Quoted from JBK:Not supporting pins on location is what causes them to disappear in the first place.
Not true. Pinball is what caused pinball to disappear. It is too expensive to maintain and too difficult for what it makes. When something breaks or burns out at home, you say crap, that board is gonna cost me 200 bucks to replace. On location, that board is going to cost you 200 to 400 paid plays. 400 to 800 plays if you're splitting the cash box with the location. And that doesn't include the time to drive there, or install it. In a pusher or a wheel, no big deal, but two to eight hundred plays on a pin? That's a long time to make up for. Granted, most ops will be able to repair or hack it themselves. But then they are giving away their time.
Right now I am lucky enough to have two locations near me. Both about 1.25 hours away. So that is 2.5 hours of driving to play, and I gladly do it monthly. I'll toss in 10 or 20 bucks, and then go for a nice lunch. If they were closer, I'd do it much more often. And right now one of them will be closing, and the other is having an lease issue that may force a close / move. Both of those ops do it for the love of pinball. I hope they can keep going.