During his 30 years in the coin-operated machine business, Steven Levy has seen a lot of change.
From the golden age of arcade video games in the early 1980s to the advent of downloadable MP3 juke boxes, Levy has been there, on the inside.
Levy, the manager of Mountain Coin in Auburn, got his start in the vending machine business in the late 1970s, while attending the University of Washington.
“I was at a fraternity, and we had a pinball machine in there,” he said. “I fixed it one time, and another buddy of mine and I started putting pinball machines in fraternities. It was Hayride by Bally.”
After graduation, Levy started working for Music Vend in Seattle, a longtime vending machine distributor. After 15 years, Salt Lake City, Utah-based Mountain Coin bought up the company’s assets. Levy stayed on as the company’s Northwest manager and in 2005, Mountain Coin moved to Auburn.
“On my way home I drove by here, and it had a for-sale sign on it,” he said. “Everything clicked. I knew the area well because my kids went to high school at Auburn Riverside, and I coached rec league baseball for a lot of years for Auburn Methodist,” Levy said. “I’m very pro-Auburn. I was very happy when corporate decided to build in Auburn.”
The company distributes and sells video arcade games, pinball machines, product vending machines, juke boxes and pool tables to anyone.
“The only thing we don’t sell is the novelty things that you see in bathrooms,” Levy said with a chuckle. “Actually, the primary people we sell to are people who put the machines into taverns and bars.”
Rather than taverns and other businesses buying their own machines and dealing with the maintenance costs and upkeep on their own, Levy explained, it actually is a better deal for them to commission vending companies to install machines on a revenue-sharing basis.
“Plus, as Americans, we get tired of the same thing,” he added. “This way you can change the machines for variety.”
When Levy got started in the business, he said, juke boxes still used 45-rpm records and sometimes even 33-rpm vinyl.
“They’re all downloaded machines now,” Levy explained. “They don’t even make CD juke boxes anymore. There is a hard drive on it with the songs, and you can also download music on it. You can get almost anything.”
Although most of the machines Mountain Coin offers are available to the public, the downloadable juke boxes are not.
“They have to have an operator put the jukebox in the location,” Levy said, “because what they do is sweep their accounts every month.”
Levy explained that the sweeps monitor and inventory the songs on the juke box to determine the levying of American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) royalties that are paid to songwriters.
Old-schooler
But Levy is still old school when it comes to tunes at home.
“I still have a 45 machine and a CD one at home,” he said.
At one time, Levy said that pinball was king in the vending game.
“It’s nowhere a boom like it was,” he said. “Pinball machines, they only produce two or three different ones a year. There used to be three to four different manufacturers making them, now there is only one.”
According to Levy, the field, which once featured manufacturers such as Bally’s, Gottleib, Chicago Coin, Midway and Sega, has shrunk to one – Stern.
The same holds true of the arcade games.
“With the video games, we used to get a new one every other week,” Levy said. “Now it’s the same way as pinball, there are not that many video games. The kids are just playing games like the World of Warcraft. The kids are going to Xbox and PlayStation to play games now.”
Levy said that the majority of the games his company sells are driving or hunting games. “Things that you can’t do at home,” he said.
The downturn in the popularity of video and pinball machines has translated to his staff.
“In the heyday of the Music Vend days, we had 25 to 35 employees,” Levy said. “The way business is right now, we’re down to seven employees out of this office.”
Although some of the luster may be gone, victim of the economic downturn and the advent of home gaming, Levy still has a fondness for the old school machines, as evidenced by the PACMN 1 personalized license plate on display in his office and the Eight-Ball Deluxe pinball machine – one of his favorites – tucked away on the sales floor.
“I love pinball the best, but I love Pac-Man and the early video games,” he said.
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About us
Mountain Coin Machine Distributors is located at 3902 B St. NW in Auburn. The sales room is open to the public, and used arcade machines can be had for as low as $199. For more information, visit www.mountaincoin.com/seattle.html or call 253-736-6073.
