Providing Value While Still Making Money 

by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com

An industry friend recently told me about a new FEC that priced their cranes at $7 per play on a swipe card system. By the way, that’s not a play-until-you-win crane. I wonder how those will do over time.

On the other side of the price-per-play equation is the penny slot machine with its very low bar of entry. After all, they’re just a penny to play, right? With a dollar slot machine, you might put in three, five or more dollars per pull of a handle (or push of a button). The penny slot offers multiple lines of play, each for a penny, and you can play 100 lines or more at a time. Your brain tricks you into thinking you’re getting a lot of chances to win for “just a penny.”

But if you’re paying for 300 chances to win per spin, that’s $3 per play. The money is the same as if you were playing the dollar machine, but the feeling is different. You might ask how you got tricked into playing with more money than you intended, but it’s this breaking of the connection between the real money in your pocket and its value that’s one of the main reasons why casinos use chips. It makes me wonder if it’s the same reason why FECs like using player cards. (And for the record, I don’t play any games at casinos.)

In a fun center, wiping out the credit on your customers’ swipe cards as quickly as possible is a good way to burn them out. Did they have any fun? What prizes did they win? What kind of experience did they have? Did they find value? Will they come back again? And, what will they tell others about their experience?

Consider that a lower price per play for select games could draw a wider range of players, including those who don’t want to spend as much money. I subscribe to the old operator saying: “I’d rather make a fast nickel than a slow quarter.” It could be updated, but its message rings true today at many locations.

Another school of thought is that fewer plays at higher pricing gets more revenue without as much wear and tear on the equipment. I get it. With the price of new equipment these days, you’re focused on getting your ROI as quickly as possible so you naturally question how to do that when charging less to play the game.

I propose an experiment. Take a game that isn’t earning well and lower its price per play. If you have a card system, make sure the pricing is displayed on the screen and, ideally, also with a sticker on the game. If you see that the lower pricing creates more play on the game – and more revenue for you – explore expanding lower pricing to other underperforming games.

Depending on the game, you may be able to shorten the timer on game play or, very slightly, increase the difficulty of the game. The idea isn’t to frustrate the player but to challenge them while encouraging them to play again.

Not everything will work at every location, but one thing is certain: your customers will welcome a game that costs less to play, especially in today’s economy. Give value to your customers, and you will be rewarded in the long term with loyal players.

Jack Guarnieri started servicing electromechanical pinball machines in 1975 and has been involved in every phase of the amusement game business since then. He was an operator in NYC, then began a distributorship in 1999, PinballSales.com, selling coin-op to the consumer market. In January of 2011, he founded Jersey Jack Pinball (named after his RePlay Magazine pen name), which builds award-winning, full-featured, coin-op pinball machines. Email Jack at jack@jerseyjackpinball.com.