to be honest, make the darn games simpler, and possibly more people would be "casual players"... simpler would (or should, anyway) result in a cheaper nib product as well...

i think that many "home enthusiasts" don't see the forest for the trees here... deep rulesets, confusing playfields, etc. do not encourage people to casually play... and casual play is what will get people started playing in the first place...

"home users" are a completely different group of people from "casual players"... i think it would be a lot easier to get people to stick money in machines if they weren't so intimidated by many of them...

you will get your reward in heaven. i got an inside tip that god is a big time pinhead. and a skee ball nut to boot.

Well that certainly beats that total consciousness on my death bed thing I had going for me.

Gunga Galunga.

LTG : )

Lloyd, get your pins out there working for you and save yourself the hassle of maintaining a fixed location.

Easier said than done.

Any good location you need lots of equipment. ( ie lots of money )

Second tier locations condemn you to seasonal camp grounds, ski chalets, laundromats, etc. etc.

Believe me I've looked into this. My family history were operators long before arcade owners.

LTG : )

Laundromats will work if you give it a try. What we have is basically a miniature version of Pins and Needles.

avengers pro has a pretty simple playfield

Around here they are unsupervised locations where your games will be destroyed or stolen.

LTG : )

big hitter,the llama.

So you're not going to play the AC/DC on location any more and support the operator?!

Some comeback that was...

Someone needs a new calculator...

I think the only way pins really make up ground on location is if they are used as a loss leader. Put one in a bar, charge a quarter, and make up the difference on the beers customers devour.

Pinball can make a comeback on location, maybe not like during the heydays but if someone makes a UFC, Crusty Demons, XGames, Nitro Circus then interest could surge, and there are plenty of clubs and pubs that can fit two or three pins in. We just need more good operators in Oz cos we don't have nearly as many as you lot have over there.

I don't think anyone said you were dumb?

Since I'm not buying any pins anytime soon (apartment life + no desire to spend time on repairing them), I'm all for operators and arcades. I'm lucky enough to live in a city where I'm 10 miles from 3 different locations/arcades/bowling alleys that have 8+ machines (or more!) each. I've talked with a few of the operators/owners and none of them are making a small fortune on it. They seem to be in it because of the nostalgia/reverence for what pinball once was. One of the route operators was pretty clear that the Golden Tee and Big Buck Hunter games were the clear moneymakers in his collection.

You own a fair number of machines so you're probably familiar with the required maintenance. You may or may not "baby" your machines? I've seen pins on location receive some pretty rough treatment. All that wear and tear adds to the time/cost of maintenance and takes away from the profit.

Factor all that in + high cost of new tables + what seems like recent quality issues + 50/50 revenue sharing with location + general apathy with today's kids and pinball = uphill battle for route operator.

To me (I'm still a noob, so I'm probably wrong) it seems like the future of pinball is the collectors who can afford to purchase a new Stern or JJP machine, aka... HUO.

Make more classes on how to fix them.

But they have to bring back the big scoring. Low scoring games do nothing for new kids who play. WOZ seems to be taking a very low score setting and most of the last Sterns.

OMG... I have to visit the twin cities again... Seems like paradise!

Don't let the negative people get you down. Every time I'm out at my main location, seeing tons of kids (and their parents) playing and loving pinball, collecting great earnings, I think of threads like this one and laugh. I suppose some people would explain it away as a fluke, a one-off, etc, which might fly if not for the fact that I know of many other locations that are doing equally as well. So much doom and gloom on this forum over something that is having a big resurgence in several areas right now and could very easily keep spreading if passionate and dedicated people keep getting involved. The other operators I know in surrounding areas (Oregon and Vancouver, BC) are having similar results. The funny thing is, some of us are battling for locations against old-timer ops whose neglect of pinball on location was the very thing that inspired all of us to get into the business in the first place. They're seeing the explosion in popularity of pinball and suddenly want to get a piece of it, but it's too late for them now that the locations have figured out that maintenance is critical and have been spoiled by the newer ops.

Here's a totally unsolicited post from Pinsider "navajas" about his experience at my location last week. I think it's fitting to re-post in this thread, considering the topic:

"I was at Full Tilt in Ballard, twice yesterday, once at about 1:30 PM and once at about 9:00 PM. In the afternoon there was a little kid birthday party, probably 4-8 year olds, my group (my two sons 4 and 7, my wife and my Mom), and two other groups.

