Gaming and entertainment

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Smoke Gets inYour Eyes-Examining Air Quality in Casino-Hotels

by Kenneth Teeters,Thomas Jones, andJoe E Boatman PAGES69-73

Gaming Language: Getting a Handle on Slots

by Kathleen Pearl Brewerand Leslie E. Cummings PAGES74-78

Gaming and Entertainment: An Imperfect Union?

by Eugene Martin Christiansen andJulie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs PAGES79-94

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Poor indoor-air quality has been identified as one of the five greatest environmental problems the public faces. For hospitality enterprises, the most problematic area of the entire air-quality debate is secondhand tobacco smoke, despite the industry's efforts to accommodate both smoking and nonsmoking customers by establishing smoking areas. There are four ways that air contaminants can be lessened: elimination, isolation, filtration, and dilution. The best approach is to eliminate the source, with isolation being a second-best choice. Filtration removes the gases and particulates given off by tobacco smoke while dilution is accomplished by increasing the exchange of outside and inside air. This paper presents the first known study of indoor-air quality at a casino-hotel, In each of 24 sampling areas, four measurements were taken under a variety of occupancy loads: temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide, and respirable particles. The findings led to a series of recommendations regarding airhandling units, outdoor-air intake and circulation, air dampers, exhaust filters, and idling vehicles.

Slot machines constitute a large portion of many casinos' business. The terminology applying to slots can be confusing. "Handle," for instance, almost universally means the amount wagered, but one slot-machine manufacturer used "handle" to refer to the number of games played on a machine, referring to the levers typically used to start the play. Because slot machines have become complex electronic devices, new terms have been added to their lexicon. Most machines still rely on the basic game of dropping in a coin, pulling a lever (or pressing a button), and seeing whether the symbols on the reels inside the machine match up. The payouts to be expected are displayed on each machine and are controlled by the machine's internal processor. Machines that offer big jackpots usually offer a secondary jackpot to keep players interested after the main jackpot has been won. In some jurisdictions that don't allow the use of currency in slots, the machines are cashless and simply keep track of the player's standing with an electronic scoreboard or a printout.

By adding family entertainment to its table and machine games, Las Vegas has created a new concept of gaming packaged in destination entertainment. Some of the projects so packaged have been successful, while others are misconceived and are performing below optimum levels. The diverse nature of games and entertainment does not automatically guarantee a successful union of the two, because each serves different consumer needs and requires different management strategies. The repetition of a game generates an uncertain experience or outcome each time, while most entertainment involves an experience that is essentially similar each time--even interactive entertainment repeats eventually. The element of risk in entertainment lies more with the artist or producer than with the person being entertained. Based on observations of the Las Vegas experience, some types of entertainment constitute a better complement to gaming than others. For instance, location-based entertainment such as revues and circuses appear to be good complements, as is shopping. On the other hand, interactive video and feature films have been poor complements because they provide experiences similar to the games themselves. Regardless of whether a particular type of entertainment is potentially synergistic with gaming, poorly executed entertainment projects will detract from a casino's gaming package.

HOTELAND RESTAURANTADMINISTRATIONQUARTERLY° VOLUME36, NUMBER2

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LasVegas tradition of offering entertainment in show rooms as a sideline, the new properties actually represent a quantum jump in both concept and expense. Despite a huge investment, some of the new destination resort-casinos are not achieving the success their developers anticipated. Put bluntly, casino operators face the novel experience of offering entertainment as a central attraction--and having it bomb. Part of the reason for the uneven performance among these entertainment-driven resorts may be the disparate nature of entertainment and games. In this article we explain why gaming and entertainment do not necessarily mesh and may, in fact, make strange bedfellows. Moreover, we offer our analysis of which forms of entertainment have combined well with gaming and which ones have not worked so far.

Gaming and Entertainment Gaming and entertainment have separate origins.Their histories occasionally intersect, as they did in the Grand Palais in Paris in the 1780s (see the accompanying items on entertainment and gaming). In the main, however, gaming and entertainment evolved independ e n @ For most of history, they have served fundamentally different consumer needs and desires. Consequently they require different management strategies. Games, including commercial casino games, are activities that have recreational value only when people actively engage in them. Playing a game involves behaving according to rules that define the game and govern the interaction. Though games can be entertaining, they are developed through processes that are fundamentally different from those involved in the creation of passively consumed works of art and nongaming entertainment. Until recently, games have been cultural

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artifacts that were the evolutionary products of anowmous players over considerable periods of time. Entertainment, on the other hand, is not generally defined by formal rules and traditionally has not been interactive. Commercial entertainment involves objects or intellectual constructs devised by talented individuals for passive consumption. Such entertainment is presented to consumers in a finished, ready-to-be-enjoyed state. On the other hand, architecture, gardens, and theme parks can engage the limbs and all the senses/ The creation of entertainment invariably involves talent and can often be attributed to individual artists or artisans. Further, entertainment, unlike games, serves a twofold function. In the act of creation the needs of talented individuals are satisfied; in the act of consumption the audience's experience of life is enlarged. Games and entertainment likewise differ in the nature of their consumption. Most entertainment, especially narrative fiction, is to a considerable degree used up after a person has engaged in it.While individual consumers may repeat a ride, book, or movie, they cannot repeat the identical vicarious experience such entertainment provided in the first instance. 2 Bridge, chess, or even blackjack players, on the other hand, commonly devote years or even lifetimes to endless permutations of the same basic game. Rather than being exhausted in the act of consumption, games are re-

newed.The outcome of each individual game is always in doubt (even though the overall outcome of many repetitive plays can be statistically determined).

Fin de SiOcleEntertainment In adding entertainment to its offerings the gaming industry is engaging an economic force so powerful that its ramifications in late 20thcentury economies are difficult to gauge. Commercial entertainment in the 21st century will in its way be as petroleum has been in the 20th century. Consumer demand for entertainment products will drive a steadily increasing percentage of consumer spending of all kinds. By imperceptible degrees, the United States Declaration of Independence's inalienable right to the "pursuit of happiness" has in many quarters developed into an entitlement that Thomas Jefferson could not have foreseen: a right to be entertained. 3 The apparent entitlement to entertainment does not currently extend to commercial gaming. The marriage of commercial gaming and commercial entertainment, however, is part of the process of relaxing the traditional American prohibition of gambling. Commercial gaming and commercial entertainment remain distinct entities, however. They have in common the status of leisure recreations and virtually nothing else. Although their marriage is neither a natural step in the evolution of leisure nor necessarily easy to consummate, they

HaroldVogel observes that "...it matters not whether [the satisfied and happy psychological state of" being entertained] is achieved through active or passive means. Playing the piano can be just as pleasurable as playing the stereo. Indeed, entertainment may include everything from visiting museums and going shopping to having sex." See: Harold L.Vogel, Entertainment Industry Economics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. xiv. 2 Certain entertainment features are exceptions and become cult experiences. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Gone With the Wind, and StarTrek are examples of narrative fiction that is repeatedly experienced by some consumers. Music likewise is not usually worn out in repeated listening over the short term. 3This entitlement is by no means universal, even in Western cultures. The repeated injunctions against the attractions of popular entertainment that are a staple of fundamentalist clerics of whatever nationality testify eloquently to the controversy and appeal of commercial entertainment.

