(Topic ID: 221524)
This topic is closed.
Let's say an average game lasts two minutes. At 25 cents a game, it would take 3.33 hours to break even.
Toronto, ON
I notice a couple of other marquees are lit up in the back, so it's not just the nintendo.
I do have to say, this place really gives me an old school arcade feel - it's dark, half the shit is broken and everything is dirty. Plus the change guy looks like a carnie.
I compare everything to Roanoke Pinball Museum, which charged me 12 dollars all day. It may have went up since last Fall but what a deal! 25 for Eurphrata? Nah, twice as high.
Quoted from brucipher:Let's say an average game lasts two minutes. At 25 cents a game, it would take 3.33 hours to break even.
Well yeah, he didn't say how MANY minutes. You didn't guess 200?
To be honest, I had to reread it like 3 times before I got what he meant....
I kept reading it as the games BREAK in minutes. I really DID; And didn't understand why he would post that at first.
New York, NY
I don’t really have a problem with his hourly / daily pricing structure it’s good for a place like that.
And you don’t have to mess with coin mechs. Turning a game to free play can be a million times easier than getting coin mechs right if they are messed up enough, plus you need the mechs etc.
Roanoke sounds insanely cheap! Will have to roll through next time.
Quoted from brucipher:Let's say an average game lasts two minutes. At 25 cents a game, it would take 3.33 hours to break even.
Doesn't he have newer games that he charges 75 cents or $1 for?
The bizarre part is that you know he wrote that about himself. 
Why do I always read his posts with a pompous voice in my head? 
Quoted from Electrocute:Good morning. Steven and his “magic wand”. My imagination is running wild on that one. Something about his site keeps me going back for more laughs.
[quoted image]
Good lord, he deserves a medal for fixing his own game.
4a9f26_7152656~2 (resized).jpg
You have to respect this kid for getting a business going at his age. But boy pissing so many people off in the process and having a total lack of recognition of his behavior will not serve him well long term. Karma has a way of kicking ones ass eventually unless you get very very lucky. And delusions of grandeur usually causes one to make very bad decisions going forward in life. A simple few well placed “sorry”s would have gone a long way towards not setting a pile of good will ablaze. Unfortunately recognition that you have screwed up seems to be one of the hardest skills for people to acquire.
Quoted from Pablito350:The bizarre part is that you know he wrote that about himself. Why do I always read his posts with a pompous voice in my head?
No idea which, but that might have been posted by his girlfriend.
The level of admiration might be worse that way.
Quoted from RCA1:No idea which, but that might have been posted by his girlfriend.
The level of admiration might be worse that way.
Snagging a babe while wearing only sweatpants is no easy task. That soldering iron is a magic wand alright .... of love ! ❤️
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Snagging a babe while wearing only sweatpants is no easy task. That soldering iron is a magic wand alright .... of love ! ❤️
“Years of arcade repair under his belt” in sweatpants?
Quoted from Electrocute:“Years of arcade repair under his belt” in sweatpants?
“Years of arcade repair under his sagging elastic waistband“ doesn’t have the same ring to it.
As to these GoFundMe(s), I’ll be honest, I just don’t get it for a business. First, most wont bring even close to what the business needs to bring in a week to meet basic costs. So while perhaps temporary refuge, if the business model is broken, it’s broken. Second, it’s at basic odds for a business since it’s charity for a for-profit business. It just looks bad. I don’t mind asking for people to come in sooner rather than later and providing something in return. But the “just give me money because you like me” wears thin quickly and probably generates more harm than good will for the business long term. Just look at this thread for example of that. If my good will translates into you making money off my donation, yeah it’s gonna piss anyone off.
I agree with pookycade ... I had posted earlier in this thread that while a G.F.M. sounds tempting it doesn't feel right for a business that has assets they can sell to stay afloat.
That being said, my pinball lounge traffic is way, way down, so I might have to start selling some stuff.
Anybody want to buy 1,000 t-shirts? 
Screenshot_20200712-173549_Gallery (resized).jpgScreenshot_20200712-173633_Gallery (resized).jpgQuoted from crazypinballguy:I agree with pookycade ... I had posted earlier in this thread that while a G.F.M. sounds tempting it doesn't feel right for a business that has assets they can sell to stay afloat.
That being said, my pinball lounge traffic is way, way down, so I might have to start selling some stuff.
Anybody want to buy 1,000 t-shirts? [quoted image][quoted image]
Do you sell matching sweatpants? 
Quoted from RCA1:No idea which, but that might have been posted by his girlfriend.
The level of admiration might be worse that way.
That is pure Steven!
Quoted from Electrocute:Or is it the entire staff.
Steven and his girlfriend are the entire staff
I agree with o e off the above posts.
I give the kid credit! He is trying to love his dream! I wish I would have done that!!
