Play Meter

By David Snook
A foreigner's view of AMOA Show
There was razzamatazz,
but no pizzazz
A.M.O.A . did not live up to
expectations . We expect a great deal
of uninhibited razzamatazz with the
much more serious undertones of a
practical exposition of American
talent and innovation .
Certi'l inlv the razzamatazz was
there this year but where was the
American talent and innovation?
Given that we foreigners are separat-
ed by a gulf of geographic difference
from the day-to-day influences that
affect the U.S . trade , we had to
make our own judgements de -
pendent upon what we saw .
And what we saw seemed to
suggest that all the ideas came from
Japan .
My impression was that the U.S .
trade - to generalize - had visited the
recent Japanese exhibition and had
taken its ideas for its 1979 machines
from there , either by straightforward
"cribbing" or by a license arrange-
ment. Hardly worthy of the world's
leading games manufacturing nation ,
we thought.
A little more investigation led us to
rather more kindly conclusions . I got
the impression that the U.S . games
market had been through a two-year
depression . This left little funds for
research and development with the
result that using Japanese ideas was
the only way out.
Going a little more deeply , we
found that another influence was the
massive home video market in the
United States in the past couple of
years. This has been so lucrative that
many U.S . manufacturers have
switched their R. and D. boys into
this side of the market at the expense
of coin-operated games.
The trend was supported by the
co incidence that the Japanese have
been experiencing a boom . Some-
one told me that the Japanese
manufacturers are currently knocking
out 24 ,000 video cocktail tables a
DA Y to satisfy their own domestic
market. How then , could they
possibly hope to sell into the United
States? The compromise suited both
sides very well.
The introduction of slots was
something of a non -event in terms of
trade reaction . [t was certainly a step
PLAY METER, December, 1978
in the right direction for modest-
payout slots cannot really be con -
sidered anything but amusement
machines - particularly if that pay-
out is in tokens . Of course many
parts of the rest of the world have
lived with slots for years , quite
amicably ; so we rather wondered at
all the fuss but were pleased that the
"backlash" that the organizers feared
at A.M.O .A. did not materialize .
We do take issue with them on
one point however - the registration
fee . We were given to understand
that a differential of $10 and $35 was
introduced this year for two reasons:
increasing costs and a need to nudge
3,500
non -members
of
the
A.M.O .A. operating in the States to
be brought into the fo ld and stop
living off the backs of those who pay
their dues .
Fine . We all support the associa-
tion . But slots were said to have been
introduced by the board of
A.M.O .A. to appease the overseas
visitors , yet they overlooked the fact
that those overseas visitors were
being slammed for the $35 just like
non -members .
No one is short of a buck or two ,
even in supposedly impoverished
Europe . It is rather the principle of
the thing. [t is totally unreasonable to
expect overseas visitors to join
A.M.O .A. ; so the lever shou ld not be
applied to us .
At the same time we are there not
just to see what the United States has
to offer , but to buy . Treating
overseas visitors like second-rate
citizens does not exactly encourage
them to spend their pou nds , marks,
francs , lire , and ye n to support the
ailing dollar does it?
The board created quite a lot of ill
feeling by overlooking somethin g as
obvious as this , and they have quite a
lot of fence -mending to do next year
as a result .
So what of the show in particular?
Taking away the thoughts of who
actually made what , we liked Th e
Driver on the Meadows booth, we
liked Bally's Playboy and Rock-Ola's
Mystic 478, and we liked Atari's
Night Driver , although we felt the
cabinet could have been improved .
The overall impression was there-
fore somewhat critical this year, but
just to get it all into perspective , we
were all pleased to have been there .
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B & B TUBE SPECIALISTS
Everett , WA 98204
206-337 -5497
71