Craig doesn't run FUN, he's just a marketing pissant there. Steve Nordseth runs the place, along with his business partner. Business partner guy is creepy AF, you can expect that any time you go in there to look at their stuff, that you'll be watched like a hawk, and they will not want to turn anything on to test it out. One time they had posted on Facebook that a game was there on the floor, for people to come by and check it out...so my wife and I did, and we were told "One game, this isn't an arcade." by the business partner. His name is escaping me, but it's completely unimportant. Steve is the owner and the face. Prices might be ridiculous, but Steve isn't a terrible guy. I've sold a game to them that I couldn't get sold on craigslist. It was a fairly painless deal. /shrug

Personally, I won't give them any business at all currently, even if I need a simple part. I'd rather pay shipping than support anyone employing Craig, but he's been an outright dick to me for so long, even when I've done him favors like meeting him closer to his area to swap toppers we ordered from the same dude and they got switched addresses, and with him trying to convince me to take part in their failed reality show fiasco....as the "local a-hole"......yeah, I'm enjoying a bit of schadenfreude right now with the hypocrisy of him repeatedly making me out to be an asshole..

You can call me by my given name. I don't care. I mean, I do go by "Frax" in person and that's fine, but you know my actual name is Josh.. it's not a secret. "Mr. Frax" just makes me laugh...it sounds silly even in my head. It'd me like me calling you "Mr. Castle"

If it's inaccurate, then correct it...you clearly don't feel like doing that on the forum. I'm not sure how *personal experience* of having been in there several times is "inaccurate" though. TBH I don't know what your actual job title is, but the only thing I've seen you do since you went over there is try and sell games, so to me...that's marketing/sales. I'm sure you probably do other stuff there to fill the time, like helping repair games and whatnot, but I'm more concerned with the public facing part. I haven't been in there in a while, last chance I had (I don't go into stores to just waste their time, so I'm not stopping by to just window shop!) was when Nationals was there and I was busy that weekend. Maybe if you're running the floor instead of the business partner, things might be a bit different now, which would be a great change for FUN, because every time I've been in there aside from some community event they're hosting, it's felt hostile as hell, not like a welcoming place of business. That's my personal experience, not a relayed anecdote.

*edit* Deleted everything below this point and took it to PM. I'm done on this thread, and the rest didn't belong here.

I just want to say that I'm talking to hassellcastle in PM, and it's been brought to my attention that the situation at FUN as I described (from my personal experiences in the past...not in the time he's been there..) has changed quite a bit. I'm more than willing to take him at his word for the time being, and find out. It'll be nice if what I'm told is true...the place is literally 10 minutes from my house, and I've avoided it like the plague for a long time, but my Metallica did technically come from them.

They're not, it's observer error. Worry about ghosting and clear chipping. THOSE are at least abnormal. If dimpling bothers you......honestly...the only games you should be buying are EM's. They don't have any clear to dimple in the first place. =Þ

Not sure if I should take this seriously from someone that from my limited perspective has been a JJP evangelist, but I'll give it a shot, since it's not about THIS company or THAT company.

Point is....it still doesn't matter. Wood is wood is wood. It'll get flat at some point, and as long as the clear isn't cracking or chipping, then WHO GIVES A CRAP? Uptight museum piece collectors..that's it. The kinds of people that say "ERMAGERD YOUR GAME WENT TO A SHOW, GUESS IT'S NOT HUO ANYMORE, CAN I BUY IT FOR 3K LESS NOW?" Dimples are *normal*. Deep ones, shallow ones, lots of them, few of them. It's *all* within the range of 'normality'...and if a buyer thinks otherwise, my recommendation is again.. DON'T BUY A NEW GAME until you can get over yourself. Distributors and the manufacturers don't deserved to be incessantly harassed over things that are normal, and quite frankly, having been on here 6 years, and this discussion occurring every bloody time another game comes out is irritating as hell, to the point where I'm about to just have my own personal moderation rule: "If you ask a stupid question about dimpling, adios."

Not a single bloody thing about any of the new LCD-Era Stern games has correlated the perceived differences in dimpling with accelerated wear or damage to the playfield. What HAS been correlated is that some people are way the hell too clenched up in the posterior side to actually enjoy owning a new game...

Nevermind that what's seen in videogames and other media all over the damn place is WAY worse than the Helen or Luci translites..lol. I guess if it was an actual photo, not cartoons, it'd be kosher.

Okay, lemme know when you start seeing big patchy spots of wear in the shape of divots on these games.

Stern flippers have felt "weird" ever since they went back to dual winding coils instead of using PWM to hold the flippers. Did the original SM have dual winding coils, or was it PWM? Pretty sure it was the latter, but I haven't looked. Game does feel substantially different, but after a bit of play on location, I don't have nearly as much issue with it as I did initially.

I stand corrected then. There's still something VERY 'off' about current games, that started with WWE, and they've felt 'off' ever since. So I don't know what it is, but it's certainly there, and *MUCH* more noticeable on SM, BM66, and SMVE than the rest, IMO.

Man, I about got castrated when I got my Tron and said I liked the latches better than the receiver in public...lol...funny how times change!

Both of the ones I owned were 3rd run. 1st run Pro may have had something different, I dunno, but that silkscreened cab just looks like so much dookie compared to the decals IMO... x_x