Play Meter

because with the rapid expansion of locations at con-
venience stores and places where games never were
before, it may be growing too fast without a lot of fore-
thought. If the locations are not mana~d properly, they
could give this industry a negative image and cfeate a
legislative backlash that could hurt the further growth of
this business. At the same time, the pipeline is running
with games, and I feel we could reach a situation where
distributors' and manufacturers' warehouses are backed
up with equipment operators can no longer take,
What will happen is that the pipeline will be filled and
the spigot will not be able to be turned off fast enough. It's
like everything else, prices drop very quickly, and then
you have a glut of games and a very fast depreciation of
unsold inventory and inventory in operator's
warehouses. The used market is very hard to tap right
now. There are very few places where filler pieces are
.
'There are very few places where
filler pieces are being accepted,
and that goes back to having to
have top games at all times.'
"
· ..
being accepted, and that goes back to my statement that
you have to have top games at all times if you're going to
be a successful arcade operator today. The hot game of
today may be a filler piece in ninety days, and if there's no
filler market, then obviously the price on your inventory.
drops very quickly.
PLAY METER: One last question, you are very
concerned about the industry's image. Do you have any
suggestions as to what can be done as an industry to
help promote the good image of the games industry?
ISAACSON: First of all, the reasoni'mconcernedabout
the industry's image is because there are a lot of
examples today of image problems in this industry. For
that reason, I think the suggestion that was made during
the Early Bird Keynote address at the AOE-that the
industry should do some institutional advertising like
other industries have done-is a good idea. [See PLAY
METER, May 15 for a report on the Keynote talks. -
ed.]
We have to sell the American public that this thing we
offer them is fun, good clean fun, and that it's okay to
have these machines. It could be done in a very
convincing and wholesome way. An example of an
industry that got together to sell a product was the milk
industry, and it was very effective. I think the sales of milk
went up considerably as a result. That's why I think we
need to do some sort of institutional advertising-a sort
of cooperative venture by manufacturers, distributors,
and operators alike-with the sole intent of selling the
public on the idea that our games are okay. It could also
enco'-clrage people coming into the industry to follow that
lead by seeing what a good place looks like, or should
look like, and maybe that will head off some of that
legislative backlash that I think could occur if our growth
gets out of hand. And since we all plan to be in this
business a great number of years, and since~ said at the AOE Keynote seminar, that we don't want to
kill the goose that's laying the golden eggs, I think with
everything we're taking out right now, maybe we should
•
be putting something back.
MONROE/
FLORIDA
Look for
our
May 3
Grand
•
open1ng
Ohio's top distributor now has an office in Hialeah Lakes, Florida.
••
Representing:
Atari, American Shuffleboard, Amstar, Bally, Centuri,
Cinematronics, Data East, Electro-Sport, Exidy, Game Plan,
Gremlin, lntermark, Irving Kaye, Lektro-Vend, Midway, NRI,
Nintendo, Rock-Oia, Sega, Stern, Taito America, U.S. Billiards.
Monroe Distributing, Inc.
Palmetto lakes Industrial Park
5301 N.W. 161st St.
Hialeah lakes, Florida 33014
(305) 625-6666
. Manager-Bill Arden
PlAY METE R, June 1, 1981
19