Funny.

My machines are clean and working. And I've had 5 customers since noon. They've spent less than $10.

Wtf players ?

LTG : )

Yawn. If you can do better go ahead.

sad but true. of all the location pins near me there are only 3 places that I know of that keep the games clean and tuned. all the rest of the locations that have pins they are all pretty much unplayable. 2 of the locations are movie theaters and one is a bar where the one pin they have is owned and maintained by a member here.

if only I lived closer, I would be in every week.

me too

A lot of pins in the wild are shot, playfield wear is the most common. Hard to read whats left of the writing . Weak flippers and up kickers are another thing that irritate me. Especially when I'm spending more than a quarter to play.

Hah, at least your customers spent money. I still get tokens from other crap arcades jamming up my machines all the time.

You have to catch them. It's called theft of services when you call the police.

LTG : )

I'm way better off not catching them. No one would understand if they saw me kicking the crap out of some cheap ass prick over a handful of tokens. People just don't understand that it's stealing and they never will.

Should have gone to Pinballz......

your standards are just too high thats all- you get real spoiled haveing fresh tuned machines at the house you can play any moment of any day, with the freshest waxed ball and playfeild set to the rake of your chooseing.

the buisness end will seldom out preform the rabid hobbiest with ocd. there bottom line is the line.

dont get me wrong i understand your point. a grip of mine also it seems like many locals nearest me keep limited hours and often i do night shift and am a morning person.

less than 2% of my plays are in the feild for a few or theses reasons

Times have changed. I tried having pins for play, very good condition. Just a huge lack of interest by joe public, too much home entertainment & gambling.

Well, I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to video/computer/console games. Pinball is popular on the iPad...

Anyone watch Gary Stern's speech at the last pinball show? He talked about how video games have shifted to smartphones and tablets, and says he's in talks with farsight to do some sort of simultaneous release of a virtual table and the real thing to get people to play more pins on route, seeing how the price of RBION went up since it hit that app
http://pinballsoul.com/gary-stern-seminar-from-tacoma-washington

i pad? wow, i admit i never tried it so i dont really know jack- but my gut reaction is the world is really going to hell- how could that be any part of the pinball exp- to denigh one self such pleasure

Certainly not like playing a real machine, but it certainly does help learn the rules.

Wow. I've purchased most of the Pinball Arcade tables and really enjoy them. There's a zero percent chance of owning most of those games. I don't think the world is going to hell because of this.

Players would pay 50 cents a game in 1980 and 33 years later they won't pay a dollar and bitch about 75 cents. Ops can take in a dollar in a gambling machine or coin pusher in seconds with almost no maintainance or repairs.

They are really well done. Obviously the real thing is better, but it is a nice way to play a lot of games that are priced out of this world or simply no where on route to play. I play them at home on my tablet and enjoy them a lot.

I just wish they would make sure the machines are level as I recently played ACDC and Tron at different venues and both were so unlevel they were wobbling around...I actually had to level them myself so I could enjoy the game! One had some folded up cardboard under the legs on one side which looked like someone had at least made an attempt.

Earnings have steadily climbed at my location. Keep them clean and working, rotate frequently, and lots of word of mouth.

Cool. I'll send you my parts list.

You do tools too, or just parts ?

LTG : )

( am kidding, and appreciate your trying to make pinball out there better )

Pinball, on location, has been dead around here for years.

testify brother! what you said is so true. if a kid,or anyone plunks money into a game and it wont work as it should it will stay with them. they will most likely not even bother with another pinball game. to all ops,keep em clean and working. we will support you.

That's what it was like here for the past 10 years. Only takes one good location to turn that around.

One could only hope.

LTG : )

You're yelling at the wrong operators. Most of the operators than I know of here do a good job of maintaining their games. I regularly get compliments on my location games. If you're ever near Sunnyvale Cal, stop by Pizza Depot on Duane ave. I won't make any promises, but I like your chances.

Again, what good does it do to complain here? If you can't get an operator to properly clean or maintain his or her games, talk to the business owner. Business owners always want to hear how they can make more money. If talking to the owner doesn't work, don't patronize the business and don't encourage others to. When you find good a good location, feel free to let us all know here. Whining here about operators in a town thousands of miles away from where you live accomplishes nothing.

If you did indeed give parts to an op, thank you. Nice contribution to the hobby. I don't take donations outside the coin slots, but I probably should.