When I went back last night (so I could actually get some play time and have some beers) it had constant business for the 90+ minutes I was there. Bobby made money last night, and I must have seen at least 60 people throughout the day playing pinball, a third of them under 10 years old.

Were they ignorant? Yeah, I'm no great shakes anymore and I was probably the best player there. Kids were leaving 2/3 of a credit, parents were shoving in $0.75 per play instead of $2 for five, but people were PLAYING. And that's the point right? You don't necessarily want to see the good players and pinball regulars, we're already hooked. It's new people you want. And last night? The poor lady at the front was swamped and they RAN OUT OF QUARTERS dude. (Or the change machine broke couldn't quite get the story straight from the worker.)

I think a renaissance is possible but it's about location and the operator. Had these machines been in crap condition (as is most pinball in my experience) these people would not only have not had fun, they very well could have written off the activity. Also: Kids. If pinball in confined to shi**y dark taverns with drunk a**holes passed out on tables, it is doomed. You're right. But I saw young women, Moms in their 30s, 20 something hippster Ballardians, and little kids who take Sponge Bob lunch boxes to school all playing pinball last night, and all having fun."

Yes, I was a hobby op, did it for four years. The reason we disappear is we find out its not so easy to make money with arcades. What seems to be getting lost here is, even at 50.00
A day, you have to take into account the overhead, permit,insurance,taxes and abuse by customers.when a mom puts in a dollar and lifts her 3 yr old up to the game and all they do is push the flipper buttons continually until the ball is lost. You can operate without these things, but it is a huge risk. Believe me nobody wants to end up on the other side of an IRS audit. Also there is always some kind of split with the location owner.

32,000 x .50 = $16,000. Location gets 50%. Owner gets 50%. $16,000/2= $8000

That doesn't include time and gas to empty the coin box, count and split the money or taxes, licenses, insurance, a vehicle to transport...

A big "NOOOO!" to making the rules simpler. Instead of dumbing down the rules, make them accessible to both newbs and power players. LOTR is a great example of the right way to do it - everybody knows what they're supposed to do when they walk up: Collect the characters, start and play modes. Mode stacking, TABA, Elf Gifts, etc. are gradually revealed to better players.

Yep, approachable for novices yet satisfying for more advanced players. I believe WOZ will hit the nail on the head with this one. How cool would it be to stack modes and have the stacking of those modes appear in the video sequences? For example, fireballs would be flying across the screen if you had fireball multiball running and you collected an award or started a mode. Or perhaps the wizard would be dodging them or something when you visited the throne room? That would take stacking to a whole new level!

I think pins need an optional "Chuck E Cheese" setting.

Immediate ball launch on coin insert. Tickets come out on ball drain. Game over.

That's for the people that don't know how to do anything. A player can start regular pin mode by holding a button or something on coin drop and play a normal game if its in CEC mode.

Here's Pins and Needles last night...on a Tuesday. 45 people and zero A titles FYI.

image.jpg

yeah, thank you! And i bet most machines are in a playable condition. i am telling you. busted ass machines are what leads to the downfall here. I have spoken to two arcade owners recently that had 3 pins each, all mostly broken with stuff you could adjust or repair inside an hour. neither one even knew pinballlife or marco even existed. their vids were all in awful shape too. I offered to buy their pinball party. but the guy said "no, people still put money in it even though it's broken, so I leave it"

a-hole....

One question, where are people playing for 50c a game? Everything around here is 75c or a buck.

I think the majority of PNN games are $.25, even a couple games on free bc the mechs stick. Definitely nothing over $.50. But again, I have all F titles that "real pinheads" laugh at. I actually get zero support from the "big pinball guys" in the area, which bummed me out at first, but I get it. I'll just go ahead and expose a few hundred eager folks a month to the hobby, you guys rock it in your basements! My games are not too pretty, but they play well and I fix what I can on the spot.

I think what you're doing is pretty rad, but it appears to be more of a pinball club than a generic public route/location. Your location doesn't have a lot of street visibility, nor is it in an area where it looks like you get a lot of walk-up traffic. If I had to guess you get most of your pinheads from word-of-mouth, internet/print write-ups and a whatever promotional efforts you put into it. In my mind, nothing would be cooler than playing a bunch of pinball machines on a warm night with the large garage door rolled up and great music playing in the background. Congratulations on your success!

