ROM THE EDITOR
Perception is
everything!
D
uring the AMOA show in Las
Vegas, I had the distinct pleasure
of being invited by Betson's John
Margold to have dinner with several
Betson people and a group from Fer-
nandez Fun Factory. We had a
delightful dinner, but most
memorable was something that War-
ren Asing from Fernandez said:
''Perception is everything.''
He went on to explain that it
doesn't really matter how you ex-
plain or make excuses, it all boils
down to the fact that it's how a
customer perceives your business. A
manager may spend hours cleaning
his store, right down to the dust in the
comers. But if just one gum wrapper
remains on the floor and a customer
perceives the place to be a mess, then
it is a mess.
If you look up perception in the
dictionary, it says: "a mental im-
age.'' It fits perfectly with what War-
ren was describing. A customer can
form a mental image of a location
based on what he feels, sees, or ex-
periences. Whatever that image is
going to be could possibly be based
on previous observations, no matter
how hard the location has tried to
present a positive environment.
Our industry has the same pro-
blem. We can spend hours and
dollars trying to upgrade our image,
but what the public perceives us to be
is really what we are. We may know
10 PLAY METER/November 1989
that the industry is not made up of
less-than-honest people, but if we
can't project a clear family-type im-
age, then it doesn't really matter
what we know. The public will con-
tinue to dwell on the negative aspects
of what we are all about.
Unfortunately, each person in this
industry is so entwined with all the
others that it doesn ~t take very many
unsavory characters to cause the
public to perceive us as less than we
would like. When a parent ex-
periences an arcade that is dirty and
unsupervised, their perception of all
game rooms will be closely
associated with that mental image. It
will take a lot to sway their
perception.
At the recent Pinball Expo in
Chicago, those of us in the industry
had the rare opportunity to talk with
players. They expressed some opi-
nions that were surprising. The one
opinion that stands out is their
perception that operators don't seem
to be very interested in keeping their
equipment clean, yet they want more
money from their games. While
discussions focused on raising the
price per play of pinball, most agreed
that they would not mind paying
more if the games were kept clean
and working properly . ''I've been
playing pinball since I was 12 and
have rarely seen the games kept up,''
commented one operator. Many
others perceived operators as people
trying to get more money from
players without offering anything of
value in return.
We know that is not necessarily
true in most cases, but this player
perceived it that way and no amount
oftalk was going to change his mind.
He didn't care about inflation, about
increased costs of doing business, or
the fact that a quarter is worth just
seven cents today in buying power.
He could only see that the games he
played were not up to his standards
and said he would feel cheated hav-
ing to pay more.
What would change his mind? Fre-
quenting game rooms with games
that were clean and working like they
were meant to. Give that player clean
games with the latest features and his
perception of the value will be dif-
ferent. We want the public to
perceive our industry as an upstan-
ding business filled with profes-
sionals providing low-cost entertain-
ment. It's not an impossible goal.
Warren, you were right: perception
is everything! 0
Valerie Cognevlch
Editor