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The Flamingo Hilton-Las Vegas have been combined in the casinos of LasVegas--in some cases with considerable success.

Gamesand Entertainmentin Las Vegas Because games and entertainment are leisure pastimes, many casino operators seem to assume that gaming is just another form of entertainment. We c o n t e n d that this assumption is unwarranted. The distinction between games and entertainment has become particularly nebulous in Nevada, partly because its gaines have for several decades been packaged in fantasy architecture and presented in conjunction with spectacular floor shows, inexpensive or free food and alcoholic beverages, and golf courses, swimming pools, tennis courts, and other outdoor recreation. Casino operators correctly recognize that the cost of providing this entertainment is justified by its effectiveness in attracting people to the tables and machines. It is important to keep in mind that the core purpose of entertainment in LasVegas is to attract people to the games. Any entertain-

m e n t that detracts from that purpose is inappropriate. At root, casinos house a group of table and machine games. Casinos do not necessarily comprise hotels, fantasy architecture, floor shows, or other recreation. Indeed, casinos in locations outside LasVegas typically do not offer all these things. Las Vegas resorts constitute a special and highly effective development of commercial gaming. T h e F l a m i n g o . The prototype of the LasVegas resort, the Flamingo, established the market for destination-resort gaming that Las Vegas continues to exploit today? The property's high visibility in the nascent post-war leisure economy

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inspired imitators, setting offa competition to build bigger and more spectacular fantasy resorts that culminated in 1966 with Caesars Palace. Caesars Palace added an important innovation to the Flamingo's product mix by purveying a consistent theme with a fantasy motif unrelated to its desert environment, that of Imperial 1Kome. Caesars Palace inaugurated a n e w cycle of theme-resort construction in Las Vegas. Although none of the resorts was as spectacular as Caesars, the original Circus Circus was a success on a smaller scale. Then in November 1989 the Mirage, a n e w megacasino hotel resort, began the third stage in the evolution of the Las Vegas resort, its marriage of gaming and commercial entertainm e n t has since been imitated by several operators, s

A New Game The Mirage was a response to a radical change in LasVegas's competitive environment. For 46 years Nevada had a monopoly on table and machine games, until Atlantic City opened in 1977. The Nevada monopoly on casino games was extraordinarily lucrati+e, in large part because the barriers to entry were formidable. These barriers were eroded, to some degree, by the Nevada Gaming Acts of 1967 and 1969, which relaxed Nevada's licensing requirements to allow corporate ownership. 6 The monopoly became

4 For an evaluation of the Flamingo's place in the history of gaming in Nevada see:James E Smith, "'Bugsy's Flamingo and the Modern Casino-Hotel," in: ed. William R. Eadington and Judy A. Cornelius, Gamblirlg and Public Policy: International Perspectives (Reno, NV: Institute for the Study of" Gambling and Commercial Gaming, University of Nevada, 1991), pp. 499-518. [See also: Daniel tK. Lee, "Hotel Casinos: Strong Odds for Growth," The Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3 (November 1984), pp. 20-29.--Ed.] s For the place of the Mirage in the history of the evolution of LasVegas, see: Eugene Martin Christiansen, "Steve Wynn Changes the Game: A History of Destination Resort Development in Las Vegas from the Flamingo to The Mirage," International Gamitlg & Wagering Business Magazine, September 15-October 14, 1990, pp. 30-32, [Also see: Robert Eder, "Opening the Mirage," Cornell Hotel and Restaumt~t Administration Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2 (August 1990), pp. 24-31.--Ed.] 6 For a critical analysis of the operation of"these laws, see: William IK. Eadington, "The Evolution of Corporate Gambling in Nevada," Nevada Review of Business and Economies,Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 13-22; and William R. Eadington and James S. Hattori, "A Legislative History of Gambling in Nevada," Nevada Review of Business and Economies,Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 1978), pp. 13-17.

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ican and itions ~S t o r e -

ition. If ;s are o longer become nchise to ] in is con~e 1KeCircus is, and /I Grand .~d to pur~e strat,f expandleir ~s to add lation;-style

tainment. irage rts put rotter annual t: "Gainnot

1980s two laws were enacted that shattered the geographic restriction on casino games and set in motion a train of events that transformed the industry's market economics. The first of these actions was the 1988 passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that essentially authorized commercial casino gaming on Native American lands in approximately 31 states.Then in April 1989 the State of Iowa legalized riverboat casinos on navigable waters, for the purpose of stimulating Iowa tourism. Neighboring Illinois 7 Gigi Mahon, The Company That Bought the Boardwalk (NewYork: R a n d o m House, 1980), pp. 29-30, 56-58, and 66-72. [Also see:William J. Callnin, "Investing in the Casino Hotel: The Atlantic City Scene," Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2 (August 1979), pp. 10-14.--Ed.]

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followed suit in January 1990. By May 1994 four additional states-Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri--had done the same. 8 These events are part of a liberalization of U.S. and Canadian gambling law without historical precedent. Commercially significant casino table or machine games now operate or have been authorized in 8 Barely two years after Missouri voters authorized riverboats in 1992, the Missouri Supreme Court in 1994 handed down a unanimous decision declaring Missouri's riverboat law illegal, on the grounds that the state had exceeded its authority by legalizing riverboat gaming by statute instead of constitutional amendment. Under this ruling games of chance, including slot machines, bingo and keno, are illegal in Missouri. The court, however, decided poker and blackjack are games of skill and therefore legal. Subsequent efforts to overturn this decision have failed.

