Was this at a show or friends house where the machine is on free play, or were you actually paying quarters on location? Probably impolite when on free play, but no so if you actually pay for the continue.

I would be fine with a buy-in ball, in particular on a great game. I posted a similar topic to this and the results were pretty down the middle. Just finished giving away 6 credits on TWD because I kept hitting the replay and one person was trying all of the other games. The only one that gets me is when somebody says they have been waiting but never stands near you or says anything. Enjoy the debate.

I've never seen people lined up to play a game, that's amazing!

On my TZ, I disabled the buy in feature and set the game to 4 balls = buy in by default. Seems fair for high score tracking in my game room.

Probably a good idea for shows as well, when there is a line and no clear answer on the "to buy in or not to buy in" debate.

At a show I would say no. On location, add one quarter. But I turn off the buy in button on my machines.

Play 3 balls and give someone else a shot. Buy in is different than if you won an extra ball.

I'd take the buy in since it was left on by the owner. Plus I'm not really in the market to make friends with people who complain about such trivial things in life so their view of me is not important.

You know that dude behind you hit the buy in button right?

Heck it could have been that one impatient prick from the other shows who made a stink about waiting.

I agree with a lot of the other people. At a location where you're actually paying for your game, I don't have a problem with buying in. At a show, on freeplay, probably best not to use the buy in. I also know there are a lot of dicks at shows. It doesn't seem very polite to me to start a four player game for one person if there's a line behind them.

I can never make myself use the buy in feature though. It feels like cheating.

I cannot believe people do this and think that it's okay in any way.

That's cause it is. Haha

I used to always be quiet about such things and most shows are pretty good. At the CAX this year for some reason I got behind several people who did that.... And one who proceeded to start a second four player game while I was in line, especially since pretty much every game had a line one would have to know a line exists...

So after that started giving gentle reminders. I figure they are probably new to the scene or brought in off the street and not yet really aware of show line etiquette. I'm at least glad they are so enthusiastic about playing pinball.

I had a guy accidently start a two player game at Louisville and he asked me to play with him. I love that cause I get to meet new people.

Yeah great thing about shows! If a game has a long wait we almost always end up chatting with the other people in line with us which often turns into a 3 or 4 player game.

Pinball expos in the future should place small signs of etiquette on each machine. it might help, but then again people that do this have no common sense and will ignore the rules anyhow. Nothing worse than some new machine were there is a line to play and some idiot hits 4 players just for them only. Everyone behind you freaking hates you!!!

I notice the worse pin etiquette on newer titles clustered together at shows.
Sign or not, when the game is in open area behavior seems to improve and proper lines form. CAX this year had a few hobbits and FT had this cluster and an example n which a single jackass didn't even look back as he plunged w/all 4 players. Pretty annoying for sure.

Love this topic when it comes up!!!!

I only play games on location, and deal with this often. just kindly let them know that you're on track for the grand champion score, and simply don't have time to watch some coil burnin double flipper struggle to get a mode goin. Then they put tokens on the glass, to this I reply: I appreciate the encouragement, but I'll be able to achieve my goals without your help. Then I throw their tokens on the floor and cradle the ball to watch them shamefully pick them up off the dirty arcade floor.

I cannot believe the audacity it takes to ask another human to relinquish control of a pinball table.

The game is over. Don't ever buy-in.

Anybody who "buys in" deserves to be publicly called out, shamed, and humiliated. The first thing I do on any game I get in is turn that feature off, on the grounds that it is stupid.

That being said, I have a hard time believing this story as I don't see lines to play pinball machines. Maybe it was some kind of a fevered dream?

Lots of games that have buy-ins have separate high score tables for buy-in scores, so I wouldn't go as far as to call it cheating. I do find it funny that though that some of the same people that would call it cheating, have their games set to award extra balls for replays, specials and at incremental point values. Somehow that's perfectly fine. For what it's worth, I keep all my games on factory settings. I like to play them how they were designed.

