Stern, JJP, American, Spooky, and everyone else...I implore you. Please make the steepness of your games idiot proof.
Operators who rely on the built-in bubble level when setting up will generally end up with flat games. Lots of possibilities: Maybe the level wasn't installed perfectly from the factory? Maybe it's an older game and the level has shifted within the holder? Maybe it's the fact that there are 2-4 lines on the level, as well as a top and bottom edge of the air bubble itself, so it's not entirely clear what goes where?
I've seen games from at least 3-4 major operators in my area with THE BACK LEGS COMPLETELY DOWN. Consistently. This happens with NIB games on the show floor that are there for the purpose of getting people to buy these games. Someone who played Iron Maiden for the first time told me it was "a lot slower and less exciting" than he expected. Sure enough, the back legs were all the way down. He later played a different copy with the legs almost all the way up, and loved it!
I've seen people walk up to my games on location, look at the bubble level, and mansplain to their friend: "see, this game isn't level" and move on without having actually played it...BECAUSE THE BUBBLE LEVEL DIDN'T MATCH THEIR EXPECTATIONS. I've had someone tell me to my face that they wouldn't play a game of mine because "it wasn't level" using the same logic. The game in question was 1000% level side to side (and probably 7-7.5% steep), but they had a bad game and blamed it on the position of the 1/8th inch air bubble in a tiny plastic tube sitting near the shooter rod.
In numerous instances, I've found games of mine on location where SOMEONE JACKED THE FRONT LEGS ALL THE WAY UP. The first few times this happened, I assumed it was because people were cheating, ie: wanting to make their games last as long as possible by making the game really flat. Eventually I discovered that the bubbles were always perfectly centered between the lines when this had been done. What was happening is that a customer would look at the bubble level, decide that the game wasn't level, and then jack up the front legs until the bubble ended up where they thought it should be. In some cases, they ended up doing one leg differently than the other, resulting in an extremely un-level game side to side. Oh, the irony.
And don't get me started on side to side leveling. This one is even more of a slam dunk in terms of idiot proofing because while some people like to set up games with varying degrees of steepness, every game should always be level side to side at all times. (As much as I hate the bubble level, it might nice to have one for side to side lean, rather than one for steepness only).
I'm 100% certain that location games would play better if the bubble levels were removed completely. Replace it with a marking on the feet threads (for the back legs) that would put the game around 6.5% on a level floor and call it a day. Or better yet, ship the game with two legs labeled "back" and have those both marked and already set (identically) to the approximate steepness...the steepness that the game was designed to be played at.
Quit making the default leg/bubble settings a poor gameplay experience. Who's with me???