Anyone else own a Star Warrior cocktail by Potomac Mortgage?

[Video_Invader]

Picked one of these up in near mint condition about 3 months ago. A bit of Atari in the table style with a bit of Galaga in the game except you can move a bit more other than just straight across. Enemies don't seem to have any real formation. Cool as hell though. Don't seem to be many around.

[onmode-ky]

I've never even heard of this game nor its developer, but a brief Google search revealed some interesting info. Potomac Mortgage Company registered 11 trademarks in December 1980 (9 of them) and February 1981 (the remaining 2), of which one was "POTOMAC GAMES," one was "STAR SERIES," and eight of the rest were various titles that were to be in this Star series; the remaining trademark is for "AYATOLLAH ASSASSINATION"--how topical for the time, I guess. It was one of the two 1981 registrations, the other being "STAR ASSASSIN." Of the registered titles, KLOV only records two actually becoming released games, this Star Warrior and Star Invaders. I guess the mortgage company's games division was a failure and got closed before *ahem* all their Stars lined up.

 

onmode-ky

[+save2600]

Pics please!

[Video_Invader]

Pics please!

Sure. I'll get some pics tomorrow. Stay tuned.

[Video_Invader]

Here's some quick pics I took tonight. The flash made one of them look bad.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2013 by Video_Invader

[+save2600]

Nintendo style cab. Interesting game. Thanks for the pics!

[Video_Invader]

Nintendo style cab. Interesting game. Thanks for the pics!

No problem. This is what I got from the International Arcade Museum. It describes it as:

 

The game is encased in a black cocktail table with panel veneer on the sides. It appears to be very similar to the early Atari cocktails, with their rectangular glass and control panels along both sides. The overlay says "Star Series" and "Potomac" on both control panels. The underglass stickers have the "Star Warrior" game title and indicate that the game was produced by Potomac Mortgage Company of Dallas Texas.

[Tempest]

Neato! I love obscure arcade stuff like this.

[Video_Invader]

Neato! I love obscure arcade stuff like this.

Me too. It's great. Just happen to know a guy that deals in this stuff. Mostly pinball but he gets a few arcades in every now and then. He come across this one and contacted me about it and another one he had.

[onmode-ky]

Nice pictures. I read through the instructions next to the screen, and they're somewhat Engrishy--namely, the use of articles is not standard English. This is despite Potomac Mortgage being in Texas, so I wonder if their games division was either in Japan or just contracted with a firm in Japan. Or, well, maybe they simply had employees for whom English was not their first language.

 

Do you plan on trying to find the game's Potomac partner, Star Invaders?

 

onmode-ky

[Video_Invader]

Nice pictures. I read through the instructions next to the screen, and they're somewhat Engrishy--namely, the use of articles is not standard English. This is despite Potomac Mortgage being in Texas, so I wonder if their games division was either in Japan or just contracted with a firm in Japan. Or, well, maybe they simply had employees for whom English was not their first language.

 

Do you plan on trying to find the game's Potomac partner, Star Invaders?

 

onmode-ky

I don't usually go after things so hard to come by. Nice when they do come along but I don't try real hard to find them. If I were to come across one, I would probably get it. This one wasn't planned. The guy just happened to have it and I was all over it. So yeah, maybe someday, but if not, that's ok too.

[astrp3]

the remaining trademark is for "AYATOLLAH ASSASSINATION"--how topical for the time, I guess.

onmode-ky

 

It looks like there was at least one other coin-op with a similar theme - Stop the Iatola by Computer Kinetics. Computer Kinetics primarily made non-video countertop games but it seems they did try a few videos, though I don't know if they were released:

http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2013/03/rare-games-more-1975-atari-photos-and.html

[astrp3]

Coincidentally, I just came across some more info on Potomac Mortgage. They may not exactly have been on the up-and-up.

The June 1, 1981 issue of Play Meter reported that the California Attorney General's office took action against them and two other companies for misrepresenting the amount of revenue buyers of their games could expect to earn. Potomac told potential customers that a $6,500 investment for 10 machines would produce a $300,000 annual profit within 18 months and they could conservatively expect a 70-170% ROI (not sure if these figures add up, just reporting what the article said).

California law required that companies making such claims file a statement of discolsure with the Secretary of State's office outlining the facts supporting such claims and that the same info be presented to potential customers - something none of the companies apparently did.

The court also noted that the 3 companies' games were "of very low quality".

 

Such schemes were actually pretty common back in the 1980s. Some called these companies "blue sky" companies or "blue suede shoes" men. Some would promise to sell you games, help find a location, sell you a service contract etc. then take your money and disappear. I don't think Potomac was quite that bad, however.

[Video_Invader]

Interesting.

