Play Meter

the machine, which was called the Nutting
Computer Space Ball, but was Rui's version of
Pong. Pong had just been invented a month or two
prior to that and hadn't come to England at all at
that time .
Rui hipped the machine and that was the last I
thought about it for a month or two. Then Rui got in
touch with me again. He said the guy had bought
the machine but all he did was copy it and build
more for himself in England and ''I'm still no better
off now than I wa ." By this time London Coin had
tarted importing Allied Leisure's Paddle Battle,
and it wa beginning to take off.
I think we all know the story of how Paddle
Battle or Pong just wept acro s America and then
the re t of the world. It became fabulously
ucces ful. London Coin wa importing the games
by air, and elling them a fast as the planes could
ferry them in. They were charging absolutely the
top dollar for them.
PLAY METER: What was that?
LESLIE: In those days, I think it was 525 pounds,
which would be equivalent to about $1300 to $1500.
They were elling like hot cakes. Everybody was
going crazy, a undoubtedly they were in America,
and everywhere else for that matter.
Rui Lope re-entered the picture. He called up
and aid, "Look . This guy that you recommended to
me for a machine, as a sample--all he did was
manufacture it; he's certainly not taking any more."
Rui hipped me a sample. And although it did not
have the presentation of the Allied game to it, it did
the arne thing and was considerably cheaper. So, I
got myself on a plane to California to look. Rui met
me at the airport and showed me the games. We
"It's still a very hard seU. The arcades have
accepted the video games to a great ex tent. But
many of the operators are stiU very anti-video. "
tarted buying and we also flew them in. We were
flying them in 50 to 100 at a time. And in those days
you could get a pretty good deal on the airlines. In
fact, b cau e we were doing it in bulk, it came out
to be less than $100 a machine to air freight from
California.
PLAY METER: At one time couldn't just about
al1ybody go out and buy a video, or the chips and
board and build a market almost?
LESLIE: At one time perhaps. But so many people
did that that there was suddenly a tremendous
shortage of chips and people set up business
upplying chips and supplying designs for boards,
upplying boards, supplying kits, supplying every -
thing, you name it. Anybody that could adjust the
contra t on a television et thought they could build
a video game, and many did. Dozens came out in
England and I'm sure America .
Nutting did not follow up Computer Space Ball
with any revolutionary ideas. On a later trip to
Miami I visited Allied, and I saw a game called
Ri cochet, which wa a four -player game . That was
the next innovation.
PLAY METER: These two-player tennis games
though, did they glut the market in England as they
did here?
LESLIE:Absolutely.
PLAY METER: How long did they stay on location?
LESLIE: I suppose we were looking at four to five
months and in these first four or five months, when
people were earning a lot of money, no one was
getting hurt. Everybody was satisfied. But some
more astute people were beginning to see that the
takings were dropping off. And the initial flood
ea ed a bit.
What also happened at that time was that when I
tarted to import the Space Balls, I also started my
own operation, solely a video game operation.
Between myself and my sales manager we started
to build our operation. In fact he got me my
first site, a pub on the King's Road in Chelsea. And
it didn't take very long before a lot of locations were
getting in touch with us.
PLAY METER: What was behind this decision to
operate exclusively video games?
LESLIE: It was very simple. I didn't have anv
mechanical knowledge of other games. Although I
had old flippers and jukeboxes, I didn't have any
ervice department.
PLAY METER: That doesn't make sense. Why
then were you venturing into solid-state, digital
electronics?
LESLIE: It was simple. It really was. There were
only three major components: one was the
television set which supposedly any local television
guy could fix if it went wrong. The PCB was easily
interchangeable and the coin acceptor mechanism
was the same as with most other games.
So, it really didn't create any problem for us at
all. We moved into servicing the games very easily .
Another reason for starting the operation was
because video, at that state, was doing tre- ]
mendously well . It was a bonanza. The machine
would pay for itself in no time.
PLAY METER: What about your locations: how I
did you find them? Were there other operators in ;
5
13