E~RNELLHOTELANDRESTAURANTADMINISTRATIONQUARTERLY

gh .... We understand the synergies between gaming and entertainment .... A mere casino becomes a much more enduring investment if it is accompanied by a wide variety of unique and exciting entertainment attractions.''1° Pursuant to this strategy, enormous new entertainmentdriven casino hotel properties were built along the LasVegas Strip: the Mirage and its relative, Treasure Island; Circus Circus's Excalibur, Grand Slam Canyon, and Luxor; the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace; and the M G M Grand's theme park. 9[See: Gary K.Vallen, "Gaming in the U,S.-A Tea-Year Comparison," Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 6 (December 1993), pp. 51-58.--Ed.] 10 Mirage Resorts, Inc., Annual Report 1993 (Las Vegas, NV: Mirage Resorts, 1994), p. 8.

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These facilities go far beyond the traditional entertainment packaging of commercial games pioneered by the Flamingo and Caesars Palace. Offerings include family-sWle entertainment developed by companies based in Hollywood. This locationbased entertainment was previously available Treasure Island only at theme amusement parks. It involves studio-tour attractions, "hot seat" simulator rides, large-format films (e.g., IMAX), interactive games, theme-landscape environments, water-based rides, and retail shopping presented as leisure recreation in theme-mall environments. More to c o m e . Mirage Resorts has not stopped with the development of the Mirage and Treasure Island.When the company demolished the Dunes Hotel in 1994, chairman Stephen A. Wynn announced that Mirage and jointventure partner Gold Strike Resorts will turn part of the 164-acre site into the "next generation of entertainment resorts in LasVegas." Mirage plans to build a luxury property under the name of"Beau Rivage" elsewhere on the Dunes site. ** Almost immediately ITT Sheraton unveiled plans to build a $750-million casino-hotel resort, the Desert Kingdom, conceived as a 11 Pauline Yoshihashi, "Mirage, Gold Strike Sign Pact to Build A Low-P,.oller Casino on Las Vegas Strip," The Wall StreetJournal, May 12, 1994, p. A3.

lost city in the desert. 12 In December 1994, however, Sheraton canceled its Desert Kingdom when it announced a tender offer for Caesars World. The acquisition will cost some $1.7 billion. 13 M G M and Primadonna Development have announced a new theme property, called "NewYork NewYork" to be built across from the M G M Grand. LasVegas operators are not the only ones looking at entertainmentdriven casinos. The mayor of Chicago reportedly held exploratory talks with TimeWarner, Matsushita Electric's M C A (Universal) unit, and Sony Corporation about designing and operating an $800million indoor theme park anchored by mooring space for five permanently docked casino riverboats. For all this activity, the Mirage remains the exemplar of combined gaming and entertainment. In this 12 PaulineYoshihashi, "ITT's Sheraton Chain Unveils Proposal For $750 MiIIion Complex in LasVegas," The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 1994, p. A1. ~3 [See: Pauline Yoshihashi, "ITT Corp. Nears Pact to Acquire Caesars World," The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1994, p. A3.--Ed.]

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property location-based entertainment (e.g., a rain forest, an exploding volcano, white tigers, a dolphin habitat, a spectacular aquarium) is seamlessly integrated into a casino facility through landscape architecture that sets a new world standard for theme environments. The property has been virtually standing-room only since the day it opened (November 22, 1989) and has generated operating income of $151 million in 1990, $159 million in 1991, $120.6 million in 1992, and $142.1 million in 1993.14

The EntertainmentChallenge The Mirage made the marriage of gaming and entertainment look easy, but that impression is illusory. Casino companies that attempt to broaden their consumer franchise with non-gaming entertainment are entering a fundamentally different field that fulfills substantially different consumer desires. The necessary corollary of these differences is that the successful production of commercial entertainment requires management skills that are different from those needed to build and operate a casino and typically are found only in entertainment companies. From the viewpoint of risk management, commercial entertainment is one of the most difficult of all businesses. It is virtually the only business in which it is possible to hire outstanding talent and spend 1, Mirage Resorts, p. 25.

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The Nature of Games Games are a form of play that is an organized activity defined by rules. Their genesis and nature is examined in a study by Roger Caillois, who tried classifying games according to categories defined by four qualities or characteristics: competition, chance, simulation or mimicry, and vertigo or disorder. He ranged these categories along a continuum between uncontrolled fantasy at one extreme and the discipline of strict conventions or rules at the other. 1 Games are easy to invent but hard to establish as living cultural activities. Of the many thousands of board games that have been brought to market by game companies in the past hundred years, for example, only two, Monopoly and Scrabble, have established themselves in American life to any significant degree. The introduction of new casino table games is also notoriously difficult. The only commercially significant recent examples are cultural transfers such as sic bo, pal gow, and similar well-established commercial games from Asian cultures that have been added to U. S. casinos and marketed primarily to Asian guests. This experience points up another characteristic of games--they are usually culture specific. The consumption of games is always active, though the activity may be predominantly mental, as in the case of chess. Another distinguishing characteristic of games is that they are not consumed or worn out in the act of their consumption. Chess or blackjack players, for instance, do not tire of these games once they learn them. In fact, once some level of mastery is acquired the activity of playing (or consuming) a game constitutes the satisfaction of this leisure pastime. Commercial Games Commercial games, which are organized or conducted as businesses that derive revenue from consumers, are a more recent development. Johan Huizinga locates their emergence in the 19th century, 2 Gambling games first occurred in commercial form in medieval Italy, where monetary prizes were awarded in Florence as early as 1530. Thereafter commercial lotteries spread rapidly. Italians brought them to France in 1533. Queen Elizabeth chartered a state lottery in 1566, and the English brought lotteries to North America to finance the Virginia Company's settlement at Jamestown in 1612.3 Betting on the outcome of horse races is a similarly ancient pastime.

The Palais Royal The third major form of commercial gambling (with lotteries and racing) is gaming. Gaming survived the religious struggles of reformation and counter reformation to become a passion of the upper classes of the ancien rGgime. Prerevolution Bordeaux had more than two hundred clandestine gambling houses. 4 Philippe d'Orl~ans introduced the English dice game of hazard to Parisian society at the Orleans family home, the Palais Royal, in 1771. Creps (from crabs, the lowest throw at hazard) became wildly popular in the public gaming houses operating within the

