocket change was real
money and not readily parted with. These days
pocket change has been reduced to a mere nuisance,
when it isn't being used for tax tokens. But change
can be put into all kinds of coin operated devices
designed to make life a little bit more convenient
and hopefully more enjoyable. So from that
standpoint, coins are not a nuisance but in a very
real sense "tickets" that entitle the bearer to
entertain himself at his leisure.
While we count the days until we see a doUar coin
and games that accept one and even five dollar bills,
we at Play Meter are going to continue to make
sure our readers are up on all the new and old ways
of gathering up as many of these "tickets" as they
possibly can.
In the year ahead we plan to continue our drive to
promote the image of the industry at national, state
and local levels. We will continue to key on state
and local legal problems and urge everyone to help
legalize all amusement machines. We will continue
to search out operators who have been successful in
certain areas of the business in order that they may
share their experiences and knowledge with us.
Hopefully we will enable operators everywhere to
re-negotiate a more realistic and sensible commis-
sion arrangement with their locations. We will
continue to provide our readers with new product
information that is informative, unbiassed and
educated.
In this issue as well as the year ahead, we are
expanding our coverage in the management and
technical fields. Some of this expansion will show
itself in our new mid-month publication Update
launched a few months ago and sent to all paid
subscribers. We feel that better business methods
and top notch service will be extremely important
in the years ahead. Too, with two well-attended,
highly successful Phase III Digital Service Schools
behind us, we're looking forward this year to
sponsoring several more and perhaps some lower
level schools as well. Up until Play Meter's very
first school back in October, we had no idea how
thirsty technicians are for digital logic information.
As was done this same time last year, we extend
our deepest thanks and appreciation to our faithful
paid subscribers that have stuck by us over the
year. We were delighted some time ago to reward
your faithfulness with our mid-month sister
publication Update. We are now equally proud and
delighted to present to you an industry directory. A
great many staff hours have gone into its
preparation. You will find that it is the most
complete, accurate and useful directory of its kind.
We took special care to make sure it turned out that
way because you are so special to us. Accept this
special issue as our gift to you to whom we owe so
much. From all of us to all of you-a very
prosperous New Year.
iocerely.
".4e
Ralph . Lally II ,
Publi her & Editor