Quoted from LTG:
I'll try and respond to this. From my experience. Doesn't mean it was the same for others. And not much to say about the 1972 air hockey fad or foosball fad right after. They helped, but weren't enough to keep up and grow. Pool was always good to cover rent until about 2005.
First, games that swallowed coins fastest was before my time. Mid 1940's on around here. The nickel operated gambling pins. Many ops dumped the huge cash boxes on a table. Split the pile in half. Asked the location to choose one side. Boxed the rest and took off. Didn't have time to count at the location. In Minnesota those games paid out tokens, which if the location knew the person, they bought them back for a nickel apiece. If they didn't know them, they wouldn't buy them, gambling was illegal. The money hauled in was unbelievable.
Much of my experience starts at the beginning of 1979. My Mother had an operator in here and couldn't buy her own games. When KISS and Pinball Pool came out about the same time. The operator would put in one or the other. I over stepped my bounds then. Until then my mother ran the show. I told the operator to let me know which one he was putting in and I'd buy the other one and put it in. He said he'd put in Pinball Pool. And I knew he couldn't be trusted so I bought Pinball Pool and put it in. Sure enough he put in the KISS. I knew he'd try and screw me over if I could buy a machine and leave me with two of the same title in here. Needless to say we damn near had a war.
As the year progressed it was becoming apparent my Mother and I had a difference of how things should be run. To put it nicely. She sold me her interests in Fall and helped out part time until October 1987.
I picked up more new video games and new pinball machines and kindly asked the operator to remove their equipment. Darn near had a war on that one too. Oh well.
So this brings us to the start of the video fad. Great times until it crashed. I bought 42 new games in 1981. I was always on quarters, thankfully. As income went from huge to nothing, I avoided the token wars. 5 for a dollar, ten for a dollar, 20 for a dollar. I sat and watched as other arcades jumped off the cliff faster.
Times were real lean until about 1986. With the coming of high Speed, video games and pinball were on the up tick. This era seemed to be part of a seven year cycle. From good to bad to good again. Which in about 1996 the cycle never went up again.
Things were rolling. Pinball was doing good, the fighting and driving video games were hauling in again. I thought nothing of buying a $27K Sega Virtua Racer. And little did I know the economy was going to have a direct impact on my industry.
First 50¢ pin was Black Knight in 1981. Pins should have gone to 75¢ in 1991 according to the US Government cost of living index to have the same buying power. It's little things. I'm bringing in good numbers, but losing ground. Rent goes up, utilities, food, etc. etc. by 1996 the industry was on the roller coaster to hell and nothing could prevent the loss of video game and pinball manufacturers. At one point there were 2 or 3 hundred operators in Minnesota, which kept shrinking, I don't think there are 20 left in the state today.
With the closing of Williams an ensuing panic of what am I going to do about pinball. Through all the years I didn't buy every new pinball that came out. I buy a pinball machine my gross doesn't go up. I buy a video game my gross goes up. But I could see I was heading toward a niche market with pinball, but with what pins ? I had the idea of buying up NOS playifleds, plastics, parts, to restore games. ( no repro stuff to speak of then ) I thought if I restored a game and brought it back, it could earn, and I could sell it later. Until something new in coin op. First up was an Eight Ball Deluxe LE. Restored. NOS playfield clear coated, NOS plastics and pop bumper caps. Repainted the cabinet. Brought the electronics up to speed. $5K into that project. Saw it earn a couple bucks a week. F**K !. Had trouble selling it for $900. Everyone said after it was gone that they would have bought it for that. They must have missed the for sale sign on it for 6 months.
Gave up on that project. Sold all the things I had bought to do this.
Motored along and started leaning more into pinball. Traded some vids for some A title pinball machines and bought some. 2001 saw the start of the Goose Parties. And some time after Todd Andersen ran some leagues and tournaments. And Stern was building some good pins.
I tried some classic video games to give people another reason to stop in. I was told they'd take in money for a day or two and die. Which is what happened. Worth a try but a waste of money and labor. I tried selling parts for awhile but never brought in players like I hope it would so I stopped doing that too.
I kept my pins at .50¢ a game way longer than I should have. I was sliding into bankruptcy. I finally started raising price per play. If I'd done that sooner, I could have kept more games, or kept them longer instead of selling games to stay open. Hindsight is always best.
Fred Richardson ran the first Mayday Tournament here in 2005 and around this time Jason Rufer started his once a month event. I eventually ran both of them. The Goose Parties turned into the Pinball Circus. I added tournaments on New Year's Day and the day after Thanksgiving. Things were going okay, not great. Just treading water.
And ran smack into the economy downturn about 2005. Everything pretty much turned to dog crap about then. Sold some rare stuff. Started gaining ground. Boom, right into the no smoking in 2006 by Hennepin County and the state doing it state wide in October 2007. Business dropped about 90%.
Kept plugging along, treading water but not making great gains or anything. Things kind of stagnated and were going no where. About 2012 I started rethinking all the events. 40 years ago you'd run leagues or tournaments to cook your books. Business is growing, we have other interests, time to sell. And the leagues and tournaments start dragging you down. Your everyday player, the person paying your rent. Can't compete with the pros and slowly stops coming in. And the great players only come in if you pay them. Big prizes etc. So I started dropping the tournaments one by one. They are gone forever. The Pinball Circus is on hiatus, it may return some day. And after a year I started seeing my gross go up again. So I knew I was on the right path. Early in 2014 Kris Lillemo approached me about doing a fund raiser and refresh my business. I had thought about it in the past. But with some of the scams run on fund raisers, I didn't think many would contribute. When Kris wanted to do it, I thought okay. If he fails, no harm no foul, he tried. It was successful and got me a good jump ahead of where I was to where I'm going.
Which brings us to what was going on in pinball since Williams closed. Which was about the time the hobby was taking off.
Now years ago the manufacturers made the games. Sold to distributors. Who in turn sold to operators who dumped them on the street to make money. Now if an operator complained to a distributor, unless he was a big customer. He'd be having to find a new distributor. If the distributor complained to the manufacturer, unless he was a big customer, he'd be looking for a new manufacturer. So now we have people wanting to buy games for their homes that were never intended for the home market, but were intended for commercial use.
The manufacturers today are faced with a growing customer base, many of who don't know that much about maintaining pinball machines. My hat is off to Stern. In the worst decade ever in coin op. Gary Stern kept the doors open and built some of the greatest pinball machines ever. The Simpson's Pinball Party, Lord Of The Rings, etc. etc. And quality was way better than what operators faced in the 1980's and 1990's. This really fueled the home market, and location pinball was on the rise. People were seeking out pinball machines to play. People were seeking out pinball machines to buy.
Growth may be a sword with two edges. The hobby has brought more manufacturers, parts, repro stuff, to the world than the industry ever did. People seeking pins to play on location. Buying pins for their homes. More manufacturers starting up. Many more locations having pins to play. Which brings me to wonder with the advent of so many homes with pins, and so many locations with pins. If things have shifted. If we are losing players because they are no longer driven to seek games and don't play on location as much as they used to. If things will go the other way again.
This past winter I had the best line up in here in well over a decade. And too many times I had all the pool tables going and no pins. Now I am only referring to my business, my experience. I do wonder if a shift is starting again ? Time will tell.
I would like to apologize for making this so long. I was asked to cover some of what I witnessed and lived through and give an overview of pinball during this time.
I tried to be thorough and cover the highlights. Many that people who know me, didn't even know.
LTG : )
