I reached out to a few op's who were routing a DI when I was considering it. The typical feedback I got was that they were earning about what a Stern makes, give or take. ROI is exactly what I was thinking about as well. I decided that I wasn't going to get a DI at that point. I like the game and maybe some day it will come down enough for me to get one.

I look at it this way, what am I trying to do with my route? I see there being two paths. Am I trying to grow (locations or game count) or am I at a good level and want to up my overall game level? Tucson Pinball is still growing, and I expect with 1-2 locations with 8 total games more and we would be at a point that we just want to maintain and upgrade games over time. We recently added a 4-game location and I was looking at it like I could get 4 games (system 11's or classic Bally) for as much as 1 Stern. That's recently changed so I can't get all 4 for a single stern, but at the time that was a valid comparison.

JJP games, for now, are just too much for just earning about the same as a new stern. When we max out on games, then yes, I expect to sell 2/3/4 games and get a single higher level game, but that's probably still a year or two away from considering that.

I hear ya on this. It's hard to build a pinball culture. I'm not alone in Tucson though, which helps get to more people, but Tucson Pinball LLC is very much "hobby" levels of income.

I run a lot of tournaments and if it weren't for that the casual player coin drop would not make it worth it. It's the regulars that go to practice and come to the tournaments that makes it bearable.