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Palais Royal, and Philippe, given to extravagance and realizing himself to be on the verge of bankruptcy notwithstanding an income second only to Louis XVI's, decided to commercialize the enterprise. The garret and third floor of the Palais Royal were turned into apartments, and the basement rooms and second-floor salons were rented out as cafes, restaurants, and social clubs, in some of which gaming for money became the main pastime. The ground floor was transformed into 180 upscale shops--the whole becoming, in effect, a precursor of today's Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The Duke's commercial career was short-lived, but the revolution made gaming available to the people. By 1791 the Palais Royal's basement and second floor apartments housed more than 100 public gambling operations offering dice and card games. For the first time in French history the middle classes could gamble in respectable surroundings with little worry of arrest. In 1806 Napoleon I put his signature to a decree legalizing gaming in France at specific locations--including five main gambling houses in the Palais Royal. Gaming survived the collapse of Napoleon's empire but was proscribed in Paris in 1838.~The pattern for the subsequent development of Western gambling industries was set, however. During the 19th century the basic forms--lotteries, casinos, and racing--were successively authorized, tolerated, or proscribed, but wherever and whenever these activities were permitted they were patronized by ever-increasing numbers of consumers. The gambling enterprise is now immense. Global lottery sales (handle or the gross amounts wagered) now approximate $83.7 billion, e In the United States alone consumers now spend in excess of $30 billion annually on legal commercial games, an expenditure six times greater than the amount spent on movie tickets/--E.M.C, and J.B-J. 1 Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games, trans. Meyer Barash (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), pp. 12-13. 2Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 197ff. 3 Charles 1". Clotfelter and Philip J. Cook, Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 32-35. 4Thomas M. Kavanagh, Enlightenment and the Shadows of Chance: The Novel and the Culture of Gambling in EighteenthCentury France (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 30-31. 5 Only to be legalized again in the Gaming Act of 1907, the provisions of which remain essentially in force today. See: Anthony N. Cabot, International Casino Law, ed. William N. Thompson and Andrew Tottenham (Reno, NV: Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, University of Nevada, 1991), p. 244. 8 International Gaming & Wagering Business, May 5, 1994, p. 1. 7 Eugene Martin Christiansen, "The Gross Annual Wager of the United States--Part II: Revenue," International Gaming & Wagering Business, August 15-September 14, 1993, p. 13.

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endless money only to wind up with a product of no value because it does not satisfy consumers. (Even such disasters as Ford's Edsel and Polaroid's Swinger have at least some residual value.) Casino companies with healthy financial statements and fat operating margins that are eager to jump into family entertainment would do well to reflect on the realities of commercial entertainment. Given favorable demand economics, adequate financing, and adequate management, a casino will generate revenues within a predictable range. An entertainment product--a theme amusement park, a high-cost movie, or a Broadway show--can be adequately financed, perfectly directed, and employ world-famous talent and still generate disappointing revenues or even no revenues at all. This happens with a frequency that can be unnerving to investors unfamiliar with these enterprises. Losses on "risk-free" investments in commercial entertainment are not confined to plays, movies, or television programs. They occur in what are supposedly more predictable kinds of entertainment, including theme amusement parks. Right around the corner from the immensely popular Disney World, the "Boardwalk and Baseball" theme park rests in peace, not the only enterprise to fail in Orlando. Moreover, Disney itself is not immune to this problem, as shown by the wellknown problems it has experienced with Paris Disneyland (formerly EuroDisney). Where entertainment products are concerned past performance, no matter how successful, is no guarantee of future results. Casino companies entering commercial entertainment should therefore understand that the risks are high and the difficulties great. The effort, however, is justified by the potential rewards. Entertainment works. It is indeed a solution

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The Paramount Prototype Following the development of motion pictures in 1895, the overwhelming, spontaneous demand for movies stimulated a proliferation of production and exhibition companies. By about 1907 a tripartite industry structure had formed, comprising production, distribution (through a system of local or regional film exchanges), ~and exhibition, with each of the three parts fragmented among scores or hundreds of small, competing businesses. The flow of revenues from exhibitors to producers through the exchange system was neither fast nor predictable enough to stabilize production companies. Attempts to consolidate both production and exhibition into larger, more soundly capitalized companies only partially alleviated the problem. At this juncture a discontented San Francisco exchange operator, W.W. Hodkinson, conceived the idea of a national distribution company, a business that would secure a supply of feature films by contracting with producers and then would guarantee exhibitors a regular flow of movies. Hodkinson named the new national distribution company Paramount Pictures. 2 Paramount immediately moved to ensure a steady flow of product through its distribution network by funding production companies, which were being squeezed by the sharply rising cost of producing extended features. ~ Paramount's innovations with respect to exhibition were equally important and equally far-reaching. Paramount required exhibitors to play its films for more than one night, a crucial element in Hodkinson's plan, since it facilitated marketing through audience word-of-mouth-which remains today the most effective way to market a film. These arrangements, all of which originated with Hodkinson, "pointed the way to the future organization of the major [Hollywood] companies."4 Paramount became the blueprint for the movie business's mature structural form and, in its vertical integration, that of all entertainment companies. Within two years of Paramount's incorporation, distribution had become the nexus of power in the motion picture industry. It remains the nexus of power today. The power inherent in the Hollywood studios' distribution networks has been magnified out of any proportion to the actual size of the networks themselves. Still operating in essentially the form that Hodkinson gave them in 1914, distribution networks have become a lever with which the corporations that own American pop culture move the world. Paramount was soon modified by Adolf Zukor (who ousted Hodkinson) from distribution only to become the industry's first adequately capitalized, vertically integrated production-distribution-exhibitionorganization. Once in control of Paramount Zukor started buying theaters, as well, to complete that integration. A single company owned the entire chain from creation to consumption. Paramount still operates essentially in the form Hodkinson and Zukor gave it. 5 Hodkinson's legacy is a world entertainment industry dominated by fewer than a dozen vertically and horizontally integrated conglomerates, all but one anchored by a Hollywood distributor. The global conglomerates, through their ownership of American commercial entertainment in all of its present and potential forms--from initial idea through copyrighted intellectual property through talent through exhibition (whether location-based or at home)--control goods in global demand and short supply, goods for which consumers in virtually every culture on the planet will accept no substitute.--E.M.C, and J.B-J. 1The establishment of the first U.S. film exchange is usually credited to Harry and Herbert Miles, who opened one in San Francisco in 1902; by 1907 between 125 and 150 such exchanges were operating in the United States. See: John Izod, Hollywood and the Box Office 1895-1986 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 15. 2 Hodkinson owned the General Film Company. See: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn (New York: Knopf, 1989), p. 49. He drew Paramount's initial mountain-peak logo himself. The name "Paramount" he appropriated from a New York City apartment house. See: Berg, p. 49. 3 Feature costs that averaged from $10,000 to $30,000 in 1914 had risen by 1917 to $41,350; Izod, p. 45; and Richard Koszarski, "An Evening's Entertainment" in ed. Charles Harpole, The American Screen to 1907, Volume I of History of the American Cinema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 112. 4 Eileen Bowser, "The Transformation of Cinema" in: Harpole, p. 227. In the latest but certainly not the last change in its ownership, Paramount was recently acquired by Viacom, a diversified entertainment company descended from a chain of movie theaters.

