Editorial Well, unless you’ve been taking a dirt nap, you’re aware of an amusement trend sweeping the planet called Pokemon Go! At the time I write this, it hasn’t any monetary bearing on coin-op other than pulling young people away from the game centers so they can roam the streets looking at their smart phones for what they call “hotspots.” And, as most folks (including this game’s players) would agree, this is probably just one more fad (albeit one that took off like a dry brush fire). Everyone can, however, agree that this is a super-clever use of an existing…

How Smart Stayed Smart for Over 50 Years A Constant Eye on the Future Helps Maintain the Company’s Simple Truth: “It’s Always Worth the Cost of Producing Quality Product” Smart Industries has come a long way since its beginning as a mobile menagerie of arcade and other amusement machines that traveled from town to town in the 1960s. The company that Jeff Smart runs, and his late father Gordon founded, is now headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, and since 1985, Smart Industries has been developing and manufacturing cranes and a wide variety of other amusement machines. The many years of…

Redemption: Is It Art or Science? The Balance that Creates Success Starts with the Fundamentals By George McAuliffe, Chief FEC Strategist, Redemption Plus I’ve seen a lot of tools and trends come and go in my time in the FEC business. Debit card systems have been the single, highest-positive-impact innovation in all of those years (IMHO). So I thought that we’d explore that impact with a cross section of game and FEC operators in this column, asking what the top benefits have been in switching over to debit cards. Andy Bartholomy, aka Andy B, is a leader in the bowling…

Non-Stop Learning Gaines Butler on Upcoming AMOA Plans Q: What’s your takeway after attending the many state association meetings? A: For most of us operators, our perspective on the coin-op universe is largely shaped by the geographic limits of our routes. It’s where we spend most of our time, our energy, our focus and other resources. Many of us get a couple or maybe a few glimpses of what lies beyond our home turf each year when we attend events such as the AAMA-AMOA Amusement Expo, the State Council meeting or some other industry gathering. When I was elected AMOA president…

Editorial A well-known U.S. senator is loyally supporting one of his party’s current candidates by suggesting that their campaign people get to work improving the voting public’s “perception” of the person. By using marketing techniques, he’d like to alter what many of the voters in that particular candidate’s jurisdiction have already judged him to be, which, according to a lot of chatter on the media, has been largely negative. As someone said, trying to alter the voters’ perception of this person is like painting an outhouse white and hanging a “nice room for rent” sign on the door. Gratefully, most…

Debit Payment: Much More Than a Simple Swipe Intercard Evolves Alongside the Market with New Focus on Global Marketing by Dan McGrath It’s understandable that Intercard’s CEO Scott Sherrod often considers the question of exactly what business his company is in now. Anyone working in the tech world sees firsthand the rapid pace of change that is that industry’s lifeblood; it is a constant stream of new software and hardware evolving to meet the dynamic and constantly developing needs of the marketplace. Debit payment technology is no exception to that endless transformation. That question keeps Intercard thriving in a…

A Sad, But Timely, Wake Up Call Jersey Jack Reflects on What We Can All Do to Make It a Better World by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com The world is a crazy place! I don’t know who said it first, but it’s certainly taken on a different meaning than when I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn. We’re in the “Amusement” business — some would argue the “Entertainment” business. As such, it’s our happy task to make the world laugh and have some fun, to forget the crazy world for a bit of time, an escape at…

Party Cards! That’s What We Called Them in the Early Days of Debit Card Systems By Beth Standlee, CEO, TrainerTainment I  don’t know if people remember or even know that my entry into the family entertainment world has deep roots in debit card systems. I worked onsite with an early adaptor location in the mid to late ’90s. It was a time where you had to explain why you needed to use a card to play games rather than a token. Children were easy. They got it instantly and it was great fun to have your own “card”! I remember thinking…

My Experience With the Indies How These Game Developers Work in a Real-World Arcade Setting by Adam Pratt, Game Grid Arcade & ArcadeHeroes.com With all the talk of “indies” (independent game developers) in the arcade space as of late, I wanted to share my real-world arcade experience with these developers and their games in my arcade business. Thanks to digital distribution platforms like Steam, the Apple Store or Google Play, indie games have become quite the force among home gaming. Just about anyone can get their game out onto the market, to the point that it is very easy for…

Editorial The family entertainment center (FEC) sector has been the “shining star” in the coin-op games business for years now. The public clearly enjoys spending time in these places, giving a great PR lift to our industry’s “brand.” It also means more manufacturers selling more games, more prize suppliers funneling their goods through the ticket and auto-prize machines, and more center operators making more money to reinvest in our economic cycle. One of the reasons for this success is the savvy those operators have brought to the FEC table, like knowing who their customers are and how to keep them…