Posts here are offering things the staff can do to manage the volume. It doesn't matter whether these suggestions are rude or passive aggressive or whether you find them acceptable. The staff and owner are around the machine all the time, while the operator/serviceperson is only there occasionally.

This gives the location defacto veto power over just about everything related to the games. The people who share the room with the game and their boss are your real customers, at least in the 'he who has the power to destroy the spice controls the spice' sense.

Edit to add, not saying this is how it should be, but this is the reality of being an operator. It's a difficult job that often involves working with difficult people.

Read my comment before replying to it please. The owner has veto power over everything related to the pin. Its his building. If he doesn't care, doesn't control his staff, that gives them the veto power. In my experience as a service person most owners don't care if their staff is messing with the game.

The fact of the matter is, the op doesn't control the game. The people who are around it and the people signing their checks do.

I'm just trying to share my perspective and experience being in that situation.

Routing pinball machines can be a pain in the ass. Some places will turn your game off at the drop of a hat; one customer thinks it stole his quarter and the game will be off until you visit it next. Or the opposite scenario, something simple is keeping it out of order but they never tell you. Obviously it mostly comes down to getting them to communicate with you somehow.

I've had locations shut a game off because they thought it was too loud. Again, it was the barback or night manager or somebody, not the owner with their name on the contract, but they still authorized themselves to 'solve the problem' without talking to the owner. And when I show up to collect and fix the damn thing, they're the person I have to either negotiate an acceptable volume with or convince to keep their grubby hands off my game.

In an ideal world, the op and the location owner would work out all aspects of the arrangement and sign their names to it and that would be that. The route technician and the location staff would simply be agents of their bosses, who make the decisions and if necessary negotiate compromises. Again, things may be different elsewhere, and I'm sure other ops and techs have had different experiences.