The distribution company, meanwhile, has enjoyed significant growth over the years. Five years ago Terry Farr was invited, by Merit Industries, to become the exclusive UK distributor for its MegaTouch touchscreen games, a period that has seen the line become firmly established as the UK's current market sector leader. Other firms have been added to the portfolio including, Sound Leisure and three years ago, Global VR - a relationship that is now bearing some very promising fruit.
"One of the products I'm particularly hopeful about, for the coming year is Global's PGA World Tour Tournament," says Farr. "It's already out in the market with stunning collection figures. It works like a dream and the tournament is fantastic! We are experiencing a healthy interest from retailers wanting to get the new PGA into their locations faster."

Now the company is determined to extend its reach even further into the UK industry, taking on new partners and new products. It is this idea of partnership, and the relationship that the company fosters between itself and its suppliers, that is fundamental to CVA’s philosophy.
"I think, with respect to everyone else, that although there are many other distributors, no-one else is prepared to do what we do," suggests Glenn Wearn, CVA’s technical director. "We see ourselves as a distributor and co-developer.
We want to work with good lines that we can sell good numbers of, so it becomes worth us investing in the evolution of that product."
This is an area where CVA has continually proved its credentials. Entering Farr's office one can't help but notice the industry awards he has covering his walls. Perhaps the most prominently displayed are the awards he received from Merit as Top Distributor in each consecutive year of the two companies' relationship.

"When we accepted Merit's invitation, Photo Play was the market leader in this country, with several other touchscreen brands in the mix," explains Farr. "In the following years CVA worked tirelessly with Merit's hardware, software and tournament, embracing many of CVA’s market observations and recommendations, intentionally bespoking the brand specifically for the UK and working together to such a huge extent that in its sector Merit really is the only kid on the block today.
CVA was happy to use the same skill set to bring PGA forward in the golf sector to a place where it is now offering a very serious challenge to Golden Tee. "I believe our latest product to be the best in the market," says senior sales account manager Jonathan Mays. "It's very competitively priced, takes a great deal of money, and has excellent upgrade potential, fantastic graphics and a great tournament business model."
One of the ways that Farr and the rest of the company have achieved this success is to attach CVA to a product that can evolve, and by taking a personal interest in that evolution.

"We are not just box shifters, only buying machines to sell them. That's why, although the plan is to take on a number of new partners, I want to keep the number of lines at a manageable level, so we can still focus on them and continue to evolve them over a period of time."
"For instance, one of essential things with Merit is the upgradeability. We sold that as our basic philosophy and sure enough we have customers who return to us for Merit upgrades year after year. It's a win-win situation, reoccurring revenue for CVA / Merit and the ROI for the operator is fabulous. This year's new 2006 software is a no exception it will significantly drive up collections.

We plan to approach PGA with the same philosophy, as long as people buy into the upgrade culture, they will have the latest machines, achieving them the best terms with retailers, but only pay for the upgrades."
But in 2006, CVA is to extend that philosophy even further. It is to take on a significant line of redemption machines from an emerging major manufacturer, and attempt to install an upgrade culture that will work in the redemption sector.
"In the past people bought redemption games, ran them into the ground and disposed of them," new sales business development manager Nassir Ghanchi points out. "But now we are trying to bring the upgrade culture to redemption, so people will be able to spread their game costs over a longer period."
Ghanchi hopes that his new machines and new approach to redemption will be well received by the operators. "Redemption is rarely exploited as well as it should," he says. "The truth is that there are few who exploit redemption properly. Those that do, do very nicely thank you. But there are far too many who are unwilling to put the work in. The redemption areas need to be desirable destinations in their own right."
But the diversification does not end there. CVA is moving into Section 16 products, with a deal to distribute Pac-man 500 from Deith Gaming. Phil Mander, CVA’s sales manager, thinks the brand and the machine are a winning combination and, more importantly, despite the change in the licensing status of the machines in last year's mini-budget, there is still a lot of life left in the sector.

Unfortunately, he cannot say the same thing about the AWP industry, specifically in single sites. Terry Farr agrees that the single site sector has been seriously weakened by the removal of any incentive for operators to succeed in the pubs.

There are a lot of people that say that single site AWP’s have, historically been the heart of this industry. And both Farr and Mander agree with those who believe that heart has been ripped out because those operating single site AWP’s make very little money on them.
"The single site operators are having a very hard time," admits Farr. "Once upon a time, operators used to operate ancillary products for the privilege of getting the AWP contracts. The truth is that today people suffer AWP’s in the hope of getting something out of the ancillary."
It may seem strange then that Farr has taken CVA into a strategic alliance with Genesis Games to develop anew poker-based AWP called Texas Fold 'Em from US producer TLC. Why should he want to move into a sector that he sees as failing?
First of all, Farr has an immense personal passion for the game of poker -a passion he believes he can bring to the market to help the game succeed. But he also recognises the global phenomenon .that poker has become and clearly believes that the right product could make a big impact in the market. Interestingly to this extent CVA is also working on a Poker Chip redemption machine from the US to be shown for the first time at ATEI. "There are still other sectors into which CVA is extending its reach," according to managing director John Farrington, "This is an ambition that has seen us increase our stand space at this year's ATEI.
We have a few brand new redemption pieces that we will unveil at this year's show, and hope that we have found a couple of real winners."
In addition to the products already mentioned, at ATEI there will be two kiddie ride lines from Germany's Gauselmann Group, the Disney range and a great interactive simulator kiddie ride that is already out on site capturing excellent cashboxes. There's the Multimedia Photo Terminal from Take 1 Technologies, which looks set to revolutionise the photo booth market, GVR’s new six-game Vortek, and a new very competitively priced arcade punchball boxing game, quite simply named The Boxer. CVA this year also added the Paragon SWP to its range.