[Continued/rom page 13)
PLA Y METER: Do you foresee the prices coming
down with the advent of all this solid state
technology?
STORINO: Yes, I do. When I bought my first
calculator, it was $180. Now, I can get the same
calculator for twelve dollars. You see everyday
where calculators are advertised for anywhere from
seven to ten dollars. You see what happened to the
price of the two-way radio and the price of the CB
sets. I think once they get solid state perfected in
all these games, there will be other manufacturers
in the electronics industry who will come into the
field, ~nd I think the price will eventually come
down Instead of skyrocketing the way it is. And
th~n there's t~e example of the computer in my
offIce. The prIce on that has come down since I
purchased it. And the same thing, I believe, will
happen in the amusement industry-I'm talking
relative to the price they are asking right now. I
know that they have a lot of money invested in the
development of solid state equipment, but once
they get that down, I think the price of the
machines will come down too.
PLA Y METER: Besides their high cost, how do you
feel about the solid state pins?
STORINO: That's the way this business is going.
We've been gearing up for it in my own company
because eventually everybody is going to be one
hundred percent solid state. If it's the only game
they make, what are you going to do? Don't get me
wrong, though, if they make the pins right, and the
parts are interchangeable, I believe it's going to be
the greatest thing that ever happened. It will save a
lot of shop time. It'll save a lot of downtime. If your
servicemen are qualified and know how to handle it,
there should be no major catastrophe.
PLA Y METER: How do your servicemen feel about
it?
STORINO: Well, my service technician is very
qualified. To him, it's no problem. And now he's
giving the background to the other fellows on how
to handle it. The main problem with a lot of these
people is that they don't know how to handle these
boards and how to diagnose the problem. Once they
come to a solid state machine and they have a little
bit of a problem, they get nervous and say it's the
b~ard. \yell, it may be a component . The main thing
wIth us IS that they can get my service technician on
the. pho~e. ~ut we're going to start schooling them
strIctly In pIns. I know some of the distributors are
running their own schools on it, then we're going to
run our own schools on it within our company.
PLA Y METER: Do you feel the solid state
pingames will be more profitable than the
electro-mechanical pins?
STORINO: In the long run they will be. Now it's a
lot of work. We shop all of our pins. If they're out
there two or three months, we bring them back into
the shop. And a mechanic can work on it. But a
mechanic can only work on anywhere from two to
four pins a day. If you're in a rush and it's a late
&"ame, they can go through four. But if the game is a
lIttle old and you pull them apart, you can miss a lot
of stuff, and you'll have a lot of trouble with them.
PLA Y METER: What are the hottest games you
have on your route at present?
78
STORIN~:
In flipper~,. solid states are hot right
now. WIth the pubhcIty of the Evel Knievels,
everybody wants them. Everybody wants the solid
state games. I have one Atari game, and it's not
doing bad. It's a little bigger than I hoped. When I
spoke to the Atari people in Chicago, they said that
~as because there was more to play for. But I don't
hk~ to go unstandardized. I like to keep everything
umform: To me, as a large operator, it makes
everythIng a lot easier. If you break a glass, you
h~ve one ?"lass. You don't have to start carrying
different SIzes of glasses. I like to keep more or less
standardized myself. There's enough problems out
there without worrying about things like the
different sizes of glasses.
PLA Y ~ETER: What about your predictions for
the comIng year. Is the business going to be better
or worse?
STORIN~: In the state of New Jersey we got a
break thIS year. We never had flipper games in
taverns, bu~ in September we got the okay to put
the games In the taverns so we're experiencing a
boom right now. Our income is up.
PLAY METER: What advice would you give to
your fellow operators for 1978?
STORINO: You've got to watch your business
everyday. You've got to keep your income up. And
if you lose a location, you have got to get out there
and get another one to replace it, because that's
what this is all about, bringing in the income.
Without the income, you don't have the business
and without the location, you don't have th~
income.
In Memory
of our
Dear Friend
Bobby Braun
Alladin 's Castle , Inc.
PLAY METER, January, 1978