Quite a lot to read there

I appreciate you sharing details of course.

I wish you success, as this can only help to grow the hobby.

At least I gave him something to do.

I’ll say it again, that place needs mannequins. Every picture looks empty.

The “tens of thousands waiting to comeback” quote was a good one. But tell me, how many Google reviews did you delete? You only have 83 left. Less than 0.83% percent of your customers are left to leave a review? My guess is your customers didn’t think too much of the place or your exaggerating the numbers. Or maybe you’re just pretty damn good at deleting reviews.

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I try not to focus too much on people in any photos for privacy reasons (or as little as possible), unless I know them and they're cool with it. A lot of times I'll wait to grab photos of games until they aren't occupied, or before/after business hours, like the photos I put in the thread yesterday.

Reviews are an interesting thing, people typically don't leave them unless they are fuming about something in any business. Most people don't leave many good reviews for anywhere in general. I never ask. I'm actually quite happy with the feedback and large consistency of 5 star reviews on Google and Facebook (especially post being brand new), the number is less important.

Good crowd in here right now. Also just went out to grab dinner and got a guy pulling over to me on the sidewalk in his car asking what time I close tonight, so plus a few for tonight I guess. Works for me.

We get a lot of people coming in and I am really a social media/advertising expert so we get people coming in no problem (I think a lot of people, especially older folks, struggle in that department, I think it's a nice bonus of the age - social media is like second nature). It is not uncommon for us, in full honesty, to pull a bigger salary than if I were a surgeon per month (when not in COVID of course)

Umm.... you serious?

Any comments I ever left or questions I asked on Facebook always got deleted.

The weekend is young, keep us rolling!

The answer is yes. He is completely serious. He thinks he pulls in 25K per month. Or else he thinks surgeons make 2K per month. One of those two.

Everytime I swear I'm gonna tap out, he pulls another one of his "facts" out of thin air.

From ReviewTracker:

Yelp ratings breakdown. 68 percent of the millions of reviews on Yelp are 4- and 5-star reviews. Approximately half of the reviews are rated with 5 stars, while 1 in 5 are rated with 4 stars. Only 16 percent of reviews on Yelp are one-star reviews.

Older folks? You mean experienced and educated persons with MBA’s , Engineering Degrees, scientists, technicians, and managerial positions in marketing ? Yeah Dipshit we know all about Social Media and various electronic forms of advertising. What else we know is you’re a sniveling little snot who will never grow up, man up, or have any sense of financial responsibility. The cool thing is you’re blocked from my tired eyes so I cannot read the 7000 word full of yourself steaming pile of shit posts.

Oh hell yes. 1 Star it is. I got a Yelp account

You know, back in my day young man, we didn't talk to millennial like that! But thats because the telegraph system took forever as a social media review service

Nothing like still hearing same oldtaco still being biased against older, more experienced people......shocking.....

You said 10,000 customers weren't necessarily @$25/each, but you'd probably need 12,000 @$25 to pull a surgeon's income. You need to get your story straight

I suppose one thing in your favour... You're not the only person struggling: I do see many go-fund-me campaigns for doctors and surgeons these days. In fact, my favourite coffee shop just started collecting money for a local cardiac surgeon

Maybe we need to start a gofundmyass for this good doctor so he can afford to visit the tacocade.

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I’m sure you are joking but I would suggest something like this would cross a boundary. I wouldn’t trash someone’s business / means of income without a very good reason.

The other reason he isn't going to ever have booze...a liquor license here is $350k-$400k at the moment due to manufactured scarcity. No way he would ever serve enough to break even.

And since when is $1.50 near cost for a soda?

Let's not blow right past this married thing.
Congrats dude!

All other things aside, that's great!

I never thought I would see an actual personification of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, but here we are.

Median surgeon salary in the US is 394K a year. Divide by 12, and let's call it $32.8K/month. Divide that by $25, and that means 1,313 people a month paying $25 a pop for you to make a surgeon salary. Before expenses. And taxes.

