lcontmuea)Tom page 13J
you put in your money (according to how much
money you put in) of getting just music or
getting video as well. You can see that this opens up
a whole new vista of possibilities for coin-operated
music.
PLAY METER: What sort of video would you get,
do you think?
ROBBINS: It's really too early to discuss that
because you've got so many possibilities. It involves
the record companies as well. As you know RCA is
working on this thing, North American Phillips,
others. Which system is going to be the best, we
don't know. but whichever it is, I can't see that it
cannot be incorporated somehow into a jukebox.
Still, there may be technical problems, industry
problems; there may be artist problems, something
that will make it impractical, even impossible. But I
know that there must be something like that
because an industry can't stand absolutely still and
retain it's position.
PLAY METER: Where would you say the
phonograph market is now?
ROBBINS: It is on a plateau. It's not going down
and it's not going up-it's on a plateau.
PLA Y METER: Is that in accordance with your
sales figures over the past few years? Do you find
phonograph sales have been pretty stable?
ROBBINS: Yes.
PLAY METER: How long do you guys recommend
that an operator hold onto a phonograph before he
trades it in?
ROBBINS: That's a great question. One of the
problems with the jukebox industry is that the
phonographs are so damn good, they'll last forever.
When I got into this business in 1946, the average
operator turned over his phonographs every five
years, 20 per cent per year. By 1952 or 1953, it
evolved so that the average operator (by our
calculations) turned his phonographs over every six
and a half years, that is 15 per cent a year. What do
you think it is today? I'll tell you one thing: it's not
more than six and a half. In fact the. replacement
rate is closer to five per cent, or one every twenty
years. At least, that's my opinion. Maybe I'm
wrong, but that's my opinion.
PLAY METER: If and when an operator finally
does get around to trading in his box, how do you
fix a trade-invalue on it?
ROBBINS: The Bally Group prints its own trade-in
guide. And we all follow that, more or less. It's not
a bible, of course, it's a guide. Normally a jukebox
will lose value completely after ten years. It will
take the biggest bump, of course, the first year,
probably 20-25 per cent. After that it would not
depreciate over 10 per cent a year.
PLAY METER: What do you see in the future for
the flipper market?
ROBBINS: Here you are going through a very,
very important historical phase in the industry. The
flipper manufacturer is phasing from electro-
mechanical to electronic. There is no question that
electronic is where it is going; the only question is,
"How long will it take?" As you probably know,
Evel Knievel, which is the next Bally game, will be
an all electronic run. The success of Freedom and
now Night Rider is so phenomenal in the electronic
60
state that there can be no doubt any more that it's
going that way. The question is: how long will it
take the others to do it?
PLAY METER: Do you see that change as a price
salvation? Will it put a lid on flipper prices?
ROBBINS: I'm not sure about that.
PLAY METER: Do you see prices levelling off any
time in the near future?
ROBBINS: Well, they'd better level off. But after
all, there's always the law of supply and demand
and there's always the point of diminishing returns.
And when the price of equipment gets too high in
relation to his income, the operator stops buying,
and the prices have to stop going up.
PLAY METER: What about leasing equipment? Is
that a viable alternative?
ROBBINS: Our leasing business has been very
good; it continues to grow, although not as fast as
we would like it to- because of the prices of
equipment. Games are ve~y, very expensive to buy
but also to lease. Still, more and more operators
have found that you do not have to be completely a
buyer or completely a leasor. There is room for
both, especially for some leasing, in almost every
operation . I have rarely found an operation where
some leasing is not adVisable or applicable.
PLAY METER: Not every distributor has a lease
program. How does yours work?
ROBBINS: You have to have a tremendous financial
foundation to be able to lease- it takes a lot of
money. But, one of the great ways an operator can
use leasing is if he's not sure about buying a piece of
equipment. We have all kinds of options. An
operator can take a piece on lease, and, while he's
obligated for 26 weeks only, at any time he can buy
it. And if he buys it in the first thirty days- say he's
got it out three or four weeks and decides, "Hey,
this is a good game" - all of his leasing charges
apply to the purchase: it doesn't cost him a dime to
lease it. He gets a first hand look at the machine.
And if it turns out only fair to middlin', so he's got it
on lease for six months; then he can return it.
Pretty hard to lose with that kind of deal. It's an
option and a lot of guys should take advantage of it.
PLAY METER: How about the used games
market? How is that holding up?
ROBBINS: You have to differentiate again. The
pinball market up until now has been very
predictable, very stable, very fine and that has
been a great help to the operator- he knows that he
can get a good return on his used equipment. There
seems to be an insatiable demand for used pins out
there.
The arcade and novelty market on the other hand
is probably the most dangerous resale market in the
whole industry, because it is completely unpre-
dictable . In some cases, on the super games, you
can predict it : you are going to get a good return.
But there are so many games that have come out
that have depreciated, 50 per cent, 60 per cent, 70
per cent in a year, even 75 per cent in the first six
mont hs, one hundred per cent in a year. It's
unbelievable! Any used arcade game, video
whatever, can be terribly dangerous.
PLAY METER: Do you find that you lose much
money on these things?