A few months ago a friend and fellow pinball collector was asked if he knew anyone who might be interested in acquiring and running some pinball machines in the basement area of a planned co-working / makerspace / bar / gaming kind of place in Trondheim, Norway.

Fast-forward to today, and the place (Work-Work -- http://work-work.no/) is only a few documents away from opening its doors. In the basement: Lord of the Rings, Attack from Mars, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Spiderman, Funhouse and White Water. Three supplied by me, and three by my friend and now fellow pinball operator! Here's the page for our little basement arcade:

https://www.facebook.com/popbumpertrondheim

So, as of writing this the place has not yet opened, and this city hasn't had any pinball on location to speak of since about 2002, so we are excited and naturally very uncertain as to how busy our little arcade will be. In the spirit of Work-Work, we're trying to be relatively open with what we're doing, so I'll try to post some updates here as well after we get going.

I don't expect many of the Pinside community to take the trip, but you are most welcome if you do

So, we have now been open part-time as an "open beta test" for a week. How is operating so far? People seem to enjoy themselves, and there haven't been any major issues yet, so we're happy. So: Exciting, but also reassuringly uneventful

Minor issues: A stuck coin; a weak flipper; a stuck shooter lane switch; a couple of bad bulbs here and there; and a slightly wonky left shooter rod on Funhouse.

As for the games, LOTR has been the clearly most popular game in the line-up so far, with the other ones pretty much tied, though with Creature and Funhouse slightly behind the rest. Overall activity has been above what we expected/feared, so that's good too.

Currently we're looking at options for getting a big screen up for information and playing tips. Will also be useful for our first tournament, which we're planning to hold in January.

Update after another week, during which the place had its official opening. Woo hoo! On the official opening weekend there were actually lines of people waiting to play the games, which is pretty crazy. In total over the first two weeks (which includes shorter hours than from now on) the revenue has been 3-4 times what we had considered a level we would be satisfied with. We don't expect it to stay that high going forward, but it's still looking pretty good.

Most things have held up well. Whitewater has a slightly too picky coin validator, which can be confusing to people -- not everyone knows to check the coin return when the game doesn't credit up.

Considering the interest we've seen, we have decided to add some more machines. Our current plan is to add a medieval/fantasy duo in a separate spot in the arcade: Black Knight 2000 and Swords of Fury. These will be added in January, hopefully in good time before the first tournament (scheduled for January 30th).

Time flies! We've been up and running for eight months now. In that time we have seen some fluctuations in income, pretty much correlated to the fluctuations in general activity in the bar. But, one cool detail: In the least busy weeks/months, our contribution to the total revenue was relatively larger than usual. Our thoughts on that: 1) Our games are interesting enough that people come just for them, and 2) We are a source of relatively stable income for the location, so they have every reason to be happy with us.

Still very few major technical issues. Some burnt GI connectors and headers on some of our older games, and one pesky reset issue with AFM.

New machines: Since the last update we added the BK2K and SoF in January as mentioned, but the BK2K was sold last week. We also added two Jamma arcade cabinets, currently equipped with Metal Slug 5 and Gunbird 2. In April, just in time for the new season premiere, we added Game of Thrones Premium, which has been a huge_ hit. Lastly, yesterday saw the arrival of The Hobbit SE #78, which we look forward to seeing the performance of. Initial feedback from the regulars last night was very positive, at least

Next update in 8 months. Or earlier.

My previous post now has "9 months ago" above it, so I guess it's time for that update I promised.

Last time I posted The Hobbit had just arrived, and it has been well received. Some of our regulars don't particularly like it, but others have it as their favorite. In the end the coinbox doesn't lie: The Hobbit is one of our top earners.

We got some offers which we couldn't refuse, so we sold two games in late 2016: bye bye, Creature and Whitewater! We have another Creature in storage, so that one could make a comeback one day.

Happily, we could add some new games as well to fill the void! First we added a World Cup Soccer 94 in January. It was well received by the regulars, and it has not had any major issues. Popadiuk's best, if you ask me!

Then, we had ordered a NIB Metallica Pro, which arrived in February 2017. No huge issues with it: One miswired LED (that_ was confusing to the players), a few intermittent 555 bulbs and some switches which needed tuning. Solid earner!

In April we picked up a World Poker Tour. It needs some TLC before it's 100%, most notably the Ace in the Hole opto is dead, so we have the game at half price in the meantime.

To celebrate May the 4th we arranged to borrow a SW:Ep1 from a local collector. It was on free play on Star Wars day, but has since then been on coin play, with the coinbox going to a local pinhead community/collective where he's a member. The game may stay as long as we have room for it.

...which brings us to games we're waiting for: We are still waiting for our Alien, and have also decided to order Dialed In. Also very much interested in that upcoming Steve Ritchie game which nobody knows is Star Wars...

Overall 2016 and the start of 2017 has been good, with pretty steady traffic even during expected off-season periods. The location owners are happy enough with the activity that they're now considering how to re-organize the space to make room for more pinball machines