GTFO with this bullshit. Your arcade is not doing this type of revenue. No arcade with the exception of maybe some of the big family fun centers are doing revenues like this, and that is because of food and beverage. If you were doing this, you would not need a GoFundMe. You have done a great job as a young businessman but your hyperbole is moronic and reflects horribly on you. Stop beating your chest, stop saying stupid shit, and focus on offering the best experience that you can to your customers. That is how you will gain respect and business.

https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/surgeon-salary

Didn’t know they got married. Would of loved to have attended the reception. I’m usually the first to hit on the bride or blow chunks. Which ever comes first.

With the amount he types here, his vows must have taken an hour or two and were mostly gibberish consisting of lies, excuses, exaggerations, and a plug for his GoFundMe

Did he gofundme for the honeymoon?

Sacrcasm chief. I was joking. I’m not that low and I don’t know anyone who is .

I’m sure they held the reception at the arcade to boost the number of “customers.”

And he still didn't get around to answering the question "Do you take this woman...?"

I don’t know anything about his wife, except that she’s a good listener.

He DOES know that once she is tired of all this, half of his "empire" will be hers? The More You Know!

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Ohhh, are we talking about people's wives again? Just wondered....

Talking from experience from my time having a small business. -Chrissi

Don't get so bent out of shape gramps. There's no doubt young people are better at social media by miles. It's just the nature of the age and when the technology came along. I'm sure you were better at certain things than your elders in your prime as well. It's just natural. Quit getting so offended and taking everything so personally, I can tell you are one of those "When I was your age..." types and it's ridiculous. I bet you either don't have a Facebook, or if you do, you're a prime candidate for liking and sharing the posts for the free RV from your local Nigerian prince. http://www.reddit.com/r/oldpeoplefacebook

I know people with 1980's advertising degrees and there's no doubt they had to touch up on their skills to suit today's world and with social media taking over... things change. I'm just well acquainted with the technology, better than most... a lot of it comes naturally with the age. There's no reason to get so offended over the fact young people are just naturally better at Facebook, Instagram, so on and so forth.

I'm sure your kids and grandkids can run loops around you with the internet. Not something to be ashamed of, just how it is.

So you're not friends with JodyG ? Left a great Google review a while back too

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How was your dinner, what did you eat?

It wasn't crow!

Nothing I wrote was untrue. You banned me for answering someone's question about whether or not you had any solid state pins. That was completely uncalled for. I along with many others have been banned for absolutely menial replies on your page.

Your ego is so incredibly fragile, you have to be sure that nobody posting on your page even comes close to challenging your all-knowing superiority title. No wonder you have no employees...I can't imagine what would happen if one of them teaches you something new by accident.

and it wasn’t good. Looks like it’s brought back some mean memories.

Well, you were doing it with an agenda and making a big scene and spamming about it. You weren't just answering a question, you were being a snob and trying to shit on my business stronger than anybody naturally could've without the obvious Pinside agenda. You went out of your way to be a jerk in public, and we all obviously know why - personal feelings/Pinside.

I've banned you and maybe one other person out of thousands untouched for that, not necessarily for what you did, but what you may do in the future. You're so deep rooted in this for some reason that I'm saving myself the grief of waking up one morning and doing damage control for when you start replying to every comment on my page like the last maniac trying to sabotage me because he's so upset.

I mean you used two seperate Facebook accounts to leave me bad reviews and also wrote a fake Google review, despite never setting foot in here, that you would "remove once I apologize to you for past transgressions". Straight up petty bribery and you even included that part in the Google review for all to see. You straight up Karen'd me, and hard. Not sure why you think I'd trust you with open access to my page. You care too much. Last guy that did that ended up spamming the heck out of my page in the middle of the night and I have no doubt you would probably do the same thing, given your reviewing tendencies. Not dealing with that BS again, and not like you want access to my page for any good-hearted reason, so who cares if you're banned. No reason for you or for me to care about that.