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Circus Circus's Grand Slam Canyon

to the problem of the changed market economics faced by gaming companies. By adding family-style entertainment attractions, Las Vegas casino-hotels are enjoying expanded visitation and growth resulting from a broadened consumer franchise, is By contrast, though its gaming facilities were roughly comparable to those of LasVegas as recently as the mid-1980s, Atlantic City has now been left behind and faces sharply different prospects due to its continued reliance on pure-product gaming.The city's casinos are generally

perceived to be vulnerable to a dramatic loss of business should more table or machine games be legalized within its market area.

Video: GamingMeets Entertainment The view that the union between commercial gaming and commercial entertainment can be consummated is supported by the blending of games and entertainment, especially elements from movies and similar narrative fiction, in interactive video games. ~6These games are the most commercially successful

is Compared to year-earlier figures, in the last three months of 1993 the number of visitors to Las Vegas increased by 11.1 percent in October, 15 percent in November, and 9 percent in December. January 1994 visitor volume increased 22 percent over January 1993. Source: Smith Barney Shearson, Weekly Gaming Industry Update, May 4, 1994, p. 3. 16The current state of video game platforms and distribution channels is cogently summarized in: James E Cooper, "Prom A Train to Zork: The Business of Game Distribution," Game Deueloper,No. 1 (1994) pp. 22-25; also see: Lisa Gubernick and Nikhil Hutheesing, "Sillywood," Forbes,May 9, 1994, p. 46; and Kathy R_ebello and Paul Eng, "Digital Pioneers," Business Week, May 2, 1994, pp. 96-103.

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marriage of games, music, and narrative entertainment. Beginning with such early examples as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, designers of interactive games created a new form of recreation by combining elements from hitherto separate forms--the skills of arcade games (e.g., pinball) and the narrative and character dements from movies, music, and televis i o n - t o create games using technology (e.g., computers, telecommunications, video special effects, and related production techniques). A central goal of the tremendously varied ongoing attempts to develop marketable video games is "to create cinema-like experiences, while giving the viewer a role in what's happening. ''~7 This marriage 17 Rebello and Eng, p. 102.

Circus Circus's Luxor

of games and non-game entertainment is proving to be an uncertain process. Moreover, video games are rapidly evolving non-linear characteristics. As trade-press editor Denise Caruso notes: "Hollywood knows how to tell a linear story. But you can't necessarily turn a story into a game. I can't think of a single successful video game that reused Hollywood footage.''18 Some examples of those failures include the video-game versions of Brain Stoker's Dracula and Cliflhanger. Nevertheless, Hollywood studios and independent special-effects houses are acquiring game-development companies or establishing inhouse game development units or both. Game development remains a costly, hit-and-miss, frighteningly ~s Gubernick and Hutheesing, p. 46.

uncertain process. "Game making-like movie making--is so creative that there are no guarantees of success even when following a formula," commented The Wall Street Journal. 19As is the case with movies, anyone can fail at developing commercial games. Many people have invested in developing interactive games, and many have gone bankrupt despite strong consumer demand. Total revenues from video games reached $6.5 billion in 1993, 20 compared to $5.24 billion spent on movie tickets in the United States that year. 21The

parallels with the movie industry in its infancy are striking. As was the case with early motion pictures, gigantic consumer demand for interactive games is evident, but no one is exactly sure what the product is. The development of video games is now at the point where the film industry stood just before Adolph Zukor, by importing the five-reel Queen Elizabeth in 1912, and D.W. Griffith, with The Birth of a Nation in 1915, established the feature film as the dominant motion-picture form. In retrospect feature films' rise to preeminence appears inevi-

19Jim Carlton, "Game Makers Study How Tetris Hooks Women," The Wall Streetdournal, May 10, 1994, p. B7. 2o Gubernick and Hutheesing, p. 46. 21 A.D. Murphy, "Industry Sheds Those B.O. Blues," The Hollywood Reporter, January 4, 1994, p. 1. U.S. home-video sales of movies exceeded box-office revenues in 1991, amounting to $5.7 billion, or 42.6 percent of aggregate U. S. movie-distributor revenues in that year, according to: Richard Turner, "Hollywood," special supplement to The Wall Streetffournal, March 26, 1994, p. 3.

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table, but it was by no means obvious at the time.

Lessons for Casinos The video-game experience brings into relief a distinguishing characteristic of commercial entertainment. Creative talent is all-important but it is difficult to get that talent reliably and predictably to produce entertainment products and experiences that meet consumer expectations. This characteristic of commercial entertainment has several important implications for casino companies that contemplate entry into a business that is notoriously unreceptive to outsiders. One of these implications we have already discussed. That is the disturbing fact that a commercially successful entertainment product cannot be bought. Creative paradox. A second implication flows from the lack of correlation between creative talent and predictable financial returns from entertainment products.While talent is essential, it is not, as is often supposed, the variable that determines the success or failure of en-

tertainment projects. One example from the myriad that might be cited will suffice to illustrate this paradox. The same effects specialist, Douglas Trumbull, directed the entertainment por6ons of both the poorly received Luxor casino and the overwhelmingly successful Back to the Future simulator ride at Universal Studios, a state-of-the-art attraction that sets consumer expectations for this kind of entertainment. Trumbull's creative credentials stretch back to 1968 when he created the effects for 2001:A Space Odyssey, which similarly set consumer expectations for space-travel effects in feature films.Without question, Trumbull is one of the best talents money can buy, yet the overall Luxor project has not been as commercially successful as originally anticipated. A new leadership team at Circus Circus has taken control of Luxor and is making considerable progress with this resort.

