A lot of people have games at home because lack of pins to play in their area disappeared, or weren't kept up.

Once habits changed, they are hard to change. Even if there are pins to play near you that are kept up.

LTG : )

My local spot is about an hour away. We try to go there at least once a month. I'd go more often if it was closer. It's never busy, so kinda feels like my own private game room. I hope they are profitable.

We own 20 games and we still like to get out and play/support. We have some great locations around cleveland, so that helps.

My local spots in Tacoma, WA are about 30 minutes away without traffic, so I only go up about once a week. But when I'm there, I typically drop $15-$20 not including refreshments and food.

Second last time I played on location, family guy, jackex up so far at the back to be unplayable

Last time, new venue , but the four games were EMs from the late sixties, early seventies. Obviously from someone collection, two were fun the other two not so much

Not too many options in my area. Of the few location pins that exist, most are sadly neglected.

Sadly, pinside people don't go out to support pinball on location. Operators wish they did.

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Absolutely.
No poll required.
Ground Kontrol, Quarterworld, The Coin Jam and others.
Dozens of locations locally.
I will be at PRGE tomorrow that has both as a measure of support.

Operators, owners, and collectors are a symbiotic relationship regardless of market changes.
Many collectors were or are operators that provide the experience for technical knowledge and repairs.

Not many options around here...but there are a few that I will go play.

The coin jam weekly. Great well maintained pins from an owner who cares, great staff at the bar, good food.

I agree that Chicago Street Pinball Arcade is awesome! My work schedule/family life doesn't line up as often as I like but we try to get out there as often as we can AND it's about 15 minutes away from our house.
Plus it's great for families which is rare for a location with even half the number of pins around here. My daughter even had her 9th birthday party there a couple of weeks ago and it was a hit.
Most other location games I stumble on are in sorry shape however I normally throw some quarters in when I find them.

I go to Arnie's Playland when I'm in Bethany Beach and play the couple of machines they have even though they are in need of maintenance. This past August the Jack-Bot played reasonably well but the other machine (RBION, I think) was pretty much unplayable because of a very weak flipper. There's a deli walking distance from me that has TSPP... I used to play it but it's just in miserable condition so I don't put money into it anymore. Really sad to see that Simpsons. Maybe I'll walk over tomorrow and take a picture.

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Pinball 2000 H+V video sync converter kit

Absolutely do. Son and I cruise over to Phoenix games in Concord CA to drop quarters a few hours every month. Their primarily biz is console games and support a nice selection of classic B/W and newer Sterns in back. Very well maintained and a treasure as we've considered games to eventually own at home.
Win-win.

I play my games weekly on route, I help place games for friends, I play other operators games in the area, I do support on some of their games as well and run local tournaments.

Not supporting pins on location is what causes them to disappear in the first place. Every time I spot a pin in the wild I drop a couple of quarters and give it a spin.

There are precisely zero local operators near me.

not as much as I would like to. 3 good locations near me. all 3 at the other side of the city. 2 are a bear to find parking. but the ops are active in the community and members here so I get out at least once a month and drop some coins. all of them keep the games in very good working order.

Most of the last remaining sited pins in my area are single unkept machines pushed into a back unlit corner of the local pubs, so you really have to be committed to hunting them down in order to play.

It's a bit of a vicious circle scenario, ops won't maintain them as they don't make coin, and players won't put coin into them as they aren't maintained.

7 weeks it took for this to be fixed from the date of notification to the operator and I am only a 10 minute drive from the State capital and their office/workshop. In the meantime the coinbox took nothing.

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I do, usually try to bring some friend with as well. It's nice to get out of the house and try some different pins.

I had to pick " never " . . .

. . . there aren't / ain't any up here.

Balacade still rocks, but not open again 'til spring now.

Mr Gone, is a great supporter to our local locations as well as the northbay/Sac pinheads. As always thank you.
Harley D.

What ultimately gets me on location are Leagues or Tournaments. Colorado has a lot of great locations, and the operators do a good job scheduling leagues and tournaments that do not conflict with each other. It means that within an hour drive of me there are 2-3 events every week. If someone says they like pinball and the are not taking advantage of that, they don't actually like pinball.

I live in a rural touristy area. Nearly all pins on route are B/W, generally in fair to poor condition. Lots of pins on location, but most locations have only one machine. Nearly all are horribly maintained. GI lights burnt out, pop bumpers inoperable, slingshots inoperable & flippers inoperable. Playfields rarely if ever cleaned. The last time I played MSF on route, one of the balls got hopelessly stuck BEHIND one of the slingshots. I know one of the techs that works for the area OPS. It boils down to $$$. The high $$$ profit comes from the illegal video gambling machines. Nearly every bar, bowling alley & gas stations have 5 of the illegal video games on there premises. Redemption machines (cranes) by far the next biggest coin drop. Pinball machines way down the list as far as weekly coin drop. Seemingly, area OPS have little desire to have fully maintained pins on location given there meager return. Seems the hours dedicated to pin maintenance are directly related to coin drop...which isn't much.
I'm convinced the future of route pinball in rural areas......looks grim.

Went to the local bowling alley last night to see what was there. Typically there is always 1 pin in good condition at this location. Last time I was there, a Walking Dead was on site. Last night, a Star Trek pro. I put a few dollars in it and enjoyed it.

I travel with work frequently, and seek out pinball when I travel, but not much to get excited about locally.

I am pretty blessed to be in a gregarious pinball Mecca. Seattle has so many locations and we have a ton of tournaments to go to every week. Usually I get out two to three times a week even though I have a couple of great games at home. Support your local operators!

The only 2 pins on location in my town are my pins. Which leaves me with an interesting conundrum... if I go play my pins at the pub, I never know if there's someone across the room wishing the pins were open so they could play. I don't want to prevent someone else (maybe even a first-time player) from having an opportunity to play. I go to service and clean them every Sunday morning as soon as the pub opens and no one is around, I usually play a game or two on each for quality control and that's when I get to play them.

I played on location exclusively when I lived in Denver, now I'm "forced" to own machines because the local scene is dismal. I do like the ability to play at a moments notice but I could easily get over that. When I get back home I always go drop some quarters at 1up or in Lyons.

Too bad you left before the remodel of the 1up Colfax (the 2up). It is fantastic and they should be applauded for all the hard work that went into it.

Hyperspace arcade in Lakewood is also a great new location with a dedicated owner who knows what she is doing.

I have to! And I'm glad there are lots around here because I wouldn't have gotten into the hobby otherwise. No location play = no new pinheads, presumably.

Yeah, it fell off mid game whilst I was playing and landed in the middle of the playfield. The operator took so long to follow up the service call I made that when I returned next time it was like that.

And yes, it still has the shattered Sandman plastic with Sandy now attached by black cable ties. LOL.

Where is this Hyperspace arcade located and what do they have there? I'll have to check it out. My friends and I usually go to the 1up downtown or Colfax atleast once a month, so yes I do support local operators.

Arcade Legacy Bar Edition in Cincinnati, OH Pins are under a buck to play with multi buy specials and arcades are free to play.

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.

There's a great place close to my house in Burlington VT. Ran by a great group of guys and there pins are all well taken care of. I play there in league weekly and try to support them (as well as other local spots with pins) as much as I can. It's called the pinball co-op if your ever in the area you got to check it out!

We have a pinball bar that opened this year. I come by once a month or so and they even have a couple games I have but I enjoy hanging out with others that are interested too. In fact they are about to hav a tourney in an hour and are even considering starting a league night. Here's a pic of the two pins that are in the tourney. They give away translites as prizes. If you ever go through Lubbock check out flippers.

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Fuck yes I do