And yeah, I've banned some others here too... because the last thing I need are select Pinside idiots from halfway across the country messing with my real life and talking about things they don't understand in a sensitive public setting. Again, it's not like the guy from frickin' Sacramento or something, who will never set foot in my arcade, and has no plans to ever visit, has any good reason or good interests to be commenting negative things on my page other than to cause trouble and start problems just to be a dick. I nip it in the bud, because it's stupid, and it's always really obnoxious. It's justified. It's always easy to spot because it's super negative stuff out of left field from some guy in Utah or something, and mutual friends. It's a pretty low blow, whether you like me or not. It's a good reason to ban. It's not genuine or relevant criticism from people who've visited or plan to visit, it's just straight up trolling and targeted attacks from people who haven't visited. You're local, but it's the same way with you anyways.

Ah, so I wasn't banned for what I did, but for what you feared I might do. Got it. Glad to know I'm still living rent free up in that noodle of yours. When you give the sump pump money back to everyone, ill edit my review. Shouldn't be a problem for you at all, given your wildly successful business fortunes. Also, please address your fake accounts you made on here, as requested above.

And about that caring thing....ive actually left this thread go a couple times only to find myself tagged once again by you. I'm starting to think you have a bit of an obsession with me. You're going to have to work a lot harder than that to earn my business. I hope you were not counting me in those 10's of thousands of people waiting to come back. Maybe ill come and buy 30 minutes when your TMNT shows up.

Really? Tou-fucking-ché.

Here we go again with the pettiness and the bribery. Google already removed your review months ago because it was such an obvious fake and filled with bribe comments about how you'll remove it when I apologize. I didn't even have to ask or report it. That's how you know it's bad. Lol.

Really, again? You have several dozen posts in this thread keeping the dumpster fire burning quite well (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gameseum-gaming-gala-sept-15?tq=&tu=jodyg) and also just posted this 14 days ago during a large absence from me, bumping the thread:

My favorite's when Levi said you were being an idiot for leaving the reviews (+9 upvotes), you agreed, and you backpedaled... guess it was fake? Still waiting for that great review bud!

You know...I dont think anyone, myself included, really want to see you fail. If that was the case, this thread would have died a long time ago. When people bust your balls about being obnoxious and addicted to exaggerating everything you say, its because we are trying to help you understand that you could be so much better if you just cut it out and stopped trying to be such a bullshit merchant. You could build a lot of local pinside pinhead goodwill if you stopped trying to word everything like a used car salesman. Show some genuine humility and willingness to learn. Realize you may not know everything, and asking for help or clarification isn't a sign of weakness.

Be honest with people. Stop exaggerating everything you say. Stop the constant hyperbole. You might find that kind of thing goes a long way toward reaching your goals faster and building your dream.

Or just ignore this and keep being a dickhead.

So as 1) an actual surgeon and 2) an arcade owner who has a pretty good idea of the costs and revenues involved here and 3) is also well acquainted with building an social media presence from scratch to support the arcade, what has just spewed forth from this guy is total utter BS. Revenue does not equate with income, not by a long shot. If it did I would have given up my day job and just run the arcade and forget the whole save people’s vision thing because it doesn’t apparently pay as much as fixing arcade games does.

I'd still like my question answered. You had enough money to last you a year (at least). Then you made a bulk purchase. Usually when you make a bulk purchase, you are getting stuff at a discount. Why not sell some stuff off from the bulk purchase and stand on your own, versus mooching off of others via another GoFundMe?

I see what you mean but the constant badgering here is just making the situation worse, now I have to try to look even better to offset the lies and negativity here and the occasional crazy review I receive. Half the time at this point I'm only gloating because it at least makes the constant hatred here funny. If I was really that much of a showboat I would have no friends. It's an act.

