Pathetic.

been seeing alot of high prices to play pins lately...A local place here (Kart Kountry) raised all their machine to 1.00 a play...the guy actually cleaned the machines....well kinda, and replaced a DMD in a wore out Elvis.....his TSPP was cleaned but need flipper rubber...pretty weak...a buck for games that you can't even play a full game on...sheesh!

Better than no pinball option at all. It's business, not a charity.

Besides, $1.50 for a couple minutes of entertainment versus $2.00 for ten seconds on a rigged redemption game...? I'd pay double for the pinball.

That's too bad. We have a Shrek at a Chuck E Cheese close to us and it's a token ($0.25) a play. Not a huge fan of the game, so that's about all I'll spend to play.

Wow, those prices are high on both pins and redemption, $2.00 for 10 seconds>? WOW!! I think we are still on the old token system up here, 4 for a buck and everything is 1-3 tokens Then again, I could be getting old

Funny. I wish I'd raised prices a few years sooner instead of trying to keep 50¢ play. I could have kept a few more Williams games like MB, IJ, and SC.

LTG

They were 50c over 15 years ago. Inflation has to count for something.

Is it really ridiculous? Was anyone playing it? If it gets played a lot then the price is right. A place like Universal Studios has inflated prices for everything and people know it going in.

32 years. First 50¢ pin I tested was Black Knight. 1981

LTG

Yup. I am happy that Stern finally made factory pricing $0.75 apiece. There was talk before on WoZ, I don't know how legit, that it was going to be $2.00 / play or three for $5.00.

In 1981, it was $0.25 to play a video machine, and $0.50 cents to play pinball. The DMD era should have ushered in $0.75 cent play, and around the time of PB2K we should have hit a buck. Part of the huge uphill battle that pinball has to remain on location is so many people demand free games, and $.50 or under pricing.

Video arcade games generally now cost $1 to play. Based on that, we should be looking at and accepting of $2.00 per play pinball on location right now. Sadly, if we were, I guarantee there would be a heck of a lot more machines on route.

Honestly, you could play shreck for a heck of a long time with three balls. That was probably your biggest bang for your buck your entire time in Orlando cost wise. Inflation hits rout machines. I would expect that much everywhere soon with our monetary policy in this country.

50¢ Play in 1981 should have gone to 75¢ in 1991 to have the same buying power. About the coming of DMD pins.

LTG

In my area, most pinballs are on quarter play and some are 50 cent play.

I just don't see how rout operators or locations (much less both) can make money at those prices. You would have to close to 20,000 games to just pay for the machine, much less maintenance cost, fuel cost, and other over head associated with being a business owner (like insurance). This is why no machines are on rout these days.

It was .25 a play for me in the late 80s early nineties. It should be .75-1.00 tops now for 3 balls.

Yup - and the DMD era pins was the sort of major change in design that could have really ushered in the era without gamers flipping out about it. The problem that a lot of ops have now is that if you change the price of a DMD game, it's the same as the old DMD game that you played for $0.50.

Sadly, it really needs to be built around some sort of game-changing thing to "justify" the change, and I hope that the LCD for Jack can make a significant price increase overlooked by a lot of players.

I walked past that about a month ago. Almost stopped then was like ...... Things to do can play pinball at home not on vacation =-). Cost would not be the reason to pass it up for me anyways.
If I really want to play I could play it locally.

To the thread originator. Have you ever attempted to operate a pin in a low play location and make a profit?????

I'll pay $0.75 per game on some of the new fancy Stern games, but I won't play many games at that price. I'm more likely to spend more money overall by end of the day/night when games are priced at $0.25 or $0.50 / play. I bet some others would spend similarly.
It's reasonable to me to have the price to play a pin based on the pin itself.
* E-M type pins, $0.25 per 5-ball game
* SS type pins from '77 to approx '91, $0.50 per 3-ball game.
* SWE1/RFM & some DMD pins from approx '91 to 2001 $0.50 per 3-ball game
* A-list DMD pins from the 90's, up to $0.75 per 3-ball game
* DMD pins from approx '2002 to present, $0.75 per 3-ball game
Edited my post to fine tune my game play pricing breakdown.

Perhaps the price per game will get lowered if people stop putting coins in and stop playing them.
Or a new op starts up in the area w/ machines set at lower more reasonable price-per-game, and get more business and better profits than the op w/ the higher prices.
I've never seen a machine set at $1.50 per 3-ball game, but I seriously doubt that I would drop coins in it to start up a game.

