THE LAST WORD
Crying in my beer
I
love meeting somebody for the first
time and telling them I'm from New
Orleans. That is, a person from another
state who's never been to Louisiana.
It 's fascinating to discover the
stereotypes that have been formed over
the years.
For example, thanks to Dennis
Quaid in the movie The Big Easy, peo-
ple think every third word out of our
mouths is cher (the French term of
endearment for "dear.") In fact, you'd
have to go to Cajun country to hear a
litany of chers. New Orleans, rather,
is full of "Yats." These are people
who greet you with the phrase ''where
you at?" instead of "hello." But the
words ''you at'' are fused together to
form "y'at."
Our diets don't consist solely of red
beans and rice and shrimp creole. We
don't drink Hurricanes with lunch. Our
entire adult population does not spend
every night on Bourbon Street. We
don ' t all share the political views of
Huey Long. And while we enjoy Mar-
di Gras, we don't sink into a year-long
abyss of depression beginning the day
after.
That said, I will confess that New
Orleans is a city that knows how to par-
ty. Count me among those who likes to
bar-hop on weekends (hey, I'm still
young and single!) My favorite area is
Uptown; there are three or four
college-aged bars (dives) that I fre-
quent more than others.
198 PLAY METER/August 1989
It used to be that I would simply
check out the usual when entering one
of these bars: the females, the beers on
tap, the songs on the jukebox, the two
teams on the big-screen TV , etc. But
since I've been working at Play Meter,
I find myself interested in the mix of
coi n-op equipment available to
patrons.
As a rule, I 've found that most
bars/nightclubs have extremely old,
outdated games. At first I figured, "So
what? They must be paid for and still
earning well. Mind your own business.
Get another beer. '' But as I kept retur-
ning to these places, I noticed
something that was really pretty ob-
vious: no one ever plays these
machines!
I asked one of the bartenders about
this, and he replied simply,'' Nobody
plays video and pinball anymore.
That's old hat. People are interested in
other things besides these machines.' '
I thought to myself, " I guess so, you
gin-rotted sot! These games look like
the ones Beaver Cleaver played , ex-
cept for the ' new ' ones like Pac-Man
and Space Invaders!''
By contrast, another Uptow n bar
with a similar clientele has crowds
swarming around its coin-op games.
It's no mystery why: the place keeps up
with the latest equipment. The last time
I was in there I saw the videos Terris
and Ninja Gaiden and the Williams
pin s Jokerz! and Taxi. The happy
customers then, of course, have more
reason to stick around longer before
going to another bar. That's more
business for the bar owner, not to men-
tion the smart operator who placed the
best new games in there.
Look at it this way: if you had a
jukebox programmed with hits from
1979 and one from 1989, which one
would gobble up most of the quarters?
Similarly, how long would a video
movie store last if it's latest rental titles
were Urban Cowboy and Jaws?
I'm sure the previously-mentioned
bars are doing a bang-up business
without much help from coin-op. The
point is, they could be experiencing in-
creased revenues if the operators
would give these locations an infusion
of new games. It's a shame to see
potentially big locations, with a good
base of players seeking entertainment,
withering up and dying.
I'm not saying there has to be a bat-
tery of driving simulators. Just let the
public know that our industry has come
out with something new since Pong.
Christopher Caire
News Editor