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So as an actual arcade owner I am going to offer a contrarian view here that is likely to get me lots of downvotes, but whatever.

There is an old saying I recall “Opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one”. The most ridiculously hard thing to do in this world is run a successful small business. Most fail.

You know I can think of 1001 ways to improve my arcade. But guess what ? Most of those ideas while super awesome would drive me further into bankruptcy. I’ve got machines broken on the floor. More than a few lately. You think I am going to go hire a $50-75 an hour person to repair when I can barely make rent each month. Nope.

I’m sorry but until you have actually run a small business, and specifically an arcade, trying to give Tim your business advice is abject worthless. Save your time. Guess what my advice would be: Tim keep doing what you are doing and ignore everyone because you’ve found what works for you and keeps you in business. That’s it, end of story.

I know you all think you could manage his business better than he does. You also think you could coach your hometown football team better. You are wrong. You overestimate your talent. You have no ability to evaluate or manage whatever improvements you think you would make versus the costs incurred and the marginal return on investment. If you have run a business before you at least have heard of that term, but still probably don’t know how to evaluate in the context of running an arcade.

For sure any business can be managed better. For sure some owners are their own worst enemies. Most of those who are have their business fail. Tim hasn’t.

And guess what Tim likely feels about your patronage ? Nothing. Why ? Because you and your feelings as a pinhead are not what actually keeps him in business. It is every businessman or family going on TripAdvisor looking what they can do while in Vegas that keeps him in business. If he spent all his time trying to make you all happy he’d very likely go out of business. Why ? You all are low marginal return in investment, relative to his wider audience.

And let me end with this. Do you think Tim enjoys looking at all his machines with out of order signs or having machines that don’t play well ? If you do you have rocks in your head. No arcade owner unless some corporate entity using it as a tax write off, wants their games playing crappy or filled with out of order signs. It is a necessary evil with most current modes of operation. Hiring people solves one problem and creates many others (payroll, workman’s comp, lawyers, job contracts, etc)

You don’t like his business and the condition of his games, then don’t go. But don’t presume you have a damn clue telling him you know how to run it better and that he is just a stubborn, awful person.

His business has stayed in business and that one fact alone is all that matters. Until you’ve done the same you have no terribly worthwhile advice to give, or very likely anything he hasn’t already heard of or thought about all by himself.

Stepping off of soapbox

Touché.

You think I have some other thought about my own advice above. Uh ... nope. It’s just as worthless. The hypocrisy you speak of is non existent.

You have the right to complain, you have the right to suggest, you have the right to not shop there again, you have the right to go elsewhere, and you have the right to inform others.

And you know what I would honestly tell most of those businesses and posts that you decided you were going to spend your time on to try to use against my position ? Ignore every last damn thing I’ve said. It’s worthless to their business survival.

This is entirely true. By definition if one is going to expand to 3X the size with 3X the number of machines, one needs 3X the prior labor force just to keep status quo. I think any required change will be likely embraced out of simple necessity more than anything.

Years ago I went to PHOF, stayed all day, was super amazed while as the same time super disappointed about all the games with issues.

I went to Pacific Pinball Museum and was super amazed at all the games but at the same time disappointed in the condition of some.

I went to Asheville and was ungodly disappointed in the state of their machines, as in embarrassed they played so bad.

On the flip side went to Free Gold Watch and there yes the games are immaculate. Same goes for Nic’s collection in Roanoke (and it was terrible before he got there)

Tims place was what inspired me to open my own arcade. We have 45 pins on the floor. It is damn near impossible to keep them all running well. I’ve seen it done well, I’ve seen it done poorly. Tim’s place is neither the best nor the worst, and scaled by size of collection is pretty average in this regards.

We are graced by having two super amazing volunteers who take pride in having those games purring at my arcade. If we didn’t have them our games would play like crap left to me. I don’t have enough time, and I get the rest of the video games to deal with mostly myself (with not enough time to do so).

So what’s my point in all this ? The state of the pins depends on entirely who is working on them. We got super lucky. Most places don’t.

Ok then why not pay the man ? Is my arcade just being some money grubbing endeavor breaking the back of its volunteers. Actually no. We’ve just passed our 4th anniversary. We just had revenue over $200K for the first time ever.

I have in 4 years not paid myself a dime. If we had to pay $100 an hour for a full time tech, we’d be out of business. This business model I hate to say runs on the good graces of its volunteers - which effectively is what I am even as owner. By the time you subtract rent, electricity, insurance, front desk employees, parts repair costs, it’s not a high margin business. Don’t confuse revenue with profit. They aren’t the same.

It’s not that I don’t think you should pay your technicians that do repair. You should. We will before I start taking payouts myself. But we have all taken a vow of repair poverty. When you start getting paid it becomes a job, an obligation, not something that you are doing because you enjoy it. And then you start having obligations about hours you are expected to be there, and games that aren’t working and you should get back up ASAP.

So we specifically discussed this with our crew and for now we go with no pay. I’m not saying this would work for everyone, I’m not saying it will sustain us indefinitely, and clearly with a collection as large as PHOF there are limits to our model. But it works for us, for now. and our volunteers take pride (as they damn well should) when we have tournaments and people gush over how well the collection plays.