Controlling the Uncontrollable The shortcomings of some efforts to combine gaming with entertainment result in part from the difficulties of rationalizing production and managing risk. Entertainment businesses have this difficulty because the all-important role of creative talent greatly complicates management's attempts to rationalize production while at the same time the uncertainty inherent in the hit-orflop nature of entertainment products makes risk nearly impossible to manage. Entertainment companies have adapted to overcome these peculiar production difficukies and risks. These adaptations include an organization designed to manage creative talent and protective industry structures that spread risk over diverse projects. The key factor, however, is an integrating hand, usually a single individual who provides the vision of what the product

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will be, sees the consumer needs and expectations it will satisfy, and has the ability to translate that vision into reality. Managing creative talent. In the early phase of the motion-picture industry, Paramount Pictures assumed a dominant position through the vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition of movies (see the accompanying item on Paramount). One of Paramount's imitators, MetroGoldwyn-Mayer (MGM), rationalized the production of movies to an unprecedented degree by realizing a measure of management control over the studio's talent that enabled M G M to maintain a true production-line movie-making process. Through a brilliant organization of creative individuals supervised by a staff of M G M producers, MGM's head of production, Irving Thaiberg, was able to monitor, manage, and intervene personally when necessary at all production stages of the films that issued from MGM. Although he was credited with a legendary sense of story, Thalberg did not work on the movies' creative aspects. Thalberg's particular genius was for the business organization of the creative work of others. Diversified investment. A second evolutionary adaptation is the studio distribution system that is the legacy ofW.W. Hodkinson (also discussed in the item on Paramount). Hodkinson's contribution to the industry was to form a unified distribution network separate from production. Although production is so risky that it invites financial ruin, control of distribution practically guarantees eventual positive returns to the owner of the film--usually the distributor. The explosion of home video has only augmented the strength of distributors that was originally established through Hodkinson's control over access to theaters.

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Vertical integration. By imitating Paramount's vertical integration, the major studios survived the coming of sound, the Depression, the advent of broadcast television, the rise of cable TV, and the introduction o f VCKs and home video. Not only did the studios survive, but they discovered unsuspected, enormous value in fully amortized film libraries and have prospered in ways the industry's founders could not have envisioned but would surely have understood. Vertical integration is complemented by diversifying product lines. Major studio-distribution organizations or their parent companies typically own or control theme amusement parks; record

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labels; book and magazine publishing houses; newspapers; cable or satellite television channels; sports teams; and developers of video games and various interactive products and services. = Like vertical integration, conglomeration and diversified product lines insulate entertainment companies from risk. For the Walt Disney Company, for example, any losses due to the poor performance of Paris Disneyland are offset by earnings from Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King (which is projected to earn as much as $1 billion). 23 T h e integrating hand. Operations-specific organization, vertical integration, and diversified product lines exist in other industries. The extent of the dependence on an integrating hand sets commercial entertainment apart from other businesses. Integration occurs in other businesses but there is no equivalent for the extent to which the integrating hand must guide the ego needs and goals of the artists into her or his vision of the project. "Talent" in other businesses is essentially a fungible Commodity, while true creative talents are irreplaceable. As a result, the integrating hand must gain the cooperation of ego-driven individuals to realize a larger goal. This variable has in practice proven to be supremely important for the success and longterm survival of entertainment companies. The ability to conceive a creative vision and to realize this 22 MCA (owned by Matsushita Electric), the owner of Universal Studios, originated in a powerful talent agency. At least in the United States, however, studio ownership of talent agencies (or talent-agency ownership of studios) is, apparently, prohibited by antitrust laws. 23 Richard Turner, "Disney, Using Cash and Claw, Stays King of Animated Movies" The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 1994, pp. A1, A8. The percentage of operating income from filmed entertainment to Walt Disney Company's total operating income has increased from 10 percent in 1985 to 36 percent in 1993. See: Calvin Sims, "Walt Disney l~einventing Itself," The NewYork Times, April 28, 1994, p. C1.

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vision through the efforts of others is not usually included in the inventory of corporate management resources. On individual projects, film directors (though necessarily creative artists in their own right) exercise the function of an integrating hand. On a much larger scale, truly integrated gaming and entertainment products likewise require an integrating hand.

Winning Combination Vision, ability, resources, and effective business organization must all be present for the integrating hand to operate. All four were present at M G M under Irving Thalberg, at Caesars World Incorporated when Caesars Palace was built, and at Mirage Resorts Incorporated during the conception and execution of the Mirage. They were manifestly present at the Walt Disney Company under its founder and under the management of Michael Eisner and Jeffery Katzenberg. Effective organization, management of creative effort, and the integrating hand are in fact interdependent, mutually reinforcing tools in the production of large-scale commercially successful entertainment products.Without effective organization, no vision, however compelling, can be realized. Conversely, companies engaged in entertainment must have a clear idea of their purpose to get a commercially successful result. Organization, resources, and talent will rarely produce commercially successful entertainment products in the absence of an integrating hand.

The Marriage of Gamingand Entertainment Entry into commercial entertainment by casino companies is in no sense a no-brainer.To summarize the above discussion, success is most likely to occur if the following principles are observed.

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(1) Casino companies that undertake entertainment projects should be organized to manage the efforts of creative individuals, whether as employees, clients, or contractors. Organizational structures and techniques that are effective with most casino and hotel personnel are likely to be ineffective with creative talent, perhaps disastrously so. (2) Casino companies that undertake entertainment projects should entrust those projects to an integrating hand--a person with authority to execute those projects autonomously. (3) Casino companies seeking to broaden their consumer franchise to include commercial entertainment should realize that while casino games and entertainment are alike leisure pastimes, the easy assumption that '"gaming is just another form of entertainment" is a dangerous fallacy. (4) Casino companies should understand that while they may be able to meet or even set consumer expectations for gaming, consumer expectations for entertainment are set outside the gaming industry. Those expectations are set in Hollywood and Orlando, and disseminated through home television sets, video-game consoles, and personal computers. For an industry that has long operated in the shelter of a legally protected monopoly, this represents a radical change in competitive environment. Companies accustomed to success and even a commanding position in gaming should not underestimate the competitive skills of corporations that produce commercial entertainment. The financial community sometimes assumes

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that entertainment companies are somehow tenuous or insubstantial because they produce wares that are largely intangible and, moreover, are dependent on the efforts of creative individuals. Nothing could be further from reality. In every respect vertically integrated entertainment companies are formidable business organizations. (5) Gaming as an industry comprises companies that are small compared to the global giants that dominate commercial entertainment. No casino company commands resources on the scale of, say, News Corporation, TimeWarner, or Bertelsmann A.G. 24 In entering state-of-the-art commercial entertainment, casino companies are stepping into a new league, one dominated by much larger corporate enterprises.

Strategies for Entertainmentand Gaming To link entertainment with gaming, casinos can either attempt to integrate entertainment with the games or add entertainment attractions to the casinos. The add-on strategy has been employed in LasVegas at least since the Flamingo opened. That strategy exists in part to encourage guests to extend their stay. When the original Flamingo offered tennis, golf, and swimming pools, for instance, its purpose was to give guests something to do with their extra time. In a sense, these traditional activities competed with the casino games, but operators made up for it by keeping guests longer than overnight or just for a day. Today, Las Vegas's top golf courses, for example, are available only to guests who are also playing in the casinos. 24The recent combination of ITT Sheraton and CaesarsWorld, however, creates a gaming firm of comparable size.

