Play Meter

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Play Meter began in December 1974, launched as Coin Industry Play Meter by its founder, Ralph C. Lally II. Lally was also an arcade operator, and he built a monthly trade publication around the coin-op amusement business, the world of jukeboxes and arcade cabinets. Within its pages, Play Meter did something no one else had done for video games. It reviewed each one individually and scored it on a scale of one to ten, the same ten-point structure that shapes video game criticism today. That makes Play Meter the earliest known work of video game journalism, years before anyone thought to call it that.

  But a trade magazine built by one arcade operator does not run for over four decades on its own. What happened to Ralph Lally, and who kept the presses moving after him? Why would a publication that helped invent an entire beat close its doors in 2018? And what does it mean that so much of its own history, on paper, no longer exists?

• 2. An Industry In Flux

  ›

  A magazine called RePlay entered the field in 1975, a year after Play Meter began, and the two became rivals covering the same coin-op beat. Together the two publications chronicled the arcade business from its earliest days, through the video game crashes of 1977 and 1983. The medium then went through a rebirth and matured across the 1980s. Skybird Publishing kept the print edition arriving every month, and Play Meter also ran a website updated on the same schedule.

• 3. Building The Trade Show

  ›

  In March 1980, Ralph Lally established the industry's first spring trade show, the Amusement Operators Expo, known as the AOE. The AOE ran for five years before merging in 1986 with the American Amusement Machine Association's Amusement Showcase International. Together they formed the American Coin Machine Exposition, known as ACME. The show reverted to the Amusement Showcase International name from 1997 to 2009. It then merged again with the Amusement & Music Operators Association's event to become today's Amusement Expo.

  Play Meter had already begun handing out its own awards for the best-ranked games in 1980. In 1989 the magazine added an Operator of the Year award, recognizing individuals rather than machines. Awards for games came first in 1980; recognition for people followed nine years later.

• 4. Voices Of The Arcade

  ›

  Roger Sharpe launched Play Meter's first review column, Critic's Corner, in July 1976, focused on pinball machines. The column later continued under a new title, Critic's Corner Too. In the 1980s, writer Steve Harris introduced the Players' Picks column. He led a team of seven experienced playtesters who reviewed games from a player's own point of view. Industry readers responded with real interest, and by 1987 Harris and his team were considered "the Siskel and Ebert of the arcade industry."

  Frank Seninsky brought a sharper edge in 1981 with Frank's Cranks, an industry criticism column that ran until 1996. April 1999 brought a new column too: Consultant's Corner, written by Jerry Merola. None of these bylines explain how many readers were actually picking up the magazine each month.

• 5. Numbers On The Page

  ›

  Rising sales prompted Play Meter to start publishing twice a month in 1981. It kept that pace for five years before returning to a single monthly issue in 1986. Circulation had reached 5,400 subscriptions in 1979 and climbed to a peak of 6,500 by 1991. By 1995 that figure had slipped back to 6,000, and by 2014 it had fallen further to 3,000 subscriptions.

  Play Meter's first Annual State of the Industry Report appeared in 1976. In July 1979, Play Meter published its first Equipment Poll and added a new redemption section to the magazine. The Equipment Poll would recur bi-monthly, ranking the top-performing video games in street and amusement arcades. In 1994, Play Meter launched a Family Fun Edition for the family entertainment center market, currently headed by Joseph Camarota III. Play Meter also put out a handful of special issues: a Buyers' Guide, a bi-monthly New Products issue, and an annual Special Directory Issue. A separate annual issue, Ranks the Games, reviewed the ten best titles shown each year at the Amusement Expo.

• 6. The Flood Of 2005

  ›

  On the 29th of August 2005, a New Orleans levee broke just four blocks from Play Meter's three-story headquarters in the Lakeview neighborhood. Every employee had already been evacuated ahead of Hurricane Katrina, so no one was hurt when the floodwaters arrived. The water still destroyed much of the magazine's back catalog, sweeping away 31 years of archived issues.

  Play Meter relocated its headquarters temporarily to St. Louis while New Orleans recovered. In 2008, the International Flipper Pinball Association awarded Play Meter a plaque.

• 7. End Of The Family Business

  ›

  Ralph Lally was killed in a car accident in December 1984. His wife, Carol Lally, immediately took over as Play Meter's publisher and kept the magazine running for more than three decades afterward. The trade paper published its final issue in June 2018, a closure that coincided with Carol Lally's own retirement from the business.