He gets bashed a lot for reasonable purposes, however he is giving it a shot.
I am not at all defending him though.
I have been reading these threads about him since day one. The GoFundMe stuff is all a joke.
He comes off in his message as an arrogant ass who is smarter than the average Joe!
I would love to see his “magic wand” skills as I went to school for 6 months to learn how to properly solder electronics and have been for 25 years.
His years of experience doesn’t even come close to most of the people on here, including myself I never ran a route but I fixed my fair share of machines helping people just for the satisfaction of keeping them running.
However as they say, as they say about publicity none is bad!!
Meaning I almost want to drive 3 hours to go see this train wreck.
And when he says “magic wand” I pray he is talking about a soldering iron and not something else!!
Quoted from Bull:I agree with o e off the above posts.
I give the kid credit! He is trying to love his dream! I wish I would have done that!!
He gets bashed a lot for reasonable purposes, however he is giving it a shot.
I am not at all defending him though.
I have been reading these threads about him since day one. The GoFundMe stuff is all a joke.
He comes off in his message as an arrogant ass who is smarter than the average Joe!
I would love to see his “magic wand” skills as I went to school for 6 months to learn how to properly solder electronics and have been for 25 years.
His years of experience doesn’t even come close to most of the people on here, including myself I never ran a route but I fixed my fair share of machines helping people just for the satisfaction of keeping them running.
However as they say, as they say about publicity none is bad!!
Meaning I almost want to drive 3 hours to go see this train wreck.
And when he says “magic wand” I pray he is talking about a soldering iron and not something else!!
having clocked many many hours under eye loupe or microscope soldering, when he can properly change out 0402 SMD components by hand with his "magic wand", then I'll be impressed.
Although.....now that I think about it....a tiny magic wand or requiring digital microscopes to handle the work may not wind up sounding all that impressive 
Never mind; Now that I think of it that way, I'm gonna go bust out an Ungar like 200 watter!! 
Quoted from electricsquirrel:I'm pretty sure there's a silent one with cash, too.
A staff member he doesn't talk about.
Kinda has to be. That number of games is a not insignificant outlay of cash. Well over standard 1 year of wages. You know he didn’t get a bank loan. Convinced his family to take out a second mortgage maybe ? Chutzpah is one thing. Having the smarts to survive a cataclysmic shift in your business will be quite another. So when your revenue doesn’t meet your business rent, utilities costs or your own personal living expenses whatcha gonna do ? He had better hope luck is on his side since I think the days of having others pitch in for free are pretty much over here. That’s a lot of human capital he decided to quickly waste right there and no gofundme is gonna make up for its loss.
Quoted from pacmanretro:having clocked many many hours under eye loupe or microscope soldering, when he can properly change out 0402 SMD components by hand with his "magic wand", then I'll be impressed.
Although.....now that I think about it....a tiny magic wand or requiring digital microscopes to handle the work may not wind up sounding all that impressive
Never mind; Now that I think of it that way, I'm gonna go bust out an Ungar like 200 watter!!
Agree fully. Having a roll of solder and working on a G07 chassis does not take a “magic wand”. How do I know, because I’m an electrical engineer and can do it easily. But working on that SMD stuff. Damn don’t even try anymore, it’s too hard for me to have the patience to not swear up a storm. And as to his amazing skills at fixing stuff .... I strongly suspect his ability to do board level diagnostics and repair is about zero.
Quoted from Pablito350:The bizarre part is that you know he wrote that about himself. Why do I always read his posts with a pompous voice in my head?
Yeah like Robin Leach is the Narrator.
Quoted from Electrocute:Looks like he’s suggesting Pac Man should chip in. Dreaming about money maybe?
[quoted image]
Or getting his fix of power pellets.
Quoted from Atari_Daze:Hmn, that looks dangerously close to copyright infringement against Supreme?[quoted image][quoted image]
No one will ever think that Steven’s arcade is supreme.
Quoted from bluespin:No one will ever think that Steven’s arcade is supreme.
Supreme Donations, Inc.
Quoted from pookycade:Kinda has to be. That number of games is a not insignificant outlay of cash. Well over standard 1 year of wages. You know he didn’t get a bank loan. Convinced his family to take out a second mortgage maybe ? Chutzpah is one thing. Having the smarts to survive a cataclysmic shift in your business will be quite another. So when your revenue doesn’t meet your business rent, utilities costs or your own personal living expenses whatcha gonna do ? He had better hope luck is on his side since I think the days of having others pitch in for free are pretty much over here. That’s a lot of human capital he decided to quickly waste right there and no gofundme is gonna make up for its loss.
Quoted from pookycade:And as to his amazing skills at fixing stuff .... I strongly suspect his ability to do board level diagnostics and repair is about zero.
Quoted from Electrocute:Looks like he’s suggesting Pac Man should chip in. Dreaming about money maybe?
