30 Coinslot June 14- June 20, 2013
Comment
2013- the year coin-op fights back
“ alex lee comment
I t only seems like yesterday when UKbased coin-op trade shows were packing up for good and being consigned to the‘ late and lamented’ file.
It’ s actually more like five or six years since the likes of Preview and the Blackpool show at the Norbreck Castle hotel bade their final farewells.
A lot has changed since then, of course, and despite this being my twelfth year in UK coin-op, during my relatively brief career on this side of the pay-to-play fence I have not yet experienced any‘ non-challenging’ times!
Having viewed the industry from a number of angles- as a keen AWP and video game player, as an inventor and content provider of SWP games and of course my current role as editor of the longest-standing coin-op publication I feel as if I have only scraped the surface of what is clearly an enjoyable, friendly, yet doggedly competitive industry.
This element of competition, and, whisper this, positivity and hope for a more prosperous future, has manifested itself in the number of independent trade events popping up all over the country in London, Skegness, Chorley, Kings Lynn and Exeter to name but five. Call me wildly optimistic, but surely a regular smattering of provincial events throughout the year in 2013 as opposed to just a couple in the immediate aftermath of Preview and Blackpool packing up and clearing off has to be a good sign?
Any visitor to the most important show of the year, the EAG, will see some of the greatest characters, innovators and, of course, products that have helped shape coinop as we know it today as well as, hopefully, some brand spanking new machines that, if not reinventing the wheel, will go some way towards tightening the nuts and changing the tyre.
To a lesser degree, however, the same can be said about the country’ s evergrowing provincial shows hosted by distributors who believe that there are compelling business reasons to put on such events beyond having a drink and chewing on a kebab.
I firmly believe that these are exciting times for the domestic pay-to-play industry. Why else would so many people turn up to all these events? While the future direction of coin-op is never certain, for a sector that hinges on the success of its products( and what the government allows it to do), it’ s the people working within it that count and it’ s precisely that strength of character and camaraderie that can help drive the industry and, as a natural by-product, this publication, onwards and upwards.
Norfolk seaside resort comes
alex lee media watch
Writing for the Huffington
Post online, John Osborne has slated Great Yarmouth and its arcades. In an uncompromising article last week, he stated:“ My sister lives abroad now, and when she came to visit me for a few days in Norwich we decided to go to Great Yarmouth, half an hour away on the train. This was the closest I’ d come to the widely regarded dirty seaside town: out of season, raining and deserted, it was a line-up of pub, amusement arcade, pub, arcade, pub, and barely a person in any. Walking down the Golden Mile we passed the once great Empire Theatre, now a nightclub premises to let. Then, after a row of steak houses and cafés, we hit the amusement arcades.
“ In recent years a combination of the decline of the British seaside holiday and the development in home gaming consoles means that arcades aren’ t making anything like the amount of money they did in the 1970s and 80s. Some say perhaps this decline is a good thing; seaside amusement arcades should die out, they would be no loss, they breed gambling and greed and they are unpleasant places for children to spend their time. Away from where Karen and I had been playing the penny pusher machines sat the more sinister part of the amusement arcade. Roped off with a different coloured carpet, this was where the fruit machines stand proud, with people playing on them with the concentration of surgeons.
“ Arcades are often perceived as glamorising gambling to children, it’ s what gives them their first taste of the potential of prizes, and from that moment on a habit can be formed. However, there is also another view. There are others who say that arcades are the perfect antidote to gambling and that they have positive
Great Yarmo thief is caugh
effects on the psyche of children, who go in there at a young age to grab a stuffed Eeyore on the claw machine or to play on the Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine rides. At an early age the noises of the arcade and an understanding of winning and losing become indoctrinated into the brain.
“ Of course, there are similarities with the high-end casinos; the mesmerising flow of the arcades, the music jingling like dollar signs, the sense of every machine about to pay out, a cash win imminent. But these 2p pushers could almost be said to epitomise the right way to gamble. Only putting in what you can afford to lose, never walking away with a big dent in your wallet; a good way to put children off the idea of gambling, that the certainty that the‘ house’ always wins is as engrained a rule as that your pet rabbit will die.
Osborne’ s bleak view con-