On location, if I am paying and I want to buy in cause I am having a killer game...I don't see a problem. Especially since I am probably using the credit I just won to buy in. In fact, the vast majority of times I ever buy in, it's because my original game took a long time and I don't want to play another full game with my won credit, so I just use it to burn it basically. At a show or at someone's house, I probably wouldn't because I would lose the opportunity to enter my high score.

Not me! Haha. You make a great point though.

I might set up incremental score EBs on a game like TWD or LOTR, where reaching LMS or Valinor is ridiculously hard. Other than that, factory settings all day unless it's too easy. Then change the setting to make it harder.

I guess it depends. If i'm playing TZ and someone left the buy in on, and i'm 1 shot away from lost in the zone. I'm taking the buy in. But only if i'm super close to the ending. If i'm doing shadow and 1 away from final battle. I'd ask the person behind me, if it would be ok if I did one buy in to try and get to the ending. usually your limited to 1 buy in anyway.

Buy ins are cheating. They are just there to increase revenue.

I agree, that's why I turn them off on my machines as well. Because when you are on the verge of the ending, it's hard to resist not hitting that buy in button.

That is interesting to me because if that is true, why do so many operators turn them off? Isn't revenue a good thing? For me personally, if I was an operator and someone wanted to give me full dollar value for a single ball, instead of a full 3 ball game...I'd give them that opportunity all day long.

I think they turn them off because they are pointless. Your average GP customer isn't going to understand them or use them. Your skilled player isn't going to bother. And the person in between who wants an extra ball isn't gonna be able to shove 3 quarters in the game within the 10 seconds you are allowed anyway.

The "buy-in model" was designed for video games that were virtually impossible to succeed at without the extra money - people paid up. Pinball, it just doesn't work.

I don't know the answer. If that's true though, then why bother? They don't hurt anything and they give someone who does have the knowledge of them and the desire to use them the opportunity. I honestly don't think ops are missing out on much by turning them off these days, but it just seems odd they would go out of the way to turn them off when it could be a potential revenue generator. Sure if they were off by default I can see them not enabling them. We are talking about a lot of the same ops here that can't be bothered to update code or fix their games, much less even clean a game so it seems odd they would do the extra work to disable them.

Or ever.

I have to disagree. Back in the early 90's when we first got into pinball, we would use the buy in button from time to time if we were close to making something good happen. Back then it was .50 a play and 3 for a dollar, but it wasn't hard to figure out, since the screen tells you, for a credit you can continue your game. we were newbies back then and knew what it did. Also had enough time to pull it off.

No matter where you go, or what you do, you will always come across assholes. Nothing can prevent it

It is up to you as how you handle them

The crowd seemed a lot different this year at CAX. I saw loads of people starting game after game with people waiting.

back to the original question

Yes

Just hit the start button after they do and jump in with them. Haha

THey left this "feature" on at Pintastic on the tournament game on free play. People kept accidentally buying in extra balls because they were trying to "cheat" bonus on last ball.

Kind of sums up the stupidity of buy-ins for me.

OMG that row was terrible. Two hobbits and a WOZ all together with other high draw games and the vendor tables just a few feet behind it. You couldn't even walk down the isle let alone tell which game you were actually in line for.

I guess they were grouping by manufacturer and era somewhat and thats cool and I'm sure works with a crowd half that size but big draw titles with that large of a crowd just don't work next to each other like that.

If I'm standing behind that guy, I need to pull out my best Palpatine impression.

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That sounds reasonable. When I said it felt like cheating, I'm not trying to put down anyone that does use the buy-in feature. It was just my feelings towards myself.

I don't think my gripe needs a new thread, so I hope Alexplays doesn't mind if I use theirs!

I was at an arcade today that has timed play. I was by myself, stacking up credits on the four machines. The pinball section of the arcade was all mine. But then this family (an obese family - part of me feels bad for mentioning that, part of me feels like it informs the story) comes up and they start playing all the machines. Not even so much as playing them, but jamming the start button repeatedly until they started a multiplayer game with however many credits I had.

So I'm trying to focus on my game of Kiss, but I'm also fuming. And then, almost as quick as it all started, they walked away, leaving all the machines I was racking up credits on skint!