You're not buying $8,000 ACDCs, but I see nothing wrong with your 'F titles' (your words, not mine). There are plenty of fun games to play in that list. You're suffering from the classic mistake of not including a Baywatch in your lineup...

http://www.pinsandneedlesla.com/machines/

I think the one thing missing from this conversation is how "the times have changed." That is, when I was a kid it was nothing for me and a buddy to ride our bike 2 miles, through traffic, to the Big Bear grocery store to shove our quarters, stolen from our parent's dresser drawers, to play High Speed, Mousin Around and some Kung Fu Master. As a kid, my mom would take me and my brother to the mall and leave us in the arcade, aka The Babysitter, to play pinball and Dragons Lair while she spent hours looking for crap no one needed.

Nowadays? I've got two kids and, like all parents I know, there is no way I am letting them ride their bikes, by themselves or with friends, to the local gas station to go play pinball (if such a place existed). There's also no way I would let them hang out in an arcade for hours by themselves even if I was in the same strip mall just 500 feet away. Would you? No.

Go watch the recent documentaries on the arcades of the 80s. Those places were packed with kids and not a parent to be found. Nowadays, there is no way that's gonna happen. The world has changed. Obviously, there are other reasons too why pinball is not really commercially viable, but the market depended on kids with rolls of quarters in their pocket whose parents would let them spend hours playing coin-op games frequently. Now, it's just the occasional birthday party at chuck e cheese or an hour or two spent at the local putt putt or the walk through the theater.

I see a White Water FYI. Not to mention several others.

It will never happen as there is no suitable medium for them to be placed in. The “arcade” is for the most part 99% gone. The few spots that have them always have tired machines in need of repairs.

If it wasn’t for the ability to own them, I would never walk up to one and insert any money anymore, as every time I find one and do this, flippers hardly work, most of the GI is out, next to no toys work, etc, etc...

Operators do not fix their machines. The business is for home use. Few places will be able to sustain a classic arcade route successfully, and even then I wonder how profitable that can even be.

Excuse me ?

Out of 16 games right now I only have two problems. Big Bang Bar - the rear gates don't open, the arm that pushes them broke. Spare Parts in Australia is trying to find them for me. And my ship on POTC is inactive right now. I need a new motor and gearbox. But at $175, that isn't happening any time soon.

Everything else is clean and working. And when I open shortly I start off with light bulb detail to see if any are out.

LTG : )

I'm sorry I forgot two. Large castle tower on MM had the part that makes it wiggle break off, NLA. I haven't figured what to do yet - it's cosmetic and I don't want that game down for any length of time to tear it all out of there. And my saucer is out on AFM again. First base with spring lasted 17 years, new one a generous anonymous Pinsider sent me lasted a lot less. I haven't figured a longer term solution for that yet.

_{Post edited by LTG : Forgot two things.}

I'm sure your business and a handful of others "keeping the faith" are the few exceptions, but all in all Lloyd, you know what I'm talking about with almost all of the locations.

I'm sure anyone in the hobby that routes has a higher standard, but most that are still kicking around are operators that just don't care. I have bought from them, and many seem to know less than what I did when starting... and they have been in this forever.

The point that Eucrid made is important. The arcade scene where you left kids unattended are over, and as a parent of two young kids I wouldn't leave my kids unattended in an arcade (or anywhere else, for that matter). However, I will travel with my sons to locations around the area and I will play in regular tournaments with my sons. This is why I think tournament play is important to the future of the industry. Also note that the state of pinball across the world is heterogeneous in nature. Pinball is making a resurgence in places with young adults with disposable income and a "hipster" vibe (Seattle, Oregon, etc. comes to mind here). Also there are places in the country where pinball is more of a family oriented enterprise - Texas, Tennessee, and other places come to mind. I think there are lessons here, but to be honest I don't know exactly what they are, but I believe there is a way to revive the economics here. I have a feeling it is not a pure pinball play, but rather as part of larger activities, and restoring pinball as a social activity which encompasses more than simply smacking a steel ball around a playfield.

thinking like a pinhead, not a non-pinhead...

i'm not saying make "all" machines simpler... but at least some...

consider this... pinball was very popular when "rulesets" (which we didn't even know existed then) were very very shallow...

i don't have kids, but if you don't allow them to grow up sometime, they are gonna face a real harsh reality...

arcades, etc. aren't any more dangerous today than they were when we were hanging out there...

You should check out the FGC (Fighting Game Community). Specifically the stories from Seth Killian about the arcades when he was traveling to play for money.

No, I didn't know what you were talking about.

