fROM THE EDITOR
Don't do this
to me again!
T
he minute I walked through the
door to the arcade, I had the feel-
ing I would be writing about what I saw
and thought. It was just a simple game
room attached to a popular movie
theatre that charged a buck to see a
movie. It obviously was a favorite with
the younger crowd since it was cheap
and showed movies geared towards a
younger group. Perfect spot for a game
room.
I had about 20 minutes to kill before
the movie started, so my friend and I
decided to play a few games. First
observation: no changer. The counter
was around the corner-and crowded.
''How bad do you really want to
play?'' my friend asked. ''I'll run and
get change; it shouldn't take long,'' I
optimistically replied.
Needless to say, it did take awhile,
but I came back with my quarters ready
to play an exciting, new game. Urn ,
let's see. The most exciting new game
seems to be Pole Position. " 1 think I've
seen this before," noted my friend,
who really isn't much into video games
at all. " I guess you did ," I muttered,
not explaining that the game is nearly
seven years old.
We did play Pac-Man. Yes, that was
another exciting , new game we were
10 PLAY METER/August 1989
offered. The joystick was very sloppy
and we were very frustrated playing.
(The gum on the control panel and film
on the screen did little to add to our
delight.) But wait! Look, there's a few
pinballs and they are always fun. Ex-
cept these weren't. Offour (very old)
pinballs, not one had all of the flippers
working. After plunking in two
quarters for a competitive game, we
were soon walking away half way
through, realizing there was no hope of
having any fun playing a game of pin-
ball when the flippers weren't
working.
All the while we were playing, at
least a dozen kids walked in and quick-
ly walked out, complaining that there
weren' t any new games. One young
couple decided to stick it out and ac-
tually play a game. However, their
dedication was snuffed out when they
realized they would have to wait in the
concession line to get change.
I'm upset about this experience.
Why? Because I take pride in this in-
dustry. I had a friend with me that knew
I was in the business and she was not
impressed at all. In fact, she was
wondering if all the game rooms were
that bad. No, Pat, they're not all this
bad , I tried to explain.
The operator who took time and ef-
fort to secure the location may think
he's doing great since the games are all
paid for (years ago), so he's making no
investment. I wanted to say to him,
''You're ticking me off! How can you
represent the industry in such a
deplorable way? You have no right to
be allowed to operate games-
anywhere. I certainly don't mean to
imply that you should buy all new
games for all of your locations, but
come on, couldn't you have included
just a few new ones intermingled with
the older ones? Of four pinball s,
couldn 't one of them work and have a
few new features?"
Hey, even if the answer is no, I can't
see any excuse for having filthy ,
broken games in any location. We have
an industry to nurture. For every step
forward, it seems we're doomed to suf-
fer with a game room like this one to set
us back another two.
Valerie Cognevich
Editor