Basements where the house is built into a hill and there is a sliding door or French door at ground level are great. About half of our basement is a finished family room. I just built out a finished space for my pinball machines in a formerly unfinished area. Moving games in and out of the basement is very easy and a 1 person job. I can back my van up to the door and easily bring machines in and out on a hand truck. Last weekend I picked up a Space Mission machine from my daughter's house. It was in her basement and it was a pain to get it up the stairs and outside to ground level. Definitely a 2 man job.

Basements are the norm here in most of Maryland. My beach house does not have a basement and I was talking to my wife the other day about how if we retire there, I probably won't have any pinball machines because there isn't a good place to put them. The houses at the beach are up on stilts.

I was on board with this thread at the beginning. Now I'm to the point that I don't care if people in Australia understand why basements exist in the USA. Australians are missing out if they don't have basements, but I'm over it.