LESSOn 1
HIGH TECH
+
HIGH TOUCH
--
HIGH BULL!
( ( B
ull!" I said, meaning that
organic fertilizer we oper-
ators can find out behind
the barn in most areas of the coun-
try.
Oh , may I reintroduce myself
after a long absence? I hope many of
you (those who are still left ) recog-
nize the byline for this article. I am a
former contributor to Play Meter.
It's been awhile (would you believe
two years?) since I last sharpened a
No. 2 pencil and composed. But
since I usually wrote humorous
articles for this magazine-and
there was precious little that was
funny in the coin-op business the
last two years-1 took a break.
Besides, like everybody else, I was
too busy trying to save my behind
during The Great Fall.
But then I read Charles Ross'
"Alternatives for the Arcade Opera-
tor" in Play Meter (July 1, p. 29), and
I laughed my tokens off. Humor has
returned to the coin-op industry.
Before all of you arcade operators
run out and invest the last of your
8
BY DICK WELU
savings in ashtrays, hot dog
steamers, and Pepsi dispensers
because Mr. Ross says that high tech
has done the arcade in, I'd like to
rebut a few points of misconception.
" All arcades were destined to fail
from the moment the boom started
in 1979." This is the Ross premise,
and he concocts a great high tech/
high touch theory ro substantiate it.
Sorry , Charlie! That statement
won't hold enough water ro keep a
tuna alive.
Mr. Ross borrows from John
Naisbitt's book, Megatrends, ro
postulate, " that when technology is
introduced into society, there must
be a counterbalancing human
response-that is, high touch-or
the technology is rejected. " From
this he deduces that television was
accepted because we started therapy
groups; heart transplants were
accepted because we built neigh-
borhood clinics; jet airplanes led to
more AMOA and AOE shows; and
the word processor begot the
handwritten note (really?), etc. And
electronic banking, the metric
system, and the telephone answer-
ing device are rejected because they
lack a high couch counterbalance.
Arcade revenues
That's heavy stuff, folks . And
here you and I thought arcade
revenues went down because the
novelty of video games wore off. Just
goes to show how wrong one can be.
Getting back to the bull, I watch
far too much television for my wife's
eyes to stand, and the only group
therapy I am ever involved in is
when all the relatives come for
PLAY METER. September 15. 1984