Play Meter

(continued from page 17) game. Besides it's not getting the quarter back but the winning that is the enjoyment. PLAY METER: Have you made other adjustments to help merchandise the "time" you're selling? LITTLE: In areas where there are not people that are against the sounds of the machines, an area like the Alladin Game Room, we take the tone makers or sound makers out and install them underneath the machine. PLAY METER: Why do you do that? LITTLE: To make a louder noise, for more action. PLAY METER: Are they exposed then? LITTLE: They're exposed at the rear of the machine on an angle bracket but they're never tampered with. Sound is very important in the merchandising of pinball machines. PLAY METER: Do you have anything special that goes off, other than the standard click, when they win a game? LITTLE: We have a four inch Edwards bell we put in. I'm a bell freak because it's a means of reward. It's related to "conditioning." If a person is "conditioned" properly, reward is the joy of accomplishment. Then if you let everybody know about it (the accomplishment), it becomes an audience participation thing rather than just a private affair. And lights. We put a big 110 watt bulb in a styrene tube on top of the machine, and when it hits the free games that light goes on. It's merchandising the reward better. It shows from a distance that that person is playing on free games. The free games window on the back is very small and very hard to see. It isn't merchandising at all; it's actually reduced to the point where it's hard to see them. That's one of the things that should be done where free games are allowed, a bigger display of the free games. PLAY METER: How have all these different little marketing techniques affected your overall take on pinball games? LITTLE: I would say, conservatively speaking, it has increased the revenue by ten to twenty per cent, well worth the extra effort. PLAY METER: What about arcade games? Do you do anything there? First of all pricing: I take it most, if not all of your arcade games are on quarter play and some on 50-cent play. LITTLE: Right. Two player games we naturally put out at 50 cents but if the popularity, the fall off curve, starts to show a drop, we'll reduce it to one for a quarter, usually one minute for a quarter. PLAY METER: So you more or less put it on a time basis. LITTLE: Time. That's all we're doing is selling time in this business. Lights on, lights off. Selling a minute for a quarter is the only intelligent way that, with the higher cost of games, those games will get paid for. I have found in my experience, incidentally, that people play games because they are basically bored. It doesn't say too much for a game that the manufacturer says it does great in a high traffic area. The Kotex vendor at MGM does great. There's got to be a lot more put into games to challenge the players, to make it worth a quarter for a minute. And there's got to be better merchandising. PLAY METER: What has been your success with arcade games, as opposed to pinballs? LITTLE: Our net is greater on the arcade games, video games, than on pinballs, but the fall off in popularity is quicker. Also our investment is higher on an arcade game than it is on a pinball machine. PLAY METER: So the video games will peak out earlier? LITTLE: We estimate 120 days. PLAY METER: Is there any way at all, that you can think of extending that time? LITTLE: I think the coming of the microprocessor will allow more flexibility in designing appeal into a game and I think the manufacturers are going to use that; in fact, I know they are. And the game is going to be more reliable with the improvements, after getting over the first two or three years of bugs in solid-state. They're coming out with more flamboyant things. I think the microprocessor is the second industrial revolution-that's what I think about the microprocessor. PLAY METER: What do you think that's going to do to the prices of games? LITTLE: You're involved here with the law of diminishing returns, limitations. It's related to how much a machine can earn, naturally, not its value. As they come up with more ideas, flamboyance, and the price goes up, so the earning powers will go up. PLAY METER: Then you don't see microprocessors as a salvation for the operator n so far as the price of equipment is concerned? LIT'rLE: I don't think the prices are going to go down; in fact, I think they'll go up. But they'll be able to come up with more exotic games and more appealing games and that in turn will increase the life of them by their appeal. They'll bring the games in the next two years to phenomenal heights. That microprocessor is the answer to the solid-state industry. I've done enough reading and understand what it does, I think. It allows the manufacturer unlimited expression in making games to appeal to the players. PLAY METER: Only time will tell but we'd have to agree with you there. We're in store for some very big surprises thanks mostly to microprocessor technology. We've already seen some in fact; look at Seawolf and Gunfight. LITTLE: I believe arcade games are going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. PLAY METER: May we move on to commissions? What success have you had in changing the old, racked-out 50/50 commission structure that's plaguing everybody and has been doing so for so many years? LITTLE: Personally I am not that successful in going to higher percentages. I use numbers and volume of account rather than trying to capture my return by taking the commission away from the location. I would like to do it, but I am not that successful so far. It's a negative but I'll be honest ;i w~~. ~ PLAY METER: So then, for the most part you're ~ still working on a 50/50 split. ~ LITTLE: Yes, though as a rule in jukeboxes we're ; 49