Just one persons perspective, but on a topic I feel pretty well versed in compared to most. I get Tim’s dilemma. I don’t have a good solution other than to just put out Stern games (joking). Pins break a lot, especially old pins, each place finds its own solutions. Some work better than others.

Here’s what I would do if I were Tim: get the games that don’t play off the floor and replace with those that do. They you aren’t so focused on the out of order signs and can take you time on a game in the back away from the maddening crowds. Also makes it look like you are bringing new games on the floor. This is what airlines do, take a plane out of service and do maintenance. It can work if planned well.

Obviously the model du jour is free play.

I think most went this direction because it’s just easier to administer, and it’s more financially viable. We did it also in part to cut down on people coming in just to hang out and cause issues (yeah just like they worried about incessantly in the 80s huh ? ). But we keep the entry low enough that almost all can afford it.

In my experience at PHOF (limited as it was). It wasn’t ever the mechs that got me, but the poor condition of play. Again I was just happy to be there and that it existed. And maybe I will catch things that most players wouldn’t so it just doesn’t matter.

With that meandering preamble my point is that I think free play while having many advantages actually puts much more wear and tear on a machine. Our university has a student study hall they refurbished maybe 7 years ago. When they first opened they had a TZ (????!), a RCT, and a brand new in box Stern Spider-Man in the basement. All in immaculate condition to begin with. Free play and free entry mind you. TZ was gone in a heartbeat, tried to buy it off of them to save. What the hell were they thinking. RCT was next. And you might say surely the Spider-Man did ok ? It did not. I did not know a new Stern could get so black you could not see the playfield. They gave up paying $75 an hour for techs after a year or so and this is what happened. It lasted like 2 or 3 years and then it was gone too after you couldn’t even flip a ball. Now only video games left.

This is the point where I will disagree with Tim. As I said we pull games that are going to stay down for a while. Broken games tend to stick in peoples mind. Where we start to get really hand wringing about it is if we have 10% of what’s on the floor down. I would rather pull that 10%. And while it seems idiotic. 120 fully functional games leaves a much better impression that 120 fully functional games interspersed with 12 non functional games even if it’s the same damn end result

You are absolutely spot on. Our pins play well because we would be embarrassed if they didn’t. But from an economic standpoint, for most of our audience, a sorta kinda playing pin generates the same revenue as a fully playing pin. We have on average 350 people each week. 30 of those are hardcore pin players. Most of the remaining 300+ haven’t played pins in years if at all.

Tim has clearly gotten past the point where a non working pin bothers him. And good for him given the health issues he has had. You have only one rule in business, and that includes arcades: make enough money to stay in business. He has solved that in spades.

I can lament Asheville all I want (and it was bad, really bad when I went a year ago) but their revenue absolutely crushes ours. End of story. I make no value judgment on that. I can imagine how amazing it would be to play a fully working Pinball Wizard (still haven’t yet..the one I did play barely flipped at all). I am but a small ant in the larger world that the operator has to consider in keeping his place open week after week.

And finally if we think this is a new problem, it isn’t. I can remember as a kid going to the arcade on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and playing some almost relic even then, dilapidated 70s EMs back in the 80s. From that vantage we are doing better these days than they did back then since the fate of a non working pin was more often than not the dump or as firewood.

You get to vote with your dollars. Visit places that maintain their collections well and don’t go to those that don’t where it will bother you. I say this not dismissively but as reality.

Further don’t hold those that try to keep their collections running well feet to the fire when the game you want has an out of order sign or a non working switch. It is simply put too damn hard to keep even our 45 pins running all the time, some weeks we do better than others. In our position you would make the same decisions.

But know we do care. It just can’t be our primary concern since 100% is impossible and as I said above you cannot be our primary audience since your $12 aren’t going to pay the bills versus the 300 other people who are dismayed skee ball isn’t working. Now that’s a true 4 alarm fire for us.

I am not trying to take a shot at Tim here, but do note that those who have collections who are frequently on pinside tend to care in my observation more about the state of their collections. Tim does seem to come on primarily when it’s fundraising time, but that’s ok. Go visit NicoVolta at Roanoke. He does even better than we try to do.

We are only effectively open on weekends so we can leave them in place unless it’s a total overhaul. Also we do come in on weeknights and early weekend mornings to fix. We only resorted to moving video games off the floor when my available hours were down temporarily and games were stacking up. It is pretty much expected to have a weekly failure rate of 1-3% for us.

So it is challenging for sure, and anything major we put off until everyone is gone. BUT, I will say that you will find a few customers who ask questions and want to learn about how it all works. You can take that as an annoyance or an opportunity to look behind the curtain. Maybe even inspire them. It’s all attitude in the end to the same set of circumstances. I saw Tim working on a machine behind the counter at the old place and while I would have engaged I have learned enough from past forums he doesn’t want to be bothered by me. I TBH am much the same depending on the mess I am looking at. So I left him alone.

Spot on absolutely correct. The alternate definition of insanity is doing something different when the approach you have is working. State of the machines has been a complaint I have seen for at least 6 years for PHOF. Their revenue apparently grew not diminished over than time. Why would you do something, anything different under those circumstances ? We can hand wring all we want here about how we wish for better. It does not matter what we think. Tim runs his business as he wants, it works for him, it works for his customers (and pinsiders might be 1% of his customers at best). I have better playing pins at my arcade but I do not have anywhere close to the business he has there. Tim wins.