Hey there, pinkid

My name is Josh and I'm in charge of maintenance at BumperNets in Birmingham, AL.

I'm sorry to hear you had this experience at our location. As far as the balls stuck, I think you're talking about our Strikes and Spares (which I picked up on Monday), while I was out on a service call, one of the rubber plastic holders fell off and got a ball stuck. If you bring it to an employees attention, they always give your money back, and typically will put the machine out of order until I can take a look at it.

If a machine has weak flippers, please let me know, so I can rebuild them! I only have so much time, so I typically take a little bit to get to things like that on a game until they are brought to my attention. We have a lot of games go down each day, and I typically triage them based on whether or not I can get them on and taking coins first, so things like that sometimes slip through the cracks with all the fires to put out.

As far as the coin mechs, yes, please let me know! I can swap those out, but only if I know about them! We've got a big arcade, and it seems like there is always something breaking, so sometimes going around and checking every coin mech by hand isn't the most convenient. As far as the replay cards, that's totally on me. I need to fix that. I guess I never see it as that big of a problem? I do need to fix that though. Thanks!

A lot of these adjustments I know how to do, it's just a matter of priority and time. We have an active pinball league, and a good selection of players, whose feedback we care a lot about. I do this job because I love the hobby, and I love the business. Pinball is what I love, and I want to make sure as many people as possible are able to love it in the same way that I do, which means working machines.

As far as the new Home Edition Spiderman, it's there because we sell home models! If you had asked a sales person, we would have opened it up and popped a few games on there for you to try. I have the start button disabled because I can't monetize it, it's already been sold, and I don't want it to get worn out from a lot of play!

As far as our team, they do a lot more than just count quarters. They may not do many repairs, but they each have a special role in the organization that we run. They do marketing, they do sales, logistics, and customer support. I couldn't do my job without them.

At the moment, I'm the only tech at this location (a little over a hundred games and amusements total), and many locations in the Birmingham area that we maintain service contracts with, so as one person, I'm stretched a little thin, which is okay, but sometimes it leads to issues slipping through the cracks like this, not to downplay them in the slightest.

I do personally apologize for the experience that you had and if you ever feel like you'd like to come back and see us, I'll give you some quarters to play some games on us.

I'll come in a little early today and hop right on these issues, I appreciate you bringing them to my attention.

Best Regards,
Josh
Service Manager
BumperNets Inc
205-563-3673 (That's my cell, if you'd like to call me up and chat!)

I would like to say that although I do not work at BumperNets, I do run the Magic City Pinball League there as I have done since 2009. They always do a good job of fixing things that we bring to their attention. Some games are in better shape than others. The ones mentioned, Strikes and Spares and Mata Hari have not been there very long. Especially SAS which has only been there for a few days. Sometimes it takes experienced players playing the machines to discover things that don't work right. Things that the average Joe just dropping a few quarters in would never notice. The staff up front have a log book so if you ever run into a problem just tell them the game and the specific problem and they will record it and will get it fixed/adjusted.

Being a location with over 30 pins, you will find that 2 or 3 will always be down. That's just the nature of location pinball. As Josh mentioned, his time is spread thin and I feel that he does a great job with the pins considering the amount of time he is afforded. Several of the league players(myself included) sometimes do simple repairs like fixing a stuck spinner, stuck ball, loose ball trough connectors, leveling, etc.

Another thing to keep in mind is that their core business is a retail location and arcade play is a secondary offering. The S-M home edition has no coin mechs, although they have been gracious enough to put free credits on it a few times to let us try it out. It's actually a decent little game but not nearly as good as the original Stern S-M.

Eighty miles is a pretty long distance to drive, but I encourage you to come join us for a launch party held on Friday evenings or BumperNets Pinball Blast tourney held on Sunday afternoons. Lots of pinball players and collectors to meet!