Christian Arras, CEO at Löwen Entertainment, the German subsidiary of the Novomatic group, said today that there was no option but to cancel the IMA trade show in Düsseldorf, which had been set for mid-January, 2015.
News of the cancelation was reported by InterGame last week after the German trade association, the VDAI, took the decision. The organisation was responding to news that the German Federal Minister had indicated that he was prepared to sign a new German law proposed by the 16 German länder, or states, which is extremely anti-arcades.
Once the European Union has been officially informed of the decision, it would become law, suggesting that any time between November this year and January 2015, Germany could face tough new regulations, which the trade associations are planning to legally challenge.
Christian Arras, giving his views on the subject following a similar reluctant ‘thumbs down’ to the show by main German rival Gauselmann Group, said: “As long as legal ambiguities are not finally clarified we need to act with entrepreneurial and financial reason and concentrate on taking our responsibility seriously to ensure our industry’s future.”
The German länder had formulated a Treaty on Games of Chance between them, which came into force in 2012. Collectively they intended to gradually introduce tough new legislation on arcades at the same time as much higher taxation was introduced in some communities. The effect was to seriously repress the machine industry and throw doubts upon its long-term prospects.
In a release, the VDAI said: “Years of development work are abruptly rendered obsolete. The manufacturers face production setbacks of previously unknown proportions and at the same time the German amusement and vending machine industry is expecting the loss of more than 50 per cent of currently 70,000 jobs directly dependent upon the industry as well as around 35,000 indirectly dependent.”
The associations plan to challenge the legality of the regulations and, in the meantime, feel that against this uncertainty running the trade show is not opportune.
