Play Meter

video games sales in 1981. Thirty
percent of all the video games sold in
1981 were from Atari . Midway
accounted for a 26 percent share.
Third place went to Williams
Electronics, a 1980 newcomer to the
video game field . Notably , Williams
was able to capture a 12 percent
share of all video game sales this year
on the strength of a single game-
Defender.
Stern Electronics, also a relative
newcomer to the video game field,
gained a solid eight percent share of
the market and finished in fourth
place. Stern was followed, in order,
by Centuri (6%), Cinematronics
(5%), Gremlin (4%), Taito (2%), and
Exidy (2 %). All other factories
combined for a five percent share of
the video game sales in 1981, though
none individually accounted for as
much as two percent .
Now, although there's evidence
that video game collections are not
cannibalizing pinball collections, at
least not as much as they did last
year, video game sales are indeed
cannibalizing the available operator
capital which would be used to buy
not only more pin balls, but also more
pool tables and phonographs.
Fifty -five percent of those
responding to this year's survey said
they purchased fewer phonographs
in 1981 than they did in 1980. And 79
percent said they purchased fewer
pin balls in 1981 than the year before.
(Only two percent of the operators
undue governmental interference
and restrictions.
Equipment purchases
The Play Meter survey also
analyzed operator buying habits and
found that , of every four pieces of
coin -op amusement equipment
bought in 1981 in the United States,
three of them were upright videos.
And, if cocktail video games sales are
included, the ratio of video to non·
video purchases increases even
more , to four out of every five
equipment sales.
In actual numbers , the average
operator purchased 46 upright
videos and six cocktail videos in
1981. That more than doubles the
number of video game purchases
made in 1980. And 1980 more than
doubled the number of video game
purchases from the year before that!
As further evidence of this
snowballing video game buying
trend, 93 percent of those
responding said they purchased
more videos in 1981 than they did in
1980.
Of course, video game manu-
facturers were the immediate
beneficiaries from this continuing
trend in operators' buying habits.
And Atari, Midway, and Williams
were the biggest winners of all in the
video game sweepstakes.
According to the survey's findings ,
Atari and Midway accounted for
better than one out of every two
reported they had purchased fewer
videos in 1981.)
Pinball purchases hit their peak in
1978 with the complete changeover
to solid state technology. With the
average operator reporting that he
only purchased six pinballs in 1981,
pinball has continued its downturn
from that peak of three years ago .
This is the third straight decline in
reported pinball purchases.
Phonographs, long regarded as a
replacement market, appear now to
be a shrinking market. The jukebox
also continued its downward trend in
1981. According to the Play Meter
survey, the average operator bought
just two jukeboxes in 1981.
Still, it was pinball and not the
phonograph that suffered the
cruelest cut of all from operators in
1981.
Thirteen percent of the operators
responding to the survey reported
that they dropped pin balls from their
operations. Only foosball , which
generated a mere $28 per week
average, was dropped by a larger
percentage of operators . Note-
worthy on this trend was that it was
the smaller operations which were
more inclined to drop pinballs.
Larger operations merely reported
less activity with pinballs but
maintained their pinball operations.
Market shares
With the monumental shift of
buying emphasis to video games,
Equipment Earnings-National Averages
Weekly Gross
%Increase
1981
'80
'79
'78
'77
Upright Videos
+37
$140
$102
$64
$50
$44
Cocktail Videos
*
$115
*
*
*
*
Pool Tables
+ 2
$67
$66
$57
$53
$41
Pin balls
+ 5
$66
$63
$65
$62
$44
Phonographs
+10
$55
$50
$54
$52
$46
Air Cushion
+18
$40
$34
$27
*
*
*
$37
*
*
*
*
Non-Video Arcade
+ 9
$36
$33
*
*
*
Shuffles
+11
$31
$28
$41
$32
$29
Foosballs
+40
$28
$20
$31
$41
$39
Wall Games
+ 4
$26
$25
$29
$34
$33
Counter Games
* -Unable to be computed
10
PLAY METER, November 15, 1981