Christmas dinner. That will cure you
of loneliness in a hurry!
Furthermore, I can't imagine any-
one with a bad ticker (and the local
undertaker stopping daily to check
on his health) rejecting a heart
transplant because his neighbor-
hood doesn't have a cozy little clinic
of some sort.
Need I go on in this vein or do I
make my point? We reject the tele-
phone answering machine because
when I tell the machine, 'Til meet
you at Harvey's Place in five minutes
for a beer," that stupid mess of
transistors isn't going to show up at
Harvey's on the stool next to me
buying every other round. We want
to talk to the person we call N 0 W,
not later. That's why we make the
call, for cripes sake. Spare us if you
will.
Ditto the metric system which is
simply unneeded. Come co think of
it, so is electronic banking since as
an arcade operator, I have darn little
to bank nowadays . But if I ever do
again, I am pretty sure I'd rather
electronic bank than stand in line
where some teller and the customer
in front of me go on for 10 minutes
about Aunt Martha's goiter opera-
tion. If that's high couch, color me
peeved.
No, Chadie, I hate to be the one to
dampen your enthusiasm for this
jive, but I believe the obvious stands
out: There was no resistance to the
video game! How else can one
explain the reported $9 billion spent
in the little coin chutes during the
peak years of the craze? If that's
"resistance," bring it back. From the
onset of Space Invaders to the end of
boom times (roughly about Gravi-
tar's introduction though I hate to
pick on this notorious turkey.lts fate
was not all of its own making. Just
bad timing.), the public not only
didn't resist videos, they made them
the greatest fad the world has ever
known. And then it died, inevitably,
like all fads. Video games were the
Hula-Hoop of the '70s.
Murphy's Law
And the arcades began to die roo,
but high tech j high touch didn't
matter one bit . Rather it was
because of a Murphy type law: Take
a given number of game players and
PLAY METER. September 1 5, 1964
spread them among, seven arcades
and none of the owners will make as
much money as one arcade owner
would make. Put another way: The
law of supply and demand, which is
a theory that's a hell of a lot older
than high tech/ high touch.
There is little question that "No
Food, No Smoking, No Drinks" is
restrictive and inhibiting and that
the overall atmosphere of the
arcades has been somewhat sterile.
But to contend as Mr. Ross does that
this lack of " high touch counter-
balance" led co "high tech rebel-
lion" ... " led by parents and local
legislators imposing new laws, new
operating hours for arcades, new
zoning ordinances etc." is so much
poppycock. Cmom, Charlie, think
before you write this stuff down.
Does· anyone imagine for one
minute that we would have encoun-
tered LESS resistance for arcades if
we had fostered an industrywide
image of cigarettes and smoky
rooms, spilled drinks and food, and
dancing "with a strobe light flashing
and whirling overhead?" Oh, yeah,
communities, parents, and Ronnie
Lamm would have welcomed arcades
with open arms. And I've also got
some swamp land in Florida for
sale ...
OK, now pay attention, Charlie,
and I'll go slow.
Arcades failed-the ones that
did-because of the law of supply
and demand, Number One. When
"The Fad" took off, arcades opened
everywhere. When The Great Fall
came, they closed because they
weren't needed. Case in point: my
town, Dubuque, Iowa. From 1974 'til
1979 I owned the only arcade within
60 miles. At the height of The Fad,
there were seven. Now there is one
again. It is bloody and bent and
injured-but it's healing-and IT
HAS NOT FAILED.
The players left not because they
rejected high tech but because the
novelty of games wore off. This is a
novelty business. It has always been
subject to peaks and valleys because
like the movies and television reflect
similarly, novelty is brief and
capricious. (MTV is the hottest
novelty right now. I wonder how
long the music video will remain
hot? ) It just happened through
some freak that our video game
novelty between 1979 and 1981
went higher and lasted longer than
anyone ever dreamed it could. But
anyone who thought it would con-
tinue at those heights was a fool.
High leases
One last blow to the arcades came
in the inflation of leases they were
subjected to. Unlike street opera-
tors, the arcades must enter into
rental agreements. At the height of
The Fad, these leases were escalated
to greedy extremes by the large cor-
porate arcade chains, some manu-
facturer and distributor owned,
which because of the depth of their
corporate pockets, were willing to
pay mall developers astronomical
sums for arcade leases.
The single most detrimental
aspect that affected my arcade was
when I was forced to fend off a
manufacturer's arcade chain from
coming into my mall by accepting a
lease contract that the chain was
willing to accept-nearly tripling
the cost of my previous lease. And
when The Great Fall came, the
revenues weren't there for those
exorbitant leases. It had nothing to
do with high tech. But when it
comes to discussing the role played
by some manufacturers and others
in this regard, I am understandingly
high touchy.
Food, cigarettes, and drinks in the
arcade? That's a question only each
individual can answer. I do know
that all my competitors but one
allowed these items in their
arcades-and they have closed. Can
you make money off these items?
Certainly it's possible. Maybe you'd
be better off closing down the games
completely and putting in a Mc-
Donald's or Taco John's. Maybe by
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