Play Meter

Continued from page 17
"Unless you do an analysis of the cost of doing business, it'll
appear to you that the games business is where all the big money is"
blanche as far as what he buys. All I'm concerned
about is what he spends.
PLAY METER: How do you go about deciding
which pinball and video games are worth your
money?
VAN BRACKEL: Experience here is the thing we
have to rely upon . I buy the equipment myself. As
far as deciding how heavy we get on a particular
piece, we try to get one or two in here and see how
they do before we decide to invest any more. As far
as video games are concerned, however, we don't
go heavy into anyone piece. I wouldn't buy more
than three of the hottest video games on the
market.
PLAY METER: What are your feelings about the
workmanship of the games?
V AN BRACKEL: I would say that the quality of
workmanship has definitely been shoddy. We have
been having a lot of trouble in this area. We'll take
them out of the crate, and find out the game is
already in sad shape. Quality control is evidently nil
for some reason or another that I can't understand.
PLAY METER: How long do you hold onto your
games and your jukeboxes?
V AN BRACKEL: We depreciate our jukeboxes at
five years and use them for seven. The games,
however, we depreciate them at three, and that's
about as long as we keep them.
PLAY METER: Have you been able to increase the
revenue of the games on the routes you have
bought up?
VAN BRACKEL: Not as dramatically. Our big
gains are on the music end.
PLAY METER: What do you look for to determine
whether or not you want to buy a route?
V AN BRACKEL: There are a lot of factors to
consider when buying a route. The first thing I look
for is the average income per machine. That's the
key. If the average income of the machines on the
route is good, then I'm willing to pay more money
for that route. If the situation is bad, but I think
that it can be readily corrected, then I'll still look to
buy that route. But if the average is bad and the
deals are bad, and it's something that I don't think I
can correct, then I don't want the route, even if it's
right here in my back yard. Naturally, the better
the average, the more money I'll be willing to pay
for the route.
PLAY METER: What do you think is a sensible
return for an operator to shoot for today?
VAN BRACKEL: I don't think you can shoot for
anything less than 25 percent, before taxes.
PLAY METER: How have you been able to cut
138
down on your costs?
VAN BRACKEL: We have an elaborate two-way
radio communication system. This is a big thing for
us because we have our routes spread out over a
very large area, and this way we're able to keep in
touch with all our people. This saves a lot of back
tracking, saves us a lot of miles, and allows us to
use our service capabilities to a maximum. This is
something I think an operator needs if his route is
any size at all. One of our areas of savings has been
with group insurance. We have a high deductible
group insurance plan and because of it we've saved
a lot of money in that area. But, there are many
things you can't do. Some times people will do
things to save money and it'll end up costing them
money instead.
PLAY METER: Have you looked at lease-purchase
plans for your equipment and for your automobiles?
VAN BRACKEL: I don't believe in leasing. I have
to have it proved to me that leasing is the better
way to go. I've looked at this many, many times,
and this is what leasing does to me: If you take the
depreciation cost of owning your own equipment,
you'll be almost doubling that figure when you
lease. You're taking a fixed item and almost
multiplying it by two. That's what I see wrong with
leasing.
PLAY METER: Have you been able to cut down on
your costs by reducing the amount of time your
routemen spend at each stop?
VAN BRACKEL: We're constantly doing that.
We're constantly trying to consolidate routes. In
some areas, by consolidation we've been able to cut
down on the routemen's time. And we have mileage
charts to see what kind of mileage we get out of the
different cars. This, we've found, has been very
helpful. We use a master sheet for every car and on
that sheet we have the cost of the automobile, the
miles per gallon per month, how much was spent on
the vehicle's tires and repairs, and so on. This has
made it so that I can find out at any time how much
it costs me to run any vehicle. With this
information, I can find out for myself what types of
vehicles are best suited for me.
PLAY METER: You mentioned early on that the
ranks of the operators are decreasing. Could you
expand on that?
VAN BRACKEL: As an illustration of how much
the operator population has decreased, fifteen
years ago there were thirty operators in our area
here in northwest Ohio, but now that's down to, I
think, seven. Of course, in many cases those routes
are being absorbed by others, but I think it points
out that it's just too hard for the one- or two-man
operations to exist anymore, the demands being
what they are on personnel and the changing
aspects of this business.
PLAY METER, November, 1978