" The “arcade” is for the most part 99% gone. The few spots that have them always have tired machines in need of repairs."

I didn't see "almost all" in that part of your post. To me it came off as all.

LTG : )

This picture was obviously staged. Those players look like normal people. Not one person in that pic with a B.O. Force Field.

Well, whatever, all I have been to that has been the case, 100% there.

Awesome work Molly. I'm not sure folks here understand just how impressive that is, considering that you don't have any A titles. Just about every pinball joint on the planet that includes Museum in their title also has newer A games. When you go to these places, the newer games are always swamped. Virtually all of them have discovered that only having old games won't bring in the customers, so they get the new games.

You, on the other hand, are bringing in 45 people on a friggin Tuesday night with nothing but old games. Very impressive. Keep up the good work.

hmmm... Sounds just like the PHOF. I'm not sure you meant that as a compliment, but that's how I read it. d

Understood. I'm just doing a poor job responding and adding to the confusion.

LTG : )

The vast majority of location games in my area are in bars. The cross-section of collectors who also frequent bars seems to be on the small side, and I think it's why a lot of collectors think location play is more dead than it really is. It's like if pinball was in churches I would never know either.

Well, okay, but I think some grade-docking starts to happen when you have as many 80Bs as I do. I mean I love me some Laser War and some Alien Poker, but I'm in a reeeeeal minority compared to what Pinside finds desirable.

Thanks again Phish! I don't think what I'm doing is particularly impressive, but I don't get the whole "location ball is dead" thing...I guess it's just backlash stemming from the home collector craze going on. Sure, there are sucky operators, just like there are people that suck at every job on the planet, but I see comment after comment saying flat-out "I'd never play location ball! It's shit" and it sorta knocks the wind out of my sails. When I see a game in the wild that's a wreck I look for the op's number, place a polite call thanking the op for putting pinballs out, and say hey I'm gonna drop a lot of money in here the minute you fix it..and voila. The pin gets fixed.

As for my junky junk games, yeah...we had KME's Tron in there for a good while, but people got sick of it really fast, I was shocked! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would prefer Rollergames to Tron?! Or Genesis? Well, lots of people. Suppose it takes an open mind to appreciate what I have going on, but I'd rather cater to an open minded person than a guy with a game room so powdercoated that you have to remove jewelry. Any day of the week!

After 10 minutes, me for one. That is unless you can swap roms and we can play gold old FH (I never tire of that shot).

That's a little harsh. To each their own, the more modding/ways to appreciate pinball, the better - no? Would you like all machines to look exactly the same? You strike me as someone that would appreciate people putting their own stamp on things.

Oh I'm all for doing what you want with your pins, unless you're doing them up so much that you can't have other people touching them! I am not one of these people who throws a fit when someone doesn't like games that I like, nor am I the type to think anyone should like every game in a varied collection...I like seeing people gravitate and settle in taste-wise. LEDs? Not my thing. Isn't that okay?

To me, if pinball is in trouble, it's because so many people are locking their games away and removing them from the public eye. Home collecting is great for the collector, but not for the hobby at large. I know most people don't agree and the last thing I'm trying to do is piss anyone off. So my comment wasn't bagging on what folks do to their games...unless they're pimping them out so hard that they may as well be in storage.

I read somewhere on here and I find it relevant now. "When I was a kid, we ate dinner at home and went out for entertainment, now we eat dinner out, and come home for entertainment."

It's amazing how things are different. Arcades died due to home consoles being good enough and we can play at home.

I grew up in Time Out Arcade, Cary Mall, Cary, NC, 27511. Many wasted hours and dollars. We walked to the mall and spent all day sometimes. No parents in sight.

As a parent, this may be safe as it ever was, but it surely isn't accepted anymore.

And now that home consoles are so good, with racing seats and wheels available, big TV's great surround sound, hell I don't even like to go watch movies at the theater because I find it better at home. Let alone a video game at an arcade.

Does anyone make a credit card machine for pinball? If not, they should, and it should have the option to charge by the hour. I would be more interested in paying a flat rate per hour to help me learn the new tables.

Chris

I like the playing by hour idea, however the problem with this is it devalues getting that free game, and means someone can just hog the machine for an hour straight. They also have no incentive to let you play along. Wonder if there is a way to hybrid that idea.

Greatest single quote I've read on the subject! Criticizing from the basement is so much easier than going outside and walking the talk. Keep doing your thing.