I've tried several times over the years to genuinely let this all die down and it has not. I have left the entire site several times for months and there was probably only one time the thread stayed silent for more than a week or two. People are too intrigued and kept bumping it. You may not actually want to see me fail but there are many people here that do, based mostly off of rumors, lies, and yes, how I come off here - but I'm having to act like a loud jerkwad in order to get any form of a point across the noise here because talking to some of the people here is like talking to a brick wall. I only come off like a dick here because I'm jumping through about 80 hoops to try and make any form of a point here. The false reputation I have here makes it difficult to be anything like how I would like to be/like how I am on a day by day basis, and it's sure difficult to grow past this when people are still bringing up things from 4 years ago that aren't even true. Just food for thought. You and I both know I could post the nicest, most genuine thing here, fitting all of your standards, and it would still start 5 pages of banter. Heck, I don't even have to be on the site for that to happen anymore, it's outrageous.

You can't blame me for being a little bitter, with a lot of what people say here. I said some stupid things for a few months in 2016 and have received 4 years of some of the most hateful, mean, unrelenting comments I've ever read. Had my reputation tarnished for something I didn't do. Had some good pinball friends that saw past this bullshit and easily realize I was a totally different person than I was on Pinside, stop hanging around with me because their other friends assumed I was bad person and it would've spoiled group events. I don't really even care about that because I don't let it get to me, but I'm not a fan of making a good effort to do something outside of Pinside, unrelated to Pinside, bigger to me and my life than Pinside, and having people here constantly following me around, documenting it like dogs, and attempting to sabotage it and shit on it. I'll grow past this when the thread is closed or deleted, until then, we're stuck. Because it's stalking and major harassment at this point, and has been for a while, and just letting it go clearly isn't working. I have watched this thread over the past 2 months and the amount of play-by-play is unsettling.

Keep in mind that any of my fundraisers except that one little PayPal link at the way beginning were never posted here by me. This thread was not starting by me (and was not started with positive intentions). I haven't shoved anything in Pinside's faces or forced you guys to read anything in years... yet I have creeps following me around on the internet posting every little move I do on a public forum for 4 years now. Of course I'm a little bitter and tired of it. Just remember, not my fault you have to put up with it... I'm not the one keeping this train rolling, and haven't been for a long time.

If I was as much of a trainwreck in any form as I come off here and people claim I am, none of this would be coming together like it is. I've said it a billion times, this thread is so far off base and so fucked up, it's not good for anybody, and it's not good for growth. This is like an alternative reality at this point, and that's not me ignoring some kind of truth - the stuff on here is the lie. My "real life" is peaceful and fine and a majority of the time I forget this exists and draw no comparison to any behaviors I have off of the site and genuinely don't have problems/drama with practically anybody. I'd love to shed this petty shit at any time, believe me. It's like a nasty mole on an otherwise normal and productive life, one you forget about often, but still annoying sometimes.

This is a near perfect encapsulation of this entire thread. I want to see him succeed as well, but he makes it so hard to like him or root for him.

Goodnight. It was quite a day.

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Good thing he's (NO REALLY I mean it THIS time) being so much cooler about everything than before....just like he said

Okay Pinside, lets constructively give Steven some examples of how he handled something in a way that added fuel to the fire, versus how he could have made the subject into something that would have been a net positive for him and his reputation going forward. What would you all personally like to see Steven do to help make it easier for you to cheer him on?

I'll start. The last post above is a good example of just being honest and not baffling everyone with bullshit. Its a great start.

I'm not a tournament guy, but I think you are missing a golden opportunity to start some kind of tournament night that will bring a different crowd in. Get some interest and then try for a whole season. Maybe work with Roma's or Ephrata Pizza to have a tournament night special for food.

Once the Covid situation is less tenuous, maybe work out a promotion with a local animal shelter in need to knock off a couple bucks admission if the guest brings some specific item the shelter needs. Who can say no to cats and dogs? You may pull in some new faces that you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Contact your local scout troops and offer up a deal for them to come play as a group for one fee. Some of them will bring their families back another time.

Lots of ideas...put your gift of gab to work for a good cause, plant some seeds, and watch them grow. Just do not continue down the current path of "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit".

Yes you are. You reactivated your account. You came back to post here. You created a false account to troll this thread This is the definition of fueling the flames. You literally gave the train more fuel to burn and put your foot on the gas. Do you consider a day a long time? I can't. I just can't.