(Read to the end)
I bought a machine from Ivan after throwing him a very serious offer Saturday of all of the money I even had to spend (literally), having it get laughed at in my face, then offering $25 more (borrowed from a buddy) and it got accepted as long as the machine stays until the end of the day and it was stated many times, as he wanted to make sure, I suppose. However, I always do this anyways. I do it at the York show and at Pinfests. Any machine I buy and or bring stays on the floor for play until the last second. My Domino was one of the absolute last games plugged in this year and I had to plug it in like 3 more times at the end because people were collecting power strips and whatnot. I can see why people might want to turn the games off or pull them out early, but for me it's all about sharing and it's one of my favorite parts of the hobby which is why I leave them, because I can easily load them up alone anyways later on.
I get immense joy just watching other people enjoy them even if I just bought it and want to protect it. I don't even bring machines to sell, I bring not-for-sale games that I have worked on for hours for the purpose, and just let people enjoy them. I look forward to the shows not only to play and hang out but also to do this.
I was a little upset and put off by Ivan's actions towards the sale, but only towards the part not related to the "it needs to stay thing" (so it's irrelevant to this discussion), as I was planning to do that anyways and I think it was very fair in that regard and obviously am okay with, because I always do it anyways. I tried to explain that in addition to saying "okay, sure" but I guess it didn't go across as intended, didn't really matter anyways. Regardless, I do see why they try hard to get the machines to stay because it does get rather barren Friday night let alone Saturday afternoon. I felt a bit better after talking to other collectors about it and showing them my new purchase which they thought was great and I ended up feeling really good about it. I have no ill feelings towards Ivan and would do business with him again, hopefully this post doesn't seem rude. Gave him a wave and got one back as I left pretty late at night Saturday after taking down my machines, some of the last ones left. It was cool of him to bring so many games, including wedgeheads for our row.
I think we both ended up with a very good, fair deal and I was happy to spend the extra $25. I was also happy to leave the machine there as requested and load up/take down myself of course, as I was already planning to do anyways and even told a seller I bought a machine from at York to leave it there after he offered to load it up for me for free. It's really fun to see people enjoy these for the rest of the day while doing little tweaks and upgrades (like this year I bought coin entry plates it was missing from Mayfair and popped them in, also tweaked pop bumpers which were working incorrectly, switched to 5-ball, etc.) and seeing how it performs. The show is also a great place for this as you literally have a giant asset of parts, if you would need any, like my coin plates which I bought from Mayfair. As stated previously, I would do business with Ivan again.
It must be a stressful job to run this and I commend the staff on that. I do think this curly-headed character (not Ivan, I would assume, his hair isn't even close to curly) should be investigated though if he's being rude about things like a question of when the show ends let alone the rest.
Put a lot of hours into it before the show!
Decently earlier from when the show ends too.
