Play Meter

(continued fro m page 15)
know what they were talking about."
But he st ressed that he didn 't think
such a fund would let TGI and
Peppard off their legal r esponsibi li -
ties. '~ It 's just that we 've got to get
those players paid because that
refle cts on th rest of us ," h said.
So Play Meter agreed. There were
a lot of holes in Ch ar li e's id a, simp ly
because the indus try is so divided.
But , as a newcomer to the business ,
Ch arlie probably wasn 't aware
exactly how wide that rift is.
In retrospect , a mor practical
idea might have been for the industry
itself to announce that it would
represent the players in a class
action suit against Lee P ppard ,
TGI , and any other parti s who
could be shown to be I gaily
respon sible for the Fiasco.
But , at the time , Charli e's idea was
the only one going. N o on
lse was
trying to elicit an indust ry response
to what had b com an industry
problem .
So Play Meter set up th fund . It
sent telegrams to leading distributors
and manufacturers, asking them for
donations to the fund. It con tact d
the various asso iation and any
pa rt ies who might be abl to h lp
out. It even contacted L ee Peppard
to make arrangements to get a list of
the names and addresses of the
playe rs who won at the Fiasco .
Th e industry might haue
represented the players in a
la ss action suit
'A ba d id ea'
Then industry people sta rt ed to
conta t Play M t r . A nd, sudde nly,
all the self-defeating n gativity came
through . Although no one could
orne up with a good i d ea,
apparen tl y everyon cou ld see that
this was a bad idea .
Som e said it was At ari's problem ,
and At ari should write a check for
the whole amount.
Some said it would le t L ee
Peppard and TG I off the hook .
Some said such a tournament
fund drive would never get wide
industry support; so they wouldn 't
give to the fund eit h r .
Some said it would se t a bad pre·
c dent in cas so mething of this
magnitude happens again .
Some rationalized that since news
of the event didn't reach their areas,
they didn't see why they should give
to a fund to create good press some·
where else .
Some said it was a good idea but
th e newspapers wouldn 't pi ck up on
it. " Those r eport ers just want to
print the bad news," one industry
p rson said . (To the contrary , the
newspaper reporters this writer
talked to , saw it as ext remely news·
worthy that an in dust ry would make
good on a debt that wasn 't eve n its
own, simply b cause the debtors
were its own good custo mers . For
instance, one r epo rt er, Sharon
Barr tt of the Chicago Sun· Times ,
sai d it was "a wonderful idea" that
would lik e to report on
sh
favorably .)
Some said th y couldn 't help
beca use they were in competition
with Play Meter.
Some said that since Play Meter
was a profit -making en terpri se, it
ce rt ainly was not the one to handle
this sort of thing .
One as ociation said that a fund
like th is would jeopardi z its non·
profit sta tus.
Another associa tion said most of
(Continu don pag
19)
TOKENSeTOKENSeTOKENS
(STOCK AND CUSTOM )
FOR ALL MAKES OF GAMES,
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PLAY METER , F bruary 1, 1982
17