Likewise, add-on entertainment provides an extra attraction for guests and encourages them to come in the first place and stay longer once they arrive. Add-on locationbased entertainment can be placed inside or alongside casinos. The M G M theme park and the entertainment complex inside Circus Circus's Luxor are examples. (Intentionally or not, Grand Slam Canyon is effectively placed alongside, rather than integrated into, the original Circus Circus property.) MGM's theme park is truly stand-alone entertainment. Luxor's complex of theaters, rides, restaurants, and a game arcade is at least linked to the rest of the facility through consistent themes in the manner pioneered by Caesars Palace. Adding entertainment on the scale of MGM's theme park or Luxor's theater-video-game complex puts casinos into a marketplace in which they must satisfy an unfamiliar set of consumer expectations. No longer is entertainment a side attraction, but it has become a chief reason to visit in the first place. In fact, gaming is still the core business but the demographics of visitors shows that LasVegas has been pulling increasing family business. If the added entertainment casinos provide does not meet those expectations, the casinos' new entertainment investments will produce less than optimum returns. That is why considerable efforts are underway at some of the larger casinos to improve the nongaming entertainment activities of their properties. This conclusion is based primarily on observation that crowds do not make return visits to some of these establishments.

The Problems of Integration If add-on entertainment can be disappointing, integrating entertainment with gaming operations presents even greater opportunities for

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failure. To explain why, we need to consider the difference between the consumer needs games satisfy and those fulfilled by entertainment. A treatise by Roger Caillois offers a useful approach to the subject. He divided games into categories defined by four characteristic types of satisfaction: competition, chance, simulation or mimicry, and vertigo (absorption) or disorder. 2s Casino games particularly speak to two of these satisfactions--namely, chance and vertigo, or absorption in the game to the exclusion of everyday reality. Casino operators have played on this absorption by creating a gaming environment that suspends time and other external influences. Entertainment integrated with casino games should enhance or intensify the games' ability to satisfy consumers' needs but should not compete with or substitute for games in satisfying these needs. Moreover, that entertainment should be designed to lead players to the games, rather than camouflaging them. Some kinds of entertainment fail this test and appear to be dysfunctional when integrated with casino games. Our observation is that dysfunctional types of entertainment include feature films, interactive video games, video-game arcades, and currently available simulator rides (though they all can work as traffic builders). In contrast, entertainment that can complement gaming includes location-based entertainment (such as the venerable show rooms), shopping, themeentertainment-oriented building architecture, and the landscape environment.

Dysfunctional Entertainment The following entertainment has been dysfunctional in LasVegas casinos, as made apparent by the 2s Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games, trans. Meyer Barash (NewYork: Schocken Books, 1961), pp. 11-37.

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lack of commercial success, because the entertainment competes with gaming for consumers' attention. We believe that in their current form, the following types of entertainment are not good candidates for integration in casinos. Feature films. Like all narrative fiction, movies derive much of their power from their ability to absorb the consumer into an alternative reality. Feature films compete with casino games for leisure time and substitute for them an experience that can be just as absorbing as gambling. Because of the absorption factor (vertigo), feature films present an alternative to casinos. It is difficult to see how this classic 20th century entertainment can be married with casinos. Feature films are not even good traffic builders. Unlike floor shows, movies are available on some 24,000

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screens in the United States, as well as via numerous television channels and onVC1Ls in most U.S. households. They therefore cannot be made unique or exclusive casino attractions. Studio tours, however, might be made to work as part of a casino-entertainment complex, in ways analogous to theme parks. Finally, despite inordinate interest in the idea, it is difficult to see how the consumption o f feature films can be made interactive. M u c h money is currently being spent on the premise that audiences want to interact with narrative fiction--to direct plot development or the ending of movies and so forth. Significant demand for such entertainment has yet to be demonstrated. Movies, novels, plays, television shows and related fictional narratives, as carefully constructed alternative realities, satisfy the consumer's need to

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enter an alternative reality imagined by someone else. Interactive narrative works against this consumer expectation. It shifts the burden of creation back onto the audience. Interactive narrative fictions need a new kind of consumer. This, too, has implications for casinos, because casino games are intrinsically interactive. Interactivity, if and w h e n it develops truly narrative forms, is thus inherently a substitute for casino games rather than a complement to them. Consequently, theaters, whether conventional or interactive, compete with casino games for leisure time. Film presentation is not a good choice for casinos, unless the casino is serious about operating movie theaters as independent profit centers. Interactive v i d e o g a m e s . Interactive games are an alternative way of achieving essentially the same satisfactions casinos supply with table and machine games. As we have seen, video games may incorporate narrative elements, but their consumption is fundamentally different from the consumption o f narrative fiction. Casinos and video games are both alternative worlds that meet the consumer's needs for absorption and an element of risk (virtual risk, in the case of the games).Video games can build family traffic, add variety to the package of experiences casinos offer, and function as day-care centers, but they are dysfunctional choices for close integration with gaming. A separate, related issue is whether video games and virtual reality can evolve into commercial gambling games played for real money. In evaluating this possibility it is important to bear in mind that games of pure skill (e.g., chess) and games in which skill is the predominant factor in determining outcomes (e.g., bridge or single-deck blackjack) cannot be used for corn-

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mercial purposes because skilled players will beat the house.To the extent that the exercise of skill underlies the success of Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and their successors it would appear that such games cannot be adapted to, or evolve into, commercial casino games. To the extent that such games satisfy other needs or desires (as do virtual-reality combat games) they may be adaptable to casino games. Simulator rides. As today's version of the roller coaster, simulators are an uneasy, imperfect marriage of narrative and pure sensation, and sensation dominates the experience in rides now operating. If, for example, one were to ask people to repeat the narrative of the wildly successful Back to the Future simttlator ride at Universal City few if any patrons would get it all right. Similarly, the elaborate pre-theater video narrative is ignored by a significant percentage of consumers who are completely satisfied by the simulator-ride experience itself. The chief problem with Las Vegas's existing simulator rides is simply that they don't overwhelm the competition. As added attractions for an entertainment and gaming facility, simulator rides that meet consumer expectations currently being set by Universal's Back to the Future ride have obvious value. They are, however, in their present state of development, not good candidates for close integration with casino games.

Functional Entertainment Other kinds of entertainment are functional when integrated with casino games. In general, this entertainment does not provide full absorption or offer the excitement of chance. The gaming experience is enhanced, intensified, or complemented by integration with the following.

