n843  0401  22 Oct 76
The following column by Bob Greene is copyrighted and
for use only by those newspapers which have made
arrangements for its purchase with Field Newspaper syndicate.
it is embargoed to all other papers.
 
Release: Wednesday, October 27
(Transmitted 10-22)
 
'Death Race' Is Hit-and-Fun Driving
By BOB GREENE
    Remember the days of children going to amusement parks
and penny arcades to play coin-operated games in which a
miniature bat hit a miniature baseball over a miniature
fence? Well, those days are gone.
    This is 1976. And the hottest coin-operated amusement
game in the United States is one in which children, using
accelerator pedals and steering wheels, try to run down
simulated pedestrians with simulated cars. The game is called
''Death Race.''
    Manufactured by a company called Exidy in Mountain View,
Calif., ''Death Race'' was inaugurated last April and
has quickly become the fastest-selling amusement arcade
game in the country.
    ''Death Race'' is a computerized television-screen game,
similar to the ''Pong'' and ''Computer Tennis'' games found
in many arcades and taverns.
    But ''Death Race'' has a profitable difference.
    Play Meter, a trade magazine for the coin-operated
machine industry, had this to say about ''Death Race'':
    ''Exidy's 'Death Race' is the most morbid game to come
along in quite a while. While in other games a player can
blow up tanks or ships, shoot planes out of the sky, or shoot
'bad men' down, in 'Death Race' he runs people down with his
automobile.''
    In the game, stick figures run in a random fashion across
the video screen. The player, behind an accelerator and a
steering wheel, tries to kill the pedestrians. Every time the
player manages to run over a pedestrian, a child-like shriek
comes out of the machine, and the pedestrian is transformed
into a cross-shaped grave marker.
    The player scores points for each corpse. The player
racking up the highest number of corpses is delcared the
winner.
    The game console is decorated with what is described
as ''two rather ghoulish skeletons in death-shrouds driving
automobiles . . . comic graveyard scene . . . a buzzard on
a tomb . . . skulls lying around . . . graves . . . an open
casket.''
    Play Meter, the trade magazine, has run three separate
features on ''Death Race'' since the game's entry into the
marketplace. The magazine commented that '' 'Death Race'
is an arcade game with a different twist - pride in its own
goriness.''
    Exidy, the company that manufactures ''Death Race,''
has responded to questions about the game by saying that the
moving figures on the game board are not supposed to be people,
but ''gremlins'' or ''monsters.'' However, the electronic
figures on the board are simple stick people, and one Exidy
executive told the trade magazine that players are encouraged
to ''let their imaginations run wild.''
    Paul Jacobs, Exidy's director of marketing declined to
speak with me when I called him. Jacobs has been quoted in
the past as telling an Associated Press reporter:
    ''If people get a kick out of running down pedestrians,
you have to let them do it. This is the sort of challenge
that pricks the person's mind a little bit . . . The name
'Death Race' may shock a few people, but we find the game
humorous.''
    The demand for ''Death Race'' games has reportedly outrun
the supply of available consoles. Jerry Axt, manager of one
big-city amusement arcade, said he has a unit on order.
    ''We get people coming in off the street to ask about
it,'' Axt said. ''The 'Death Race' game is getting tremendous
word-of-mouth publicity. It's not just the kids talking about
it. There are plenty of adults stopping in here wanting
to know when we'll get it, too. I don't have any
explanation for why this is happening.''
    ''Gilbert Kitt, president of Empire Distributing Inc.
a large arcade-game wholesaler, said that his company will no
longer handle ''Death Race.''
    ''I've decided to stop distributing it,'' Kitt said.
''It's too macabre. Tpe manufacturer says that it's monsters
being run down by the cars, not people - but the stick
characters don't look anything like monsters.''
    One electronic game industry executive said he has seen
the ''Death Race,'' and that it is obvious that the game is
supposed to represent the player behind the wheel attempting
to kill human pedestrians on the game board.
    ''I'm not sure I'd want my children to play this game,''
he said.
    ''It's kind of like TV violence. There is killing, but
no repercussions from it. You put in a quarter and try to kill
people with a car, but you're not expected to feel any remorse
about it.''
(Release Wednesday, October 27)
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