[onmode-ky]

Coincidentally, I just came across some more info on Potomac Mortgage. They may not exactly have been on the up-and-up.

The June 1, 1981 issue of Play Meter reported that the California Attorney General's office took action against them and two other companies for misrepresenting the amount of revenue buyers of their games could expect to earn.

 

You got me curious about who the other two companies were. I poked around and came upon Google's archive of the September 1982 issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance, which ran an article about activities like what you mentioned. The other two companies on which the California Attorney General's office put injunctions barring future infractions were Leisure Time Electronics of Indianapolis and American Game Exchange of San Diego. Leisure Time Electronics seems to have been a bootleg operation; all 3 of the games they released were apparently hacks of Taito games, specifically Space Invaders (Space Ranger), Lunar Rescue (Moon Lander), and Space Laser (Astro Laser; and oddly enough, they also called their collective game releases a "Star Series"). They were assessed $5000 by the Attorney General's office. Potomac Mortgage was assessed $5000 as well and ordered to offer refunds to 23 California residents. American Game Exchange, now, I didn't find out what games they actually made, but they were assessed $40,000 and ordered to offer 29 refunds. Even more sordid, the founder of the company was already a convicted felon, went on the run after AGE was found out (illegal business because he was an undisclosed felon), murdered his wife, and was sentenced for execution, according to this account by the brother of one of the bilked customers. Geez.

 

This topic is uncovering some weird stuff!

 

onmode-ky

[astrp3]

OK. Looking further I've uncovered yet more info about Potomac.

Looks like maybe I may have spoken too soon when I said they weren't in the same class as the blue sky operators.

From some newspaper ads I found, it looks like they may have been in the same category after all.

Oh, they were also sued by Irem for ripping off Uniwars.

 

I posted some details here:

http://allincolorfor...y-blue-sky.html

 

along with some info about how the blue sky boys worked in general.

Edited May 4, 2013 by astrp3

[Video_Invader]

Man! I never even heard of these guys either until a couple months ago. No wonder they weren't around long.

[R.Cade]

That game looks like a straight text hack of Space Firebird, from Nintendo. It was knocked off by quite a few companies...

Edited May 4, 2013 by R.Cade

[Crimefighter]

It is definitely a text hack of Nintendo's Space Firebird. Video of gameplay -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVdR4hcFpdA

[onmode-ky]

Oh, they were also sued by Irem for ripping off Uniwars.

 

I posted some details here:

http://allincolorfor...y-blue-sky.html

 

Interesting stuff. I think there's some confusion with one of your images, though. In talking about the lawsuit by Irem against Star Invaders, you have a sentence that says, "Here's side 2 of the flyer (comapre to the Uniwars flyer on TAFA)," but there's no point comparing that flyer to the UniWar S flyer. That side 2 is an ad for Star Fighter, one of the titles trademarked by Potomac that never saw actual release. As you point out with a subsequent image, Star Fighter rips off Moon Cresta. Based on the KLOV picture of a Star Invaders cab, showing the game's score table screen, it does indeed look like a hack of UniWar S.

 

By the way, in your article about 1973, you have a sentence that says, "Ralph Baer estimated that about 50,00 coin-op video games had been produced." Was that supposed to be 50,000 or 5,000?

 

[Star Warrior] looks like a straight text hack of Space Firebird, from Nintendo. It was knocked off by quite a few companies...

 

Ah, so that's what it is. In looking up UniWar S just now to make sure I had the spelling right, I found Space Bird by Hoei and thought its KLOV description seemed very similar to Star Warrior's; apparently, both are hacks of Space Firebird. Also discovered another hack of UniWar S: Space Battle by Shoei.

 

Anyway, so one Potomac Mortgage game was a simple hack of Space Firebird, the other was a simple hack of UniWar S, and they planned a hack of Moon Cresta. Star Series = Hack Series--for both Potomac Mortgage Company and Leisure Time Electronics.

 

onmode-ky

[astrp3]

Interesting stuff. I think there's some confusion with one of your images, though. In talking about the lawsuit by Irem against Star Invaders, you have a sentence that says, "Here's side 2 of the flyer (comapre to the Uniwars flyer on TAFA)," but there's no point comparing that flyer to the UniWar S flyer. That side 2 is an ad for Star Fighter, one of the titles trademarked by Potomac that never saw actual release. As you point out with a subsequent image, Star Fighter rips off Moon Cresta. Based on the KLOV picture of a Star Invaders cab, showing the game's score table screen, it does indeed look like a hack of UniWar S.

 

By the way, in your article about 1973, you have a sentence that says, "Ralph Baer estimated that about 50,00 coin-op video games had been produced." Was that supposed to be 50,000 or 5,000?

