I just got a call from Richie Berger, Harry’s son and the last game dealer standing on 10th Avenue, Metropolitan New York’s fabled coin machine row. As expected, the call quickly verged into reminiscing about those “great old days” when so-and-so did such-and-such. Ancient coin-op personalities with names like Lipsky, Simon, Parkoff, Lowy, Miniaci, and, of course, Berger emerged from the dustbin of coin machine lore. (Richie’s father used to run pinballs in Cuba before Castro showed up; Richie himself hires out private jets today.) It’s always fun to reminisce, but as the sage says, it ain’t real.
What was real back then were shuffle alleys, bumper pool and the Smokeshop cigarette machine. Today it’s video, redemption, darts and ATMs (we’ve always had pins and jukes). So, what’s going to be real tomorrow? Don’t ask me. Way back before Starbucks, I walked down a commercial street in my brother-in-law Sigurd’s hometown of Kiel, Germany, and looked through a store window at young people standing at a spread of counters smoking and drinking. “There’s a busy place,” said I. “Yeah, it’s one of those coffee bars,” Sig replied. “Coffee bar? That would never work back in the States,” said the prophet Eddie Adlum.
Another of my famous memories was when I and some other California guys like Dean McMurdie and Hank Tronick had lunch with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell at his Lion and Compass restaurant up in Silicon Valley. We were talking about Pong and some other games Nolan was fooling with, when he said: “I wonder what else we can do with this thing (video) besides ping pong and hockey.” See? Even the great Bushnell can’t tell you what’s going to come down the pipe, though I bet he’d be a bit more accurate than me.
A few years back at a California operator association meeting, Peter Betti told the crowd that when he originally ran Betson’s store on Pico Boulevard, L.A.’s “coin machine row” (which has also gone the way of 10th Avenue), the vast majority of the machines they sold went to route owners. “Today,” said Peter, “it’s exactly the opposite with the FEC customers buying the most.” So, how does anyone. . .route or arcade owner. . .predict what’s downstream, and prepare for it now? I don’t think you can unless you bought a coin-operated time machine. You really only have “now” and all the skills you learned “then” to put to work the best way you know how. When important change comes, you’ll know soon enough to rise to the challenge.
Obviously, keep your eyes on the cash flow, the debts, the opportunities and all the news sources like this magazine to keep your knowledge up. Balance risk with caution (there should be an Olympics for that “game”) and be nice to everyone, even competitors, because good relations just might spell inside information one day (the legal kind) which itself may mean plus-bucks. And, plus-bucks never lose their lustre.