[quoted image]
Quoted from Atari_Daze:Hmn, that looks dangerously close to copyright infringement against Supreme?[quoted image][quoted image]
I see we are really grasping at straws here now... this thread seems so painfully boring I decided to come back and say hi, I guess I had one activation left, and I know you missed me Come on guys, I thought you were better than what this has divulged to! Supreme copyright infringement?! That was me being lazy and using Facebook's default font and background on their photo editor. 
Pac-Man handing money to somebody? C'mon Electrocute, you gotta know that was weak. These jokes aren't even good anymore... I'm really starting to get disappointed!
There's no secret third staff member conspiracy, no secret mortgage, nobody else paying the bills, nobody else on the lease, no business loan, business has never run at a loss (or even close) or just for a hobby, no other repairmen, no secret funder behind my collection of games, yadda yadda, sorry guys. I'm a bit disappointed that the fact that I did what I said I was going to do, and have continued to do so for over a year with large success, has you all jumping to tinfoil hats and conspiracy theories rather than just manning up and admitting I did it and did it well (the thread poll didn't age well). Laaaaame. Not only did I do well, I did really well, which allowed me to buy all those lovely games we are now making conspiracy theories about! Go figure. 
Can't you guys at least own up to it? C'mon now boys. At least hold your end of the bargain.
We actually celebrated our one year anniversary of being open on June 29th, it was a good time! Rather than continuing to post asking for pictures or news like it's some covert operation, why not just stop in and play some games and check out the updates? I don't bite. No hard feelings. Almost none of you have visited personally (sans CoinDork!), but make many comments. Come say hi!
We are up to almost 100 dedicated cabinets as of very recently (finished a ton of projects over quarantine, basically free since I bought all the parts months/years ago and put them in the cabinets like a queue - I got really spendy last summer since I could easily afford to, it was a fun time), spending a lot of any free time upgrading things - working on a full LED retrofit for the marquee lights at the moment, hence why I stopped chasing the bulbs for a bit. Thankfully bought all those supplies pre-COVID. Lots of LED strip soldering behind the scenes driving me crazy.
Hope you're all healthy & well during these terrible times. I look forward to a positive, friendly, and relaxing return to Pinside... because why not, apparently I had one left activation left in the tubes, didn't realize! 
Trying to squeeze them in one photo. Arcade selection (not shown, too many pictures required) is the brunt of the numbers, really heavy in that department. Getting up around 100 individual cabinets now and over 100 games (JAMMA switchers, etc.) already. It's been a fantastic and very fruitful year. Unfortunately nobody saves up for the end of the world, but I'm glad to be getting back to normal around here. Decent crowd every day of the week, can't complain... starting to feel like summertime!
You are turning on EMs?
Kinda surprised you’d reject your first love like that!
On a side note: absolutely shocked you are back! Didn’t see it coming. Well welcome back the thread just isn’t the same without you.
I see Steve has adopted our patented trade marked trough lighting system on the space shuttle! )just kidding...no patent but we DID do it first! Todd
Quoted from toddtuckey:I see Steve has adopted our patented trade marked trough lighting system on the space shuttle! )just kidding...no patent but we DID do it first! Todd
I bought it like that, I promise, my friend!!!!! Otherwise I would have had to pay royalties
Came from a really high end private collection. Nice games there. It's so nice, I think he was surprised I would put it in public. I'm a little nuts for doing it, but it's held up well. I can attest the hardtops hold up exceptionally well under heavy play. Gotta check audits one of these days.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:You are turning on EMs?
Kinda surprised you’d reject your first love like that!
On a side note: absolutely shocked you are back! Didn’t see it coming. Well welcome back the thread just isn’t the same without you.
A little bit. My wedgehead collection and hanging with Vic Camp the Wedgehead king (whom I hope is doing well) will always be a special time in my life, because I learned a lot and had a lot of fun, and took a lot of pride in those things. EMs are still great and I'll always have them here. I was held back for so long by budget (aka EM territory) it's been nice to expand my surroundings with the arcade opening and it doing well to have the budget to do so. Getting really into DMD stuff lately. Unfortunately so is everybody else. Not really getting out of EMs, just finally able to get into everything else.
Rebuilt the flippers on my Getaway the other night (fully LED'd it earlier this year) and have really loved getting some games in after close.
I think I'll get more into EMs whenever we move to a bigger space and I can really go all out on them like I did in my private collection... I only get my kicks with them if I have a lot of them, and right now space is better used with other games, quality over quantity (but still a lot of quantity). People like them, but in a way that you really only need two or three to get the point across... otherwise the customers are solid-state maniacs all the way. A lot of people don't look deeper than knocking the ball around and loving it, anyways. We cater a lot to laymen rather than collectors right now... just how I like to do it. Locals frequent more, so I focus on them, unlike a lot of arcades who seem collector-based. That outlook has done really well for me. It's kind of fun too, because you get a lot of people in here that would rather play Gorgar than Getaway and stuff like that... changes it up, laymen are awesome.