V i d e o - g a m e arcades. In their current level of development, video games can complement casino operations, even though they provide absorption and a verisimilitude of chance. Game arcades are like feature films in that they are totally absorbing and great consumers of time. Unlike feature films, however, game arcades can be functional in casinos because the clientele they attract is too young to gamble. In short, video arcades supplement day-care centers in casino complexes. It is worth noting, however, that as the games develop the average age of the consumer base for video games is rising and the percentage of female video-game players is increasing as well. 26 Consequently, game arcades may have different implications for casino properties in the future. Location-based entertainment. Add-on entertainment, such as show rooms and circuses, have attracted customers to LasVegas for years. Unlike feature films, showroom-type entertainment is hard to find elsewhere and does provide another method of building traffic. Increasingly, the show room is becoming another way to encourage guests to spend money or is provided as an amenity for established players. Such entertainment can also be closely integrated into gaming. Much of the emphasis in this field is on electronic and digital technologies, many of them interactive to some degree. The new technology includes motion simulators, largeformat theater displays (usually narrative), 3-D theater experiences (also usually narrative), digital media, passive and interactive lasers, and virtual reality. The common goal of companies that create location-based entertain26Jim Carlton, "Game Makers Study How Tetris Hooks Women," The Wall Street arournal, May 10, 1994, pp. B1,137.

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ment is to find new ways of transporting audiences to simulated fantasy worlds) 7 Location-based entertainment is thus an evolutionary convergence of the movie, the amusement park, and the theme park.While new technology has demonstrated commercial value and will undoubtedly continue to improve, we think older techniques, including architecture, landscaping, and live spectacle (perhaps assisted by technology), are more effective in a gaming environment. The purpose of entertainment, it must be remembered, is to attract customers to the gaming tables. An early success in combining spectacle with gaming was the circus acts and related live performances on and over the casino floor of the original Circus Circus. This effective example of how to integrate entertainment with commercial games is an evolving process as the company reexamines Luxor, where the entertainment and commercial games, originally separated, are going through an overall upgrade. Examples of location-based entertainment that is effectively integrated with casinos include the volcano at the Mirage and the live pirate battle at Treasure Island's Buccaneer Bay. This type of locationbased entertainment builds traffic and creates an interface between the street and casino-hotel, satisfies customers in its own right, occurs inside the casinos themselves, and follows through with the fantasy theme. In all of these attractions 27A by-no-means-complete list of these companies would include MCA (Recreation Services Group), lwerks Entertainment, Inc., Dougall Design Associates, The Duell Corporation, Lifescapes, Inc., Landmark Entertainment Group, Wheel Gersztoff Friedman Shanker Inc., Creative Presentations, Inc., Lasermedia, Yates Silverman, Inc., Dream Quest Images, Edwards Technologies, Inc., LucasArts Entertainment Ltd., Omni Films International, Inc., Imax Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company, Walt Disney Company, Showscan Corporation, and all of the major Hollywood studio/distributors.

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Caesar's Forum

new consumer expectations for shopping environments, build traffic, mediate between street and casino, and entertain in their own right. The shops have also increased gaming in that part of the casino onto which the (one-way) Forum opens. It is an effective use of design to complement commercial games.

Interior and landscape architecture. As John Portman demon-

technology serves but does not bestrated with his atrium hotels, archicome the experience. Shopping. Like the Mirage's tecture is a part of the product that a volcano, the Forum Shops at Caesars guest consumes. Interior and landscape architecture can be naturally Palace extend the theme environment of the casino-hotel facility into and effectively integrated into gaming, as the many theme environan entertainment-driven, greatly expanded version of the shopping ments descended from Caesars Palace amply demonstrate. Once again, arcades that are a traditional feature of Las Vegas resorts. Shopping, a however, casinos must meet evertime-consuming recreation for rising consumer expectations. Blackmany, might seem a competitor with jack layouts never change, but where theme environments are concerned table and machine games for leisure the latest-and-better is the mortal time, but it has rejuvenated Caesars enemy of the good-but-older. World to the extent that Sheraton The blending of table and maplans an expansion of the shopping chine games and non-gaming enterfacility. Unlike much of the entertainment in a single architectural tainment at LasVegas, shopping ofwork is an extremely demanding fers guests the opportunity to spend process. Like other entertainment, money. Shopping includes elements of fantasy (e.g., looking at things one such design requires the presence of a strong integrating hand for a good doesn't buy, trying them out menresult. It is possible to throw a good tally and perhaps fantasizing about deal of money at architects, interior their use) so that visitors can be "transported" into the casino fantasy. designers, and landscape architects and still end up with a facility that The Forum Shops have been fails to meet consumer expectations. successful at turning shopping into Theme environments are enteran activity complementary with tainment products, not office space. gaming, as is evident from increased traffic. The mall blends animatronic The two kinds of buildings are distinguished by the relative imporentertainment with illusionist sky and lighting techniques revived by tance of intangible qualities. ConHollywood studio set designers from sumer expectations for offices can be old Baroque-period ceiling-painting satisfied with measurable, quantitative aspects of architecture, such as methods. These illusions are in turn incorporated in consistent-theme proper lighting and sufficient room per worker. In contrast, consumer interior architecture and design that in combination form an irresistible expectations for theme environments in markets that contain faciliexperience. The Forum Shops set

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ties like the Mirage and the Forum Shops are high. No architect can build to meet these expectations without a vision of the final result, which is, once again, an entertainment experience. Only the client-in this case, the casino operator-can supply that vision, and only the action of an integrating hand can realize it effectively.

EmbracingEntertainment The unprecedented size and diversification of advanced leisure economies in the late 20th century are altering consumer attitudes towards recreation in ways that are probably irreversible. The industrialization of the 19th century made the mass production of alternative realities possible, initially in the form of magazines and books issued by publishers who developed the mass readerships of Victorian novelists like Walter Scott and Dickens. In our own era the vertically and horizontally integrated entertainment conglomerates that descended from 19th-century publishers and early 20th-century movie companies have created a new kind of consumer with ever-increasing recreation options and ever-rising leisure expectations. The "new entitlement" is extending the reach of commercial entertainment beyond the bounds of recreation. Entertainment is being woven into the fabric of everyday life in ways that transcend traditional concepts of leisure. It informs activities that formerly were chores, like shopping. It permeates education. For many, the new entitlement extends into the workplace, through personal-stereo headphones and interactive on-line entertainment services accessible by personal computer.The day may not be distant when amusement is ubiquitous, and a casino that does not offer nongaming entertainment experiences will look to consumers like a black hole in a glittering landscape. CQ