Lyman's doesn't own their machines, they're owned and operated by Dave Barber aka DAB Amusements. I don't know what the split is, though.

I'm 99% sure it's all Dave Barber. Although sometimes he subcontracts with local pinheads to put their games on location.

Last I heard the Black Cat was a mix of the owner's games and games owned and operated by the former Town Hall op, Chris - maybe you were thinking of that.

As to the pricing, I have no idea. I know that I can go spend a couple hours playing and maybe spend $10, which always seems like a crazy value.

To be fair, the ability to win replays and matches were part of what got me hooked on pinball initially - it's a significant differentiator from other coin op games. I think it'd be much better to reduce the match percentage and up the replay score thresholds without killing this unique aspect of the game entirely.

Gotta agree with this. Here in DC we had a (very) few scattered route games that were barely maintained and $1 a game for years, and almost nothing else. Now that we have several locations dedicated to pinball, the handful of op-of-all-trades route games out there stick out as a sore thumb even more. No one would miss them if they went away. If anything, locations should be encouraged to work with pincentric ops - because the maintenance is beyond the traditional ops.

Places that are able to charge 50 cents for newer games tend to be hobby locations, not profitable businesses.

I have no problem paying $1 if the games are well maintained, have the latest code, and have a reasonable tilt setting. The irony around here is the $1 games are those put out by larger ops who never maintain games or update code. The 50 cent games are the hobby op situations where everything is kept updated and beautiful. So $1 for *worse* games is a tough pill to swallow.