I like the real kind of old school feel of using quarters. It just doesn't FEEL the same trying to stay alive & working to get a another game if it was set to free play. I do put a bowl of quarters out if kids are playing.

Yes you are right and it was a bad choice of words saying that it bogs me down. I just like things as simple as possible. Also, part of the ownership of a pinball machine is that it can be played whenever the owner chooses. I can't have free plays at the bowling alley, arcade, or pizza parlor. I can at home. THE LAST THING that I want to do, is duplicate what it is like to play at similar locations. When I buy a machine, I will not charge myself or my friends to play. I already paid for the machine once. But you are absolutely right. To each his own. As for me, I put enough quarters into a machine when I pay the asking price.

I used to joke with my buddies that I was going to turn them to quarters to pay for parts and upgrades etc....

most would still play but not cool IMO.

Would I like the money? Hell yes. But I'd rather be a nice guy and not rape my friends.
And gosh, I'd hate to think what they'd say about me as soon as I was out of earshot...

Well what do you think the change machine is for ? CAM00122.jpg

Ahhh the annual "who's a dick?" thread.

i had some bands play at my old house once and thought about charging 25 cents a play and then giving the funds to the touring bands. but i think it encouraged people to hang out, have a good time and actually stay to see the bands, so it worked out anyways.

also, i didn't have a stash of quarters and didn't want to deal with making change.

That takes all the fun of the pins being in a home collection right out of it. Having family & friends enjoy them is what it's all about not a few quarters.

Free play on the machines always but .75 turnstiles to enter and exit!

to exit? I hope you don't have a fire.

also turnstiles are easy to jump over

I could see setting one game to $1.00 and whoever got the high score on that machine, by the end of the night, wins the drop. Otherwise that's just stupid, unless your doing a charity drive or something

Now that's nostalgia, I remember putting quarters in broken machines trying to get credits on them back in the day. Then you would try to put more quarters in, all fancy, maybe with a spin or trying more than one coin slot, desperate to get a credit on it. I think I am going to switch from free play to coin play and then break the coin mechs for realism.

That is a cool idea. The issue for me would be my friends are cheap and not very good at pinball.

This is huge for kids. My kids get that you push the button once if there is one player, but their friends push all the buttons multiple times and play four player games until they are "boring" and then move on to the next game. On coin play i can ration the coins out and not have to finish up everyones games.

Yes! I always find piles of quarters in my games but no one really comes over to play them. Sometimes neighborhood kids will swing by but its usually for like 20 minutes and they get bored and leave. On holidays when we have family over I assume they know not to coin up the machines but maybe someone is out of the loop... Its kind of a mystery.

I set my machines to quarters. Actually I'm having trouble figuring out how to set my STTNG to just 1 quarter per play But, to be clear, I don't charge anyone. I keep a jar of quarters next to the games folks can use. I do it mostly for nostalgia. It just feels right dropping a quarter in a machine to play it. Plus, it's a bit like a savings account that way. I had $200 saved up in my Ms. Pac-Man I used to help pay for the repairs to my Space Duel.

Charging anyone to play, though, I do not. If they want to drop their own quarters in though, I won't stop them It's also a good way to not let, say, little kids play a game I think they might abuse. I just hide the quarters and it's a done deal.

I went to this guys house once to buy a game he had a jar for people to donate money for playing his games. The jar had a note saying that the games were very expensive and he uses the money for fixing them if they break when you are playing.

Now the funny part is the guy lived in a 300k house and his basement was packed with pins and video games he had a wall of sit down driving games that were all linked together.

I leave all my stuff on free play I even have a game at my pro shop set on free play so my customers can play while they are waiting.

Always free play. My friends pay my by enjoying and appreciating my games and hard work, and also by not placing drinks or tuna melts on my glass.

Someone needs to produce a tuna melt holder mod for pins.

Well maybe one of his acquaintances will accidentally tell the wrong person that he charges people to play games in his "arcade". Karma has a way of working it's way around. Now for the boob pics....

I set all of my machines, pins and vids, to take quarters because that's how it was when I went to arcades. I have glasses sitting around with quarters in them for people to use. I would NEVER charge people admission or to play games, that kinda defeats teh purpose of me buying them! I had someone suggest that I ask for a $5 donation to play for the night, which would fund parts and maintenance, but I think even THAT is pretty crappy. My payment is people spending their night with me playing games and recreating the arcade feel as much as possible. Trash talking, high score wars, challenges, tournaments (most of which I lose, horribly), all that is more than enough payment, IMHO.

I think many of you can agree endless free games was a childhood dream and a contributing factor of owning machines in our homes in the first place, right? Still, EVERYONE who isn't a collector seems to ask me if I charge people to play my games because these games where designed to take your money after all. Charging people is uncool...

I do like the pin fund idea though. By all means, charge yourself for the sake of more games/parts.

A friend also told me he sets quarters out so his kids don't play too much when he's not home. Great idea & a good problem to have!

EDIT: of course, I do think it's cool to use quarters/tokens in gamerooms to recreate the experience. No harm there

That's it...I'm inventing the Tunagulp.

Use the custom pricing editor in the menus.

set line 1 to $0.25 and 1 credit
The rest can be blank unless you want bonus credits for more money in or something.

I like everything set that same way. 1 game = 1 quarter. Each game gets a bucket with 100 or so quarters then when its empty time to wax or whatever, more fun than looking at a menu to see play count.

I would be embarrassed to charge for my home games. Also, I use the coinboxes to hold spare/replaced parts, goodie bag etc., so quarters in there would just mess things up. (Just had a few non-pinball guests over last night, tail end of a wedding weekend and they played nonstop for a couple of hours. Charging for the games would be a dick move, IMO.) Games on free play, beer on tap with plenty of glasses/mugs/cups, huge open bar, munchies generally on hand, self-serve after the first round! That's how we do it here. (And no charge for TP either! ) Coming to NYC? PM me if you want to stop by...

Hah using a coin jar as a maintenance reminder is a really good idea!

As far as the $0.25/play agreed. I ended up having to upgrade to the latest revision of the firmware. Fixed a few other issues, so it ended up being worth it.

Mine take coins. I pay the kids their allowance in quarters and get it all back.
To me it's a nostalgia thing from my arcade days as a kid, love coining up a game, love winning a free game and free play takes away from that.
(Knockers rule!)
Also less tempting for the kids to just hit the start button again after the first ball goes SDTM. Or start a four player game and walk away.
When I have guests over, all my pins are keyed alike, so only takes a minute to open them up and rack up a bunch of credits. Plus the coin boxes are my penny banks.
(Kid's college fund)

I've heard it joked about, but I've never seen anyone charge for home pins. If you do that, you may as well rent some cheap storefront and be an arcade. Lord knows we could use a few more locations to play.

No free play, always load mine up with service credits, just more fun imo.

I know a guy that leaves free play off on certain machines. I believe he thinks it makes him focus harder. Or something like that. It doesn't make any sense to me.

At my home, everything is on free play except for Eight Ball and Hollywood Heat. Neither have free play options (although EB could if I get an Alltek board in it).