 

 

Thanks. I corrected the first part earlier this morning.

 

The Baer estimate was 50,000, not 5,000 - almost all of them Pong clones.

He estimated that 50,000 coin-op video games were sold in 1973; 25,000 in 1974; 32,500 in 1975; and 6-7,000 in the first quarter of 1976.

 

The big 1973 sellers he lists (note that he is rounding and gives no source, but I've confirmed some of these from other sources):

Pong: 8,000; Midway Winner: 7,000 (Replay/Play Meter gave the same figure); Williams Pro Tennis: 7,000? (hard to read); Allied Supper Soccer: 5,000; Allied Tennis Tourney: 5,000 (a source at Allied gave me the same number); Chicago Coin TV Tennis: 5,000; Atari Gotcha: 3,000; Chicago Coin TV Hockey: 1,000; Kee Formula K: 1,000; Midway Asteroid 2,000, Ramtek Clean Sweep 3,000, Ramtek Hockey 2,000; Ramtek Volley 1,000, Atari Space Race 1,500

 

The rest of the games he lists sold a total of about 3,000 units. Add them all up and you actually get around 54,500 so maybe he was rounding the total to 50,000 or maybe the individual numbers were total sales, not just 1973 sales (though I think he listed the yearly totals for each game separately). Note howevere that production runs were usually only a few months and most of the big 1973 sellers came out early in the year on the heels of Pong.

His numbers, if anything, are probably too low since he omitted a number of big sellers (most notably Allied Leisure's Paddle Battle, which probably sold 17-20,000).

He also left off Williams' Paddle Ball (don't know how many it sold, but as their first product it might have sold more than Pro Tennis - unless Baer got the two confused).

Throw in those two and others he omitted and the number climbs to around 75-80,000.

Edited May 4, 2013 by astrp3

[astrp3]

Geez. I stumbled across yet more information about these companies in Replay magazine.

Turns out Leisure Time was investigated by NBC.

 

In the November, 1981 issue Hal Watner (executive with a number of manufacturers over the years) reported on one ofthe shows he attended put on by Leisure Time Electronics (he calls them Leisure Time Industries but I imagine it's the same company) in Santa Clara on October 4. HE says that they advertised it as a coin-op amusement show on television (something real industry shows never did).

Upon arrival, he was directed to a meeting room where he was greeted by a "young well-dressed man with a very sexy girl by his side". They showed him games that were obviously knockoffs. Potential customers could play the games, but had to pay (another red flag - though one salesman told him See, even here at the show people pour money in.")

He says that the games were actually manufactured by a company in the "Great Lakes region' on an OEM basis and Leisure Time bought a minimum of 100 games a week.

Attendees were shown a 20/20 segment on the profit potential of video games.

The show ran for 3 days and about 500 a day attended. According to Leisure Time, about 10% of attendees took the bait.

Games cost a minium of $3,500 and were sold in packages of 2-10 games. Unlike some companies, Leisure Time did not provide location services or insurance. Instead they referred customers to a group called Coast To Coast Locators or International Locators who charged $175 per game per location to place games and train customers.

Interestingly, Watner said Leisure Time was located in Texas - apparently a mistake (NBC said they were from Indianapolis). It makes me wonder if Leisure Time and Potomac were related somehow or maybe even the same company or if they all worked the same shows.

 

Even better - another article reports that on March 12, 1982 NBC aired an expose of Leisure Time on their NBC Magazine program. They mentioned that Leisure Time showed customers several newspaper accounts of video games earning $300-1000 a week and "conservatively" used a figure of $150 a week in their pitch (even cutting it in half to reflect the standard 50/50 operator/location owner split).

One buyer bought two games for $7,000 and made $15 in a week on one and couldn't place the other.

Another bought six games for $21,000. One in an auto shop made $6 (and half of that went to the owner), two in a pizzeria made $12 each, and one in a Laundramat made $8.25.

NBC even had a reporter pose as a customer and tape president Joe Cassiopi with a hidden mike (RePlay printed a transcript of the segment).

Edited May 6, 2013 by astrp3

[Tempest]

Geez. I stumbled across yet more information about these companies in Replay magazine.

Turns out Leisure Time was investigated by NBC.

 

In the November, 1981 issue Hal Watner (executive with a number of manufacturers over the years) reported on one ofthe shows he attended put on by Leisure Time Electronics (he calls them Leisure Time Industries but I imagine it's the same company) in Santa Clara on October 4. HE says that they advertised it as a coin-op amusement show on television (something real industry shows never did).

Upon arrival, he was directed to a meeting room where he was greeted by a "young well-dressed man with a very sexy girl by his side". They showed him games that were obviously knockoffs. Potential customers could play the games, but had to pay (another red flag - though one salesman told him See, even here at the show people pour money in.")

