Play Meter

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Besides all the political battles and power struggles that transpired
during this year's AMOA convention, which you will read about
elsewhere in this issue, the most exciting aspect of the '80 Show was
the resurgence of pinball.
It is no secret that this past year was a soft year for pinball. Most
people blamed the sluggish pinball market on the recent video craze.
Instead of upgrading their routes proportionately, operators all over
America were buying all the Asteroids, Space Invaders , and
Galaxians they could get their hands on. While this buying rampage
delighted the video manufacturers, makers of the other types of
equipment had to just sit back and take their lumps. And it seems the
pinball manufacturers were the worst hit. After enjoying several years
of rapid growth and record sales figures due mostly to the legalization
of pinball in major metropolitan areas and the changeover to solid
state technology, the pinball manufacturers found themselves faced
with an expected leveling off period and an unexpected market frenzy
over video games. It was time to make a move. A big move. The
pinball manufacturers were not about to just sit back and let the video
games steal the show for another year. Something had to be done.
Up until just recently, the pinball manufacturers would traditionally
introduce new play features on a very gradual basis. It was as though
they had all these new ideas and concepts sitting on a shelf
somewhere and as each new model would come out, one of these
new concepts would be taken down off the shelf and introduced into
each new game, thereby attempting to squeeze the most out of each
and every new play feature. That strategy may have worked back
when pinball was booming. But now it's a whole new ballgame. The
rapid growth and sophistication of the video game market has forced
the pinball manufacturer to fight back with all of the innovations and
imagination they could muster up . And so they did.
Williams and Bally went all out recently and pulled a number of
new play features and concepts off their shelves and poured them into
revolutionan; new oinball oames. For the first time ever. multi-level
playfields were introduced to the industry. Williams' Black Knight and
Bally's Flash Gordon were without a doubt the talk of this year's
show.
Clearly the introduction of these two new pins marks the
beginning of a new era of pinball. The multi-level pinball will
undoubtedly make obsolete all pre-existing pinballs and may very well
surpass the sophistication and play appeal of their video counterparts.
That is not to say that video will lose some of its propellant. There
were indeed a number of excellent video games on tap for the coming
year. I am saying that pinball has made up a lot of ground on video
and in '81 we'll see both pinballs and videos doing extremely well.
For the first time ever, operators will be enjoying the best of both
worlds. So get ready for a year that promises the best collection
you've ever seen. It's going to be that kind of a year!
Ralph C. Lally II
Ed itor and Publisher
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PLA Y METER. J anuary . 1 98 1