market share penetration may
appear to be somewhat pyrrhic as far
as it concerns other equipment
types , but Play Meter's survey
monitored market shares in pinballs,
and pool tables as well. Here are
those results:
- In pinball, Williams, the first to
come off a two-level pingame, Black
Knight, shot up to claim the top spot
in pinball sales, garnering about 43
percent of domestic flipper pinball
sales. Bally was second with a 30
percent share. And Gottlieb ,
rallying with such pinball of-
ferings as Mars and Volcano,
nudged past Stern Electronics into
third place with 12 percent of the
pinballs sold domestically in 1981.
Stern claimed 11 percent of the
pinball sales. All other flipper game
purchases accounted for four
percent of the market.
- In pool tables, Valley continued
its dominance of the market by
registering a 60 percent share .
According to the survey's findings,
Irving Kaye was second with 14
percent of the pool table sales, and
Dynamo was a close third place with
12 percent penetration. U.S.
Billiards was fourth , accounting for
five percent of the pool table sales in
the survey. All other pool table
manufadurers divided the remaining
9 percent of the market.
-In · phonographs, Rowe stayed
on top with percent of all
phonographs sold. Rock-Ola was a
close second, followed by, in order,
Seeburg, NSM, and Wurlitzer.
New equipment purchasing is
the reason for t he apparent
discrepancy between annual per-
piece avera ge s reported twice
monthly in Play Meter's regular
equipment poll and the averages
reported in the annual "State of the
Industry" survey. Both pinball and
video game averages in the annual
poll are about $50 lower than the
averages reported twice monthly for
videos and pinballs in the regular
equipment survey.
The reason for the $50 difference
is that the twice-monthly equipment
poll is based only on current video
and pinball offerings, and the annual
"State of the Industry" survey is
based on all the operator's inventory
of games of that type. Older videos
and pinballs are purposely excluded
from the twice-monthly survey for
the purpose of giving operators a more
accurate reading of the true earning
ability of new games as they compare
to their peers-the other new
games.
However, the annual operator
survey, which serves to monitor the
health of the operator's whole
business, asks for an overall average
for all games of that type. Such an
average will necessarily be
significantly lower because it takes
into account the older games, which
generate lower earnings.
This may also point to the reason
why video's increase in the annual
survey was more than ten times
greater than pinball's in 1981 ($38 to
$3) . Although the current pinball
product is averaging near the $120
mark, operators are simply not
buying very much in the way of new
pinballs. Thus, the older, lower
earning pinballs are coming to
represent a larger and larger
percentage of the average opeator's
entire pinball take.
Location relations
As far as commission splits with
locations, the coin-op amusement
industry is showing signs of finally
moving off Square One. Fifteen
percent of the operators responding
to the survey said they now
command a sixty percent take on
their games. Still, the overwhelming
majority of operators (79%) said they
are still on a 50/ 50 "partnership"
basis with their locations . Six
percent of the operators reported
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PLAY METER, November 15, 1981