I was on track to buy a new Stern (ideally TMNT) until shit hit the fan (of course it all went to expenses and food... pizza power IRL), but with all the hardware hub-bub I'm seeing on TMNT I'm glad I held off anyways. Code can't fix some of the things I'm hearing. Maybe in a year things will be back to normal and they'll have later revisions. Although with all fairness to Stern I've been too busy to really inform myself on the upset, so maybe it's a big nothing burger... no clue.
First and foremost pay rent, pay utilities, get some savings back, pay Boob (even though nobody's talking about it anymore, it's something I'm really holding myself to and think about often - Randy is an awesome and generous guy), do some charitable stuff, then keep living the dream.
Okay, there is oooooone little thing I'd like to get out of the way before bed and a nice blissful return...
Quoted from SilverballSleuth:Seeing Otaku in the TNT videos - I have to turn them off. Knowing what he’s done to our community and all.
I've been thinking - isn't this a little ironic of a thread for you to be chiming in on so often? We're both 22, and you act more like me when I was 16. I actually think you've done a really great job of filling my shoes while I was gone... actually, I think you trumped me... maybe even trumped Kaneda... that downvote ratio IS extremely gnarly (and way worse than even yours truly's, not to mention mainly when I was years younger than you are now)... and your reputation is leaking so badly I've heard bad things about you before even coming back to the site just now, which is pretty bad. Many have said you're the Otaku times two, and I have to agree... actually it kind of makes ME look bad.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/im-leaving-pinside
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-believe-ive-made-a-terrible-mistake
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-forgot-to-ask-my-wife-and-other-tales-from-the-dumpster
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/buyer-beware-kd-pinball-brypten-on-pinside-bryan-j-in-portland-ct (And I thought my old PBR rant was cringy)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/can-my-floor-support-a-pinball-machine-collection
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-bad-i-ruin-my-game-please-help-stern-monopoly
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-enthusiasts-18-30-y-o
This one's my favorite: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-does-one-make-pinball-a-living
That is only a very select few from your very colorful post history others have alerted me to.
Think what you want, but maaaaaaaybe it's time to stop replying to this thread, Moberg. I am hanging out with the exact people you idolize (who are laughing at your corny and immature conduct on this thread, maybe you should re-evaluate that video reply you got earlier in the thread on your childish "I will never watch those videos I am so upset!" comment) and make my living every day doing what you are asking others for help on how to do. Just stop, especially because you're not out here doing what I am, you're just wanting to. And have some half-decent self-awareness for goodness sakes.
Okay, okay, I promise... peace on Earth now!
Quoted from Otaku:Okay, there is oooooone little thing I'd like to get out of the way before bed and a nice blissful return...
I've been thinking - isn't this a little ironic of a thread for you to be chiming in on so often? We're both 22, and you act more like me when I was 16. I actually think you've done a really great job of filling my shoes while I was gone... actually, I think you trumped me... maybe even trumped Kaneda... that downvote ratio IS extremely gnarly (and way worse than even yours truly's, not to mention mainly when I was years younger than you are now)... and your reputation is leaking so badly I've heard bad things about you before even coming back to the site just now, which is pretty bad. Many have said you're the Otaku times two, and I have to agree... actually it kind of makes ME look bad.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/im-leaving-pinside
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-believe-ive-made-a-terrible-mistake
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-forgot-to-ask-my-wife-and-other-tales-from-the-dumpster
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/buyer-beware-kd-pinball-brypten-on-pinside-bryan-j-in-portland-ct (And I thought my old PBR rant was cringy)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/can-my-floor-support-a-pinball-machine-collection
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-bad-i-ruin-my-game-please-help-stern-monopoly
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-enthusiasts-18-30-y-o
This one's my favorite: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-does-one-make-pinball-a-living
Think what you want, but maaaaaaaybe it's time to stop replying to this thread, Moberg. I am hanging out with the exact people you idolize (who are laughing at your conduct, maybe you should re-evaluate that video reply you got earlier in the thread) and make my living every day doing what you are asking others for help on how to do. Just stop, and have some half-decent self-awareness for goodness sakes.
Okay, okay, I promise... peace on Earth now!
You promised us peace on earth a little while ago when you were supposedly leaving for good.
Quoted from yzfguy:You promised us peace on earth a little while ago when you were supposedly leaving for good.
It'll be my LEAST EXCITING return yet... I promise. 
It'll be so boring and uneventful it'll put you to sleep, I'm sure. I'm actually excited to donate again and check out the new-to-me pinball biz stuff that was added to the site (quite long ago now).
This topic is closed.
Reply
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!
Donate to PinsideGreat to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