Over here it costs 1 euro (1.30 $) per game. But you get 5 balls instead 3. I have to say the operator (a very good friend of mine) is doing a bang up job. The pins are very clean and work perfectly. If he gets a call, he almost litteraly rushes to the pins aid!
It's a real joy to play them. I find it sad that it's doesn't show in the earings for him.
I have to say he is an exception, most other operators leave their pins dirty (almost all or black versions ) and are mostly rather dark, and malfuctioning. I hope things will pick up for him, but the no smoking policy over here is really hurting the earnings.

not surprising at disney, where they charge you insane prices for anything (I think a bottle of water was $4).

I think $1/game for a well maintained machine is pretty much the norm, anything above that means the operator isn't making money because it's just a bad location, or his machines suck. There are plenty of people wanting to play good pinball, you just gotta reach your audience.

You're paying the amusement park tax.

No, they will simply be taken off route and sold, never to be seen in that location again. Replaced by an internet jukebox or Big Buck Hunter, or with nothing at all.

There is a reason pins disappeared for a long time. Nobody played them anymore, at any price. OPS are business people too. They don't run on charity.

I stink at math. Say I buy an AC/DC pro, and put it on location. 50/50 split with location. How long will it take for me to pay the machine off, pay for upkeep expenses, plus something for my time?

I can tell you, at .50 cents a play, it would literally take over 10 years, and probably more like 20 +.

All my pins are priced at $1 a play, 3 plays for $2. I was very close to going $1 a play and 5 games for $4. At the current rate, my Tron Pro should be paid off around .... 2024.

I played throughout the 70s and 80s and I remember quarter play on just about everything in the arcades I was playing in. When Black Knight and Black Hole came out, I remember those being 50 cents. I played BK, but the re-entry gate on BH just kept me from having much fun on it when it first came out. I played back in the days when the operator and staff did some daily maintenance on the machines. That will tell you how long ago it was.

Gary Stern commented on this in his NWPS talk when someone from the audience asked him about this machine. He put it on the operator who isn't maintaining the machine, but also said that ops need to make more money on pinball implying that's the reason why they're not maintaining it (stating all machines need dollar bill validators and that we're the only country without a coin of value.)

And while Gary said he played that machine, I'm guessing he didn't realize they were charging $1.50 a game. Or that JJP will be incorporating ePlate technology rendering cash obsolete.

Methinks Mr. Stern needs to think about producing one less new title a year and focus on advancing his technology. It's not like he has any less talented people working for him than Jack does...or does he?

viperrwk

When pinball was a dime you could get 2 Hershey bars for that same dime. How much are 2 of those now?
And they are smaller.
Dimes were silver back then, what is a silver dime worth today?
You could get a gallon of gas for 2 of them.
A junk cull silver dollar is worth 25 bucks.
You want to talk about pathetic?
Complain about a buck fifty a play while holding your 5 dollar cuppa Starbucks.
Now we are talking pathetic.
Make sure to carve up the PF glass after you drop your pot metal 50 cents so the op can buy a new sheet for 28 bucks from all the money he is making.
And then complain there are no games on location anymore.

The price is fine, just the experience needs to be more, if you want to charge a buck a play, make it 5 ball. No one lines up to play these machines anymore unless your game is at PAPA, so give me an extra 5 minutes of ball play to justify the upcharge.

If I see a new game with a bill acceptor on route and I want to play it.. hell, even when I don't really like the game, I usually end up feeding it a 5 and go to town. It usually gives me enough gameplay to determine for sure if I really like the game or if it's just a passive interest.

A buck 50 does seem excessive to me just because it's an inconvenient amount of money. I preferred the upcharge of the bus going from 1.75 to $2 because getting 3 quarters all the time is annoying and difficult to arrange at any given time.

You do realize that by making one less title, they would also lose out on the money that one less title earns them, which would make it harder for them to justify new technology.

Pinball is weird. If the technology advances too far, I would expect the nostalgia that it sells won't work, and it will make even less. Don't advance it, and you can't make money either. Rock and hard place.

Live a little.

Yah, I remember when green fee's for golf started going up. I figured they should give us a couple extra holes, make it 21 holes instead of 18 holes for the extra price.

So, as the price increases, you feel you should get more game? Does anything in life work like that? The movie ticket you just bought, does that get you more for your money? That pack of smokes have more cigs in it now? The 12 pack of beer become a 13 pack?

I'm starting to see why games disappear from locations .....

When I was at Universal last summer, there were 2 Shreks. One was this one and the other was over in the Studios side in the arcade up beyond the Mummy ride. Both were dirty and neither had a working upper flipper. I don't mind paying for games that at least have working flippers and are wiped down once a month. I got really spoiled when I was a kid in the arcades. The folks there used to clean the games every day, and I don't remember ever having to wait for much to get fixed on the machines (there were always at least 12 pins). They would even take the time to show me how to maintain the games. Times have definitely changed. The vids were king back then, so I guess the money was so much better that they could care for everything on site much better.