I feel that was definitely poor form, poor etiquette. Right? If they would have asked "hey are these your credits?" I would have been like, share and share alike! But to just swoop in, take my shit, and swoop out? That's effing rude!

You've got to be kidding me. You've got four games with credits on them and you expect other people to not play them, kiss your ass to play them or pay you for the credits? I shouldn't have to explain this, but if you walk away from a game with credits on it, or start playing another game, the credits on the first game are no longer yours. You've forfeited them (even if the people are fat /sarcasm).

'The pinball section of the arcade was all mine' - No actually it was not.

No, sir, I wasn't expecting to be paid or have my ass kissed. But if I walked into an arcade that was empty other than one person playing pinball, and I saw that there were credits on the machines, I'd be like "hey, these credits, are they yours?" before just walking up and mashing the start button. Like I said, I would have been more than happy to have shared them with anyone.

But that's just me, I was raised with manners.

Very enlightening comment, you definitely deserve some upvotes.

Good to hear.
I've seen grown men at shows sit on popular titles on all four players, put ear buds in, and not give two shits about any line behind them.

The fact that other adults have to explain to you that you were wrong is amazing. When I was about 9 or 10 the first thing I would do when entering a arcade was do a quick look around and see if the pinballs or EM games had credits in the little box windows from people who left them. The second you walk away from a game in a public arcade its now available to anyone. Don't like it, buy some games and set your own stupid rules in your house.

Yeah, I would have to agree - those credits could have been left there from the other day (since unlike vids, pins remember the credits!). I'm not even sure why anyone would 'put credits on a game and walk away'. What's even the reasoning behind that? That you don't want anyone else playing?

Seems I need to clarify things a bit.

I was at an arcade where all the machines throughout the place run off of cards. This particular arcade has a "time play" option where you pay one flat fee for all the games you can play in a certain amount of time. Redemption and the newest games don't work with time play, but the pinball machines do. These pinball machines (Kiss, TWD, ST and MET) are located away from the main arcade floor, in the bar area.
I was in the arcade at around 11AM, having just completed a job interview. There was absolutely nobody else in this section of the arcade for HOURS.

You have to wait 90 seconds before you can use your card again when you have free play enabled. And these pins had the "3 games for 2 credits" price in effect. So I would scan my card, wait 90 seconds, scan it again, start playing the credits. I was moving from machine to machine, stacking up the credits. Like I said, this went on for at least a good two hours, with no one at all coming into the pinball area.

Please keep in mind that if the pinball section was crowded, I wouldn't be doing what I was doing. I'm going to mention again so it's perfectly clear: THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE AROUND.

So I'm playing Kiss, trying my damnedest to get on the leaderboard, when the family in question walks up to the other machines and just starts going for it. They went through ALL the credits, even starting a 4P game and walking away. Is that awesome? Is that the kind of thing you do, @pinplayer1967? 'Cause I think that kind of behavior is deplorable. It's rude and it's inconsiderate. These weren't little 10 or 11 year olds, this was a GROWN FAMILY who knew credits don't magically appear on gaming devices.

I'd also like to add that it's really rude and inconsiderate to pull the "I can't believe adults have to explain this to you" card on me. I take it you were born in 67, according to your username. I was born in 73. Yes, when I was 10 or 11 I would play anything left open. I'm Forty Effing Four now and I would feel ridiculous doing that.

I'd also like to add that usually, when I do my "Timed Play Power Play" (TM, all rights reserved), I end up leaving a bunch of credits on machines behind so that whoever can have fun with them.

How many pinball machines are there?

In the world, or at the arcade in question?

I don't know the former, but the latter...

Just to be clear, are you saying that your game times are so short that you have to load up the extra credits just to avoid the built in 90 second delay?

(only on TWD. And MET sometimes, but I'm getting better at it.)

((also, fantastic Zappa themed username))

Yeah, I have a Paragon. I know all about short games.

So maybe next time you go to this arcade, make some signs telling people to keep their fat hands off of your free credits until you decide you are done playing for the day. That way everyone can revolve around your schedule.

Grow up!