A Writers' Contest Entry
Guest Editorial
By Barry Fireman
"If we let it fall off the back of the truck while we're
driving up a steep hill can we collect insurance on it?"
Believe it or not , I really considered letting one of my
mechanics do that with a late model TV driving game .
Some of the machines made today look and behave as
though they were dropped before delivery to the
distributor. Your brand new machine is delivered to a
game room . Your people plug it in and hold their breath.s
hoping that it works . If you are lucky enough to have It
work right away you now have a fifty -fifty chance of
getting through the first week without any trouble . Your
chances drop to twenty percent the second week and
surely you will have some service on it by the third week .
I believe you operators will agree with me that many of
the manufacturers are taking unfair advantage of the guy
who has to live with the equipment long after the sale is
made and long after the game is out of warranty .
In case you are interested , the term warranty is defined
as , "An assurance by the seller of property that the goods
or property are as represented or will be,as promised . A
guarantee ." In other words , when you shell out $1695
for a new game, you are supposed to get back enough
money through collections to pay your expenses on the
game and make a profit. Some games don't take in as
much money as others , but they are supposed to work .
Everyone in this industry knows that every game requires
some maintenance ; and some games require more than
others. After all , a pinball machine has a steel ball
crashing around a playfield hitting plastic and rubber parts
and we all know that something is going to give , and it's
not going to be the ball . But the problems are not
supposed to be chronic and they are not supposed to
crop up in game after game .
My distributors tell me that they get little or no back-up
from the factory on many of the broken parts problems
even while the game is under warranty . There's that word
warranty again . Can anyone tell me how long the
warranty period is on a machine anyway? I've heard
thirty, sixty , and ninety days . I've even heard six month~ .
But whose warranty is it? I've been told that the factory s
policy is "Send us your board and we will fix it and return
it." Phooey! If you are sitting with a game out of order in
New York and the board has to go back to California for
analysis and repair , you are going to wait weeks for your
game to become operational again . So the distribu~ors fix
the boards for the first thirty or ninety days on their own
with little or no help from the factory .
The manufacturers should follow examples which
have proven to work in other industries . Set up warranty
shops or subsidize warranty work performed by the
distributor. But more importantly, they should make the
games with better materials , with better quality so the
games can withstand
the beating they get.
I'm often asked , " Don't your people watch your
machines to see . that the kids don 't abuse the
equipment?" Yes , we watch our games , and the kids do
not abuse them . But let's be honest. Our kids don't act
like the little old lady from Pasadena who uses her car
only to drive to church on Sunday . Our kids range in age
6
from 12 to 18; and , when they put a quarter in a driving
game , they are going to drive like hell: They are n?t
going to care what happens to t~e f111'~1SY gea~ S~lft
mechanism or steering wheel. They re gomg to shift hke
crazy and stomp as hard as they can on the accelerator .
That's half the fun . When they crash they want to crash
big . They become mad men . Why not? They're
supposed to . It's not for real. It's only a game . And the
game is supposed to hold up too .
So what happens when a bad accelerator is put on a
machine or a poorly designed gear shift mechanism? It
breaks. So you buy a new one and it breaks again . You
call the distributor and complain and you are told , "I can 't
help it. I don 't make the parts . Call the factory ." So you
call the factory and they tell you they are sorry . They are
not having any problems with the part you are
complaining about. Sure , I'm the only one in the whole
world having trouble with a steering mechanism . They
tell you they can 't believe you have all those broken
parts . Or they tell you they are designing a new part
which will be out in 1984. Phooey!!
The truth is that they probably made a zillion steering
mechanisms and they have to use them up and guess
who gets stuck with them? The factory now makes a new
game , and it is a dynamite driving game . And , you
guessed it , they use the same gear shift mechanism . And
it breaks too. And you have to start all over again with
downtime , with shipping costs , with stocking extra spare
parts. And you do it too because the game is a good
money maker when it works , IF it works . It's enough to
drive you nuts . We just took delivery on a brand new
pinball machine last week . It came in and pr<;>mptly
burned out two flipper coils . We called the dlstnbutor ,
and he sent out the coils along with a bill for $7 .20. The
phone is still smoking .
.
Something has to be done . Perhaps authOrIZed
warranty shops. You can get your television or stereo
fixed ; so why not your game . There should be standards
in this industry . Manufacturers should be made to
conform to these standards by a committee of industry
experts . Maybe we should have a testing laboratory
which should approve a game before it is allowed on the
market. How about recalling a game when a defect is
discovered . Seriously now , for the money the
manufacturers are getting for their machines they should
build in more quality . Use more steel and less plastic . We
have a game that we bought in January . We have had
collections out of it for thirteen weeks . The rest of the
time it has been in our distributor's shop for repairs or on
the truck going back and forth . The last time it went back I
told him to keep the game and give me back my money .
My customers don 't trust the game anymore and won 't
play it. The answer was , 'We'll fix it again ." Nobody
made money on this game except the manufacturer.
I have heard lately that there is so much unrest among
games operators that there is talk of a revolt . If !here is t?,
be one I hope this is "the shot heard round the mdustry .
We 're paying high prices for these games , why should we
have to buy them twice? Charge more if you have to , but
make it to last.
PLAY METER , October, 1978