There have always been plans for an "arcade finder" or "where to play" functionality on the World Pinball Map (http://pinside.com/pinball/community/map ). But I have not yet found the time to implement this. It would probably also take a lot of effort from the community to populate this map - the world is a big place

A great idea.I would help and support it.

That would be very useful! I would also help and support this it would be awesome.

This site will give you arcade locations and other info:
You can also search for a specific machine.

http://arcades.mythric.com/

Looks like somebody already thought of it and beat us to it. Don't you hate it when that happens ?

Yeah, but that arcade tracker is pretty incomplete as well. There's really no authority tracker out there. There's a place by me that probably has 15 pinball machines on location and I rarely see it come up in the tracker sites.

Honestly, the best ways to find games locally are to try three things:

1- Call a mall information desk and ask if they have an arcade. If so, call the arcade and ask if they have pinball games.
2- Call the bars in your area. Many of them have pinball machines tucked into the corner.
3- Look up the phone numbers of operators in your area and call them. Tell them that you're hoping to play pinball machines and ask what they have out on route and where you can find them. If they have half a brain, they'll tell you where to go because you'll be dropping quarters into their machines. This is the FASTEST way to find games.

When you call operators, just make it clear that you're a fan of pinball. Some operators get suspicious and think that you might be someone who is trying to muscle in and start a new route or that you're evaluating his games, but most should just simply tell you where to go to play.

Hi I use PINFORMER-WHERE TO PLAY PINBALL IN THE UK- www.pinformer.co.uk
This is fairly usefull, some venues aren't updated often enough though and homeowners can add their pins too.

http://www.pinballspot.com/web/play-pinball-places-locations-map/

I came across a few sites but I'm not too sure if they are still active or not,
but I bet our group could make an effort in filling in the map and helping out others in need of a pinball fix.

Also Pinball Rebel has a search engine that may help
http://www.pinballrebel.com/locator/pinsearchform.php

I know we could do better .. the site I found was simply by doing a search on the subject.

Listen to this one! There is a new mall that opened in my area and the local pinball vendor opened up a store in it. He's a pool table, games, hot tub outfit. I was excited to go and see it and play some pins! Went this past weekend, and the cheap bugger has all his display machines and arcades set up for coin-op only and you have to pay!!! SHEESH!
Ya, every 'locater' site isn't usually updated or populated very well. Airports, campgrounds and go-kart tracks are other good places to find pins. I even ventured into chucke cheese here to see if they had a pin and they did! It spit out tickets too!

I'm new here (just found the site and signed up today) and not sure if this thread is dead but I had an idea.

I was going to start writing in my profile some of the local machines I know are around town where I live (Providence RI), but this leads to a bigger idea. What if the profiles themselves had a "Sightings" section that was searchable?

Each user could write in public machines near where they are and the site could index those machines. This would A) make members be responsible in updating and spotting machines B) Help promote member to member interactions and C) Allow there to be a searchable section in the database so users could find machines. Just an idea.

BTW, great site.

Hi Okidoki, welcome to the Pinside!

Check out the pinball rebel link that autumnfade linked above and see if that is what you are thinking about?

I use it to search for pins when I want to find them.

welcome to the pinside oidokipvd , you have some good suggestions<I hope Pinside can implement this soon -as we are all willing to help!

I like the pinballrebel site's setup. It has pretty much all the info fields you need. Just wish you could sort by city. But ultimately, each site is only good if people participate and post their sightings. I make sure to add or edit each public machine I come accross.

Bowling alleys and movie theaters are your best bets, these days. Chuckee Cheese and other kids places like Going Bonkers and Fun Factory usually wil have a pin.
Bars and restaurants which have one are rare these days but a lot of Red Robin restaurants have a newer Sterns pin in them.

If you do find a pin on location, as for the Operator's phone number if it's not on the machine. Call them and ask where all their pins are stationed.

Dont forget - we posted about this before - but it would also be great to make an iPhone app that you could take a picture on location then push it to the site, so in your travels you can snap a shot up load it put the address in...hrmm robin if you want maybe we can talk about it I have developers etc that would be interested in working on it, no if we all just had more time

A pinside iphone app that did just that Fusion would be awesome. We should see if we have the right people here to get that done? It could have a pin finder, photo uploader, map feature AND access to the pinside database and forums all in one portable app. Super awesome idea.

I would love to help if I could find a machine in my area. My wife wanted me to go with her to a kids birthday party at the bowling alley, this was the last pin in the area that i was aware of. I went assuming I would play a few games of pinball. Get there and they removed the pin and replaced it with one of those big ass dance machines. I even went to the mall with her trying to find a machine with no luck...ended up shoe shopping for hours. No more mall trips

I can get it done - I have iphone app developers and I build websites and web based apps for a living - its just a matter of finding time to do it rather then looking for new pinball machines online. Its actually pretty basic in theory - and we can use googles tools for mapping and data overlay etc. to build most of it. Load the app - either search or post new location, take picture add address and submit - ask you for your username. or just do a search then it populates the map within those requirements. you could also tie it into the ipdb so that you can check out the machines you find on the map - lots of ideas, very little time

Great discussion here!

Did you know that Keeple, the company I run with my brother, does iPhone app development? We have advanced plans for a Pinside iPhone app, I will post a topic about this soon so you can all give your ideas of what it should do.

I like okidokipvd's idea although I'm not sure I would want to tie the locations to the user profiles. But it sure is a great plan to use the knowledge of Pinsiders combined. Coming soon, I promise!

Like fusion301 puts it: so many plans so little time... I really want to spend time on the Pinside but I'm so busy right now it's hard to find any time for it - I wish Pinside would be my paid day time job

Robin I did not know that - well looks like you guys got a handle on everything, either way great job on this site so Im sure the iPhone app will be good as well - If you are looking for any ideas let us know - Also have dev guys if you need them, If your looking for web dev work I have lots of that, and I need to get freelancers on it, if so PM me CSS/XHTML etc.

Thanks for the kind remarks and your offer to help out. I apreciate it! Will keep you and everone here on the forums posted about the status of the app!