I have had that problem for years but finally found a solution that works for me. I finally spent the extra money to purchase IMONEX coin acceptors to stop fighting the Canadian coins, other companies tokens that would jamn the machines. The service calls are too just too expensive. Customers often do not really know what is in there pockets as they just reach in and put the coin in the machine. A positive that has happened is I now get 40 to 70 dollars a week in quarters in the places I only take tokens so the switch will pay for itself sooner and with less service calls I am also saving time and money.

In a word, ^^This guy^^ knows how to run machines on location. They are maintained better than most private collections.

Exactly! Many people simply don't know what they are putting in or even how to press the start button. A bummer to hear them being called thieves when most of the time people have no clue. And to wonder why the decline in the industry....

The World Academy for the Regulation of Pinball (WARP) give awards to diligent, concienscious operators, awarding their loyalty to our four legged friends. Pinball Operators Verification (POV) randomly issue on the spot tickets to ride to operators with their head in the coin box. God bless operators - please keep doing a good job.

Should have a debit card swiper on pins nowadays.....If anyone uses that idea I claim 5% royalties on each transaction.

Hmmm Sixth street Austin TX. I will have to send a friend in and find the owner and try to buy those machines from him! Thanx for the tip LOL

Agreed! Not overly tough to do. Hit the phone jack and go go go! I don't carry quarters at all. Weighs me down! At the very least needs a bill acceptor, but that seems to be highly uncommon as well.

You can definitely tell the successful ops though. They have clean games that work, bill collectors etc. And when you meet them you can tell as well

Pinball is too expensive and complicated to maintain. A crane machine, arcade machine, a jukebox, pretty much anything else coin operated brings in more money and is easier to maintain.

Ironically pinball is also simultaneously too expensive and too cheap to play. A newbie puts in 50 cents and plays for one minute and thinks it's too expensive while a better player pays 50 cents and plays for 10 minutes, not including the replay.

Places like arcade bars where the income comes from alcohol and food is the future. Then the cost of machines and maintenance is worth it.

See Seattle... perfect example, "oh, $2.00 Rainier Tall-boys... I'm in for at least $10 on pins over 30min, plus cost of said booze (and ice cream if needed)"...."Oh, pizza and cheap beer at Dorky's...plus a chit ton of pins (minus the one bad apple emo/hipster staffer with a chitty attitude)!?!?! I'm in!"

Full-Tilt, Ballard, Highly recommend it! Dorky's Barcade, also awesome, but not as on point as Full-Tilt - both places though keep their pins in awesome shape for being on route.

the place near me owns it's own pins and they ALWAYS have issues. Sometimes there minor and you let the op know when you see him working on one but he never seems to fix them or care. No other locations close to this place so not like I can go elsewhere.

My point didn't quite come across correctly. I took over an arcade because there was no place to play quality pinball in my area. I listened to your complaint from others for years and did something about it. Complaining doesn't help. If you have the knowledge, skill, and dedication to run and maintain an arcade then I say go for it.

Thank you.

I also switched to Imonex mechs. They are very good. I use .900 tokens and these mechs also accept quarters. The problem is the larger .984 tokens from other arcades can still cause problems because no one knows how to push the reject button when they get stuck.

Great idea but cost prohibitive. There are systems now to put card readers on arcade games. You get a card at the desk and buy any amount of credits you want. Each card reader is about $125. I have 25 machines so That would be over $3000 plus whatever else the rest of the system costs. If the price comes down I would do it. Right now it's still too expensive to make sense for me.

I just did a service call for a home customer that had Theatre Of Magic on his ipad. Told me word for word he would seek these games out to play if he didn't have the app on his phone to play for free.

here in NYC we 're lucky enough to have 3 ops who are on top of it.Pinaholic,bigehrl,and Max keep there games tweaked and running.Does stuff still break?Of course but they are pretty quick with repairs and replacements.Scott

EVERY local pin to me has issues. Weak flippers, broken features, levels out to one side, the list goes on.

I own ToM because I played it on ipad first.

Seek out and buy a machine are far different things. I wouldn't buy a ToM for a couple reasons. One, I can't afford it, two, it's kinda boring after awhile. Although, if one were on route around me I would seek it out and play it.

If a guy has the liquid cash, loves the game on the iPad and doesn't buy it, he's probably not a pinhead.