He says that the games were actually manufactured by a company in the "Great Lakes region' on an OEM basis and Leisure Time bought a minimum of 100 games a week.

Attendees were shown a 20/20 segment on the profit potential of video games.

The show ran for 3 days and about 500 a day attended. According to Leisure Time, about 10% of attendees took the bait.

Games cost a minium of $3,500 and were sold in packages of 2-10 games. Unlike some companies, Leisure Time did not provide location services or insurance. Instead they referred customers to a group called Coast To Coast Locators or International Locators who charged $175 per game per location to place games and train customers.

Interestingly, Watner said Leisure Time was located in Texas - apparently a mistake (NBC said they were from Indianapolis). It makes me wonder if Leisure Time and Potomac were related somehow or maybe even the same company or if they all worked the same shows.

 

Even better - another article reports that on March 12, 1982 NBC aired an expose of Leisure Time on their NBC Magazine program. They mentioned that Leisure Time showed customers several newspaper accounts of video games earning $300-1000 a week and "conservatively" used a figure of $150 a week in their pitch (even cutting it in half to reflect the standard 50/50 operator/location owner split).

One buyer bought two games for $7,000 and made $15 in a week on one and couldn't place the other.

Another bought six games for $21,000. One in an auto shop made $6 (and half of that went to the owner), two in a pizzeria made $12 each, and one in a Laundramat made $8.25.

NBC even had a reporter pose as a customer and tape president Joe Cassiopi with a hidden mike (RePlay printed a transcript of the segment).

Wow. That's really interesting. I never knew there was such a dark side to coin-ops back in the day. This is really interesting.

[astrp3]

Everyone is probably tired of this topic by now, but I did come across some more info - including a possible (and surprsing) source for the Leisure Time games.

 

The November 15, 1981 issue of Play Meter had more info about these companies.

 

After the California ruling, Potomac took steps to clean up its act (or claimed to). They hired a PR director and president David Cook issued a directive to the games division that they should comply with all state laws. They also lowered the price of their games from $3490 to $2990.

 

More info about Leisure Time: they also failed to deliver games on time. Coast to Coast Locators (the company they recommended to customers) also failed to show up when promised (one customer had to pay for a hotel room for the rep and his girlfriend). Their games were cheap with particle board cabinets. One Moon Lander unit allowed players to get free games by jiggling the joystick.

 

The most interesting tidbit was the article's claim that the Leisure Time Electronics games were made by none other than Centuri. They even quote Allied/Centuri exec Ivan Rothstein as saying that Leisure Time was "...a reputable company" and that the games should have "no problem" earning $80-100 a week. He also said that Allied/Centuri had been doing business with Leisure Time for 8 years.

 

I have never heard this before and it seems a bit hard to believe.

One possiblity is that this occured just before Allied Leisure was renamed Centuri.

Allied supposedly showed 3 games at the 1979 AMOA show: Lunar Invasion, Space Bug, and Star Shooter. Could these be the ones they sold to Leisure Time?

Little is known about them. Play Meter descibed Space Bug as a game where you pushed boxes into storage bins.

[Tempest]

Everyone is probably tired of this topic by now, but I did come across some more info - including a possible (and surprsing) source for the Leisure Time games.

 

The November 15, 1981 issue of Play Meter had more info about these companies.

 

After the California ruling, Potomac took steps to clean up its act (or claimed to). They hired a PR director and president David Cook issued a directive to the games division that they should comply with all state laws. They also lowered the price of their games from $3490 to $2990.

 

More info about Leisure Time: they also failed to deliver games on time. Coast to Coast Locators (the company they recommended to customers) also failed to show up when promised (one customer had to pay for a hotel room for the rep and his girlfriend). Their games were cheap with particle board cabinets. One Moon Lander unit allowed players to get free games by jiggling the joystick.

 

The most interesting tidbit was the article's claim that the Leisure Time Electronics games were made by none other than Centuri. They even quote Allied/Centuri exec Ivan Rothstein as saying that Leisure Time was "...a reputable company" and that the games should have "no problem" earning $80-100 a week. He also said that Allied/Centuri had been doing business with Leisure Time for 8 years.

 

I have never heard this before and it seems a bit hard to believe.

One possiblity is that this occured just before Allied Leisure was renamed Centuri.

Allied supposedly showed 3 games at the 1979 AMOA show: Lunar Invasion, Space Bug, and Star Shooter. Could these be the ones they sold to Leisure Time?

Little is known about them. Play Meter descibed Space Bug as a game where you pushed boxes into storage bins.

Wait is this your site? http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/ I love your site! I was just about to post a link to it.