Play Meter

IEWS BRIEFS
au Mille Shaw
Audio Visual Amusements has filed a suit against the Bally/ Midway companies , claiming Bally
Distributing intends to erode AVA business and monopolize coin amusement distributing in St. Louis
by unfairly cutting prices below cost. The suit further claims Bally hired away a crucial AVA employee
and pressured AVA suppliers to slow their deliveries to the company or not make deliveries at all. AVA
chief Peter Entringer said Bally wants to drive distributors like himself out of business to gain
monopolistic control over the industry nationwide. (Bally's comment will appear in the ovember 1
issue .)
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Dacono, Colorado, has lightened its age restrictions on video games player . A law banning
youths under 18 from playing videos unless they are accompanied by an adult (Play Meter , July 15, p.
22-24) has been relaxed to keep under 16-year-olds from playing during school hours. City Attorney
Pete Goter said the law firm representing the city's insurance interests advised it to amend the
ordinance to make it more defensible. Goter said he expects the law uit filed by Sam horez, a
grocery store owner who challenged the restriction since its inception , will soon be settled. Shorez'
attorney jed Caswall called the new ordinance "vastly improved," but added that "it ' s (still)
constitutionally defective ."
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The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has acceded to a Bally/ Midway plea and reversed a July 1981
International Trade Commission decision which found imported pirat d copies of Rally X games did
not violate U.S . tariff laws. The Tariff Act was not violated , the commission ruled , because
Bally/ Midway was no longer making Rally X-t her fore the "industry" for that gam could not be
effectively hurt. The Court of Appeals reversal means American manufactur rs will b able to get
exclusion orders to keep infringing games out of the country , even infringements of games no longer
in production.
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Board representative James LaBelle fought to install an ordinance for Lake County, Illinois,
requiring criminal background investigations by the sheriff and th state's attorney on operators who
would do business there . The ordinance, passed by a 21-1 vote, was designed to keep organized crime
out of Lake County . LaBelle told Play Meter county officials susp ted only one company as having
connections with organized crime. La Belle could not remember the name of the ompany . The
ordinance carrie a $200 per operator annual fee to cov r the cost of th inve ligations.
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Winchester, Massachusetts, population 23 ,000, got its first coin-operated vid o games in early
August when Ruggles and Bowker was granted a license to install three gam sin its sporting goods
store. Town selectmen called the license an " experiment" to see if the town an live with video games.
Sega Enterprises has finalized several copyright infringement cases . obtaining perman nt
injunctions and cash judgments against Frogger and Zaxxon copiers . Judgments were obtained in
Florida against International Video Games Inc. and M.I .T. Electronics , and in ew jer ey against
Bagatelle Amusements Inc. and U.S. Amusements Inc. An out-of-court settlement was arranged with
guyen Associates Inc. in California
Don Bluth, the creator of the animation in Dragon' Lair, has predicted Cinematroni swill sell
135,000 of the game.
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Exidy is moving into new markets with its Fax trivia question and an wer vid o game. Digital
Controls will produce a countertop version of the game. Subsequently , Exidy ha promi ed a Fax 2
which will be available as a conversion for Fax owners, and also in a new, slightly smaller con ole model.
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Call made to Matrix Marketing Corporation went unanswer d recently because th company
was in the process of moving to new facilities . Th Minnesota mak r of coin-op tel phones r ports it
is now settled at 6407 Cecilia Circle in Bloomington. The n w Matrix phone number i 612/ 944-0577.
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PLAY METER. O crober 1 5. 1980