I wouldn't expect more play, but I would at least expect a functioning game that wasn't so dirty that you couldn't see the light inserts.

1 - Yes - but there are ways they could mitigate that for example rerunning certain titles that are currently out of production and/or producing more LEs of the next model, thus freeing up design and development resources. Sure current LE owners might get upset but it happens all the time in other industries. As Gary is fond of saying, "I'm running a business."

2 - Jack said at NWPS that it cost $2m to develop WoZ. And that was using existing Williams/Bally parts. Stern can do the same - he just has to commit to making the investment to update his platform. If he does, it would give him the major change in design you mentioned was necessary to charge more money.

Or is Stern going to be the "low-end" pinball choice in the arcade in the future?

viperrwk

A good way to see the pins go away.

Ops for the most part are getting out of pinball. There are a few exceptions, especially hobby ops that pop up and operate for a year or two and then disappear.

In my area the two biggest ops ( one with over 1700 locations ) have about 15 pins on location between them and will be phasing them out and not operating pins anymore. And these are established operators with years in the industry and know what they are doing.

LTG

''That's too bad. We have a Shrek at a Chuck E Cheese close to us and it's a token ($0.25) a play. Not a huge fan of the game, so that's about all I'll spend to play''

Check the dumpster in the future- Chuck e cheese destroys their pins. I can remember hearing about a TSPP smashed down in a dumpster. It might pay off to ask when they plan on dumping that game, and if they will ''break it nicely'' so it can be saved

I ran my pins at 50¢ longer than I should have. And wasn't getting more business or better profits.

I wish I'd have raised prices at least three years sooner.

LTG

How many Medieval Madness pins in your area set for that ?

LTG

Yes, yes I should get more game. Because that's where the gaming industry is trying to go right now. Instead of paying 60 bucks for a game, I can get the LE version for the same price with that much more game. If I'm getting an older game, let's use Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as an example. that was 50 before, it's 9.99 now or free if you have PSN, and has more content in terms of trophies on ps3.

The example of movies also gives you more, it's more things that I don't care about, but not everyone has my opinion. You pay extra for 3D or the d-box rumble seat feature.

Smokes and beers.. well, you got me there.. I pay more for quality in my beers, and not quantity, says the person with 3 cellars and cases upon cases of beer.

Manufacturers always blame someone else. Distributors, ops, players, etc. etc.

Surely it has nothing to do with $3800 Stern pins not earning, so $5500 and $6500 ones not earning should be better.

He doubled the price darn near but didn't double what you are getting.

After the new wears off in a week or two, you have a game making $25 a week.

Do the match and you can see why there will be less and less pins on location in the future.

LTG

A side note, for what it is worth. A year and a half ago my wife was thinking of us getting a TSPP but we ended up with a Shrek. After tuning the game (making sure it was clean, rubbered, and good flippers) it is a very fun and fast game. While I am sure the above can be said for any game, I have to admit that Shrek has turned out to be a rather enjoyable and humorous game!

Interesting. At Disney World's arcade outside of Space Mountain, the machines are at $.50 each.

They were crap when I was there in April.

For around here, currently that I know of, two.

And they both still have replays enabled and a score threshold for replays. I honestly wish they wouldn't, because I want them to earn more money to stay out longer. It's as close as I'll ever get to owning one.

With the value of MM's skyrocketing, even if they are earning I'd worry about them going away.

LTG

I think a credit card that gives you time per dollar would be more lucrative. People don't like putting cash in the machines but credit usage seems ok

Lloyd - don't get me wrong - as someone who evaluated and reviewed many technology products over the years, I trust little in what a manufacturer says. I was just reporting what Gary said at the show.

He deserves credit for keeping pinball alive. Imagine how much AFM would cost these days if Stern closed its doors the same time as Williams. But Stern also has to get with the times.

Ops want things that work and don't break and are easy to fix. Stern's current platform doesn't do that.

Ops want games they can put out in locations and recoup their investment. Stern's current platform doesn't allow for that.

Casual collectors want machines that work and when they don't want someone to come out and fix it. Stern's current business model doesn't address that.

Jack addressed these issues in his talk at NWPS. How successfully he addresses them in the future remains to be seen. For now, there is at least hope.

(Sorry - getting a little far off-topic here!)

viperrwk

$1/play and $2/3 plays is just about perfect. IMO.

I even liked the option for $5/9 plays I saw at the Calgary Airport.