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A le sson 1n
eco nom1cs
By Louis Boasberg
ou can study economics at all the great universities-
Harvard, Yale, Princeton , Oxford . You can read the
writings of all 't he great economists such as Adam
Smith, Mal thus, Karl Marx, Engles, Keynes, and yet all of this
knowledge will avail you nothing if you are in the coin
machine business, as in this business there is only one law of
economics and that is "SUPPLY AND DEMAND."
Y
When there is overproduction in the coin machine
business, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse-Death ,
Pestilence, Famine, and War-ride over the entire industry,
leaving havoc in their wake.
Once upon a time when most of the coin machine
factories were privately owned , production was controlled
to a great extent. Everyone remembers how Dave Gottlieb
and Company took great pride in the fact that they always
cut production when there was still a demand for the
current game. Soon other factories saw the wisdom of
Gottlieb 's method and followed suit, so there was always a
healthy trade-in or resale market.
But today, with all the great corporations and
conglomerates controlling the business and turning out
games like mad, with dozens of smaller factories struggling
to get that one winner, all of this together with foreign
copies from the Philippines, Taiwan , Korea, Timbuktu ,
Bornea, and points east and west, everyone has games new
and used in such quantities that their warehouses are
bursting at the seams . There is no inflation in the coin
machine business at this time. In fact there is acute
deflation , as you can practically name your price on some
real good games.
I don't know what the final solution of the problem will
be. It could be an atomic bomb. It could be a great bonfire
with everybody contributing his " losers " to the
conflagration. But then, on a more realistic note, I believe in
the next year sanity will return to the industry. There will be
a great shakeup. The amateur manufacturers, distributors,
and especially the operators will have to fall by the wayside.
Game rooms and arcades will close by the thousands , not
because of ordinances and laws, but for sheer lack of
business, due to having more arcades and game rooms than
they have players .
As with most lines of endeavor, only the hardest workers,
the pros, the smartest, the people with solid financial
backgrounds-only these will survive and like the meek,
will inherit the earth. I believe in time the Crash of '82 will
be as famous as the Crash of '29.
This is a wonderful and ingenious industry. It wa s born
and prospered during the greatest depression in history.
There are some great men in the industry , and I can ' t see too
many of these men selling apples and oranges on the streets
as was the case in '29, '30, and '31 .