I'm in the same boat as you and I respect this, its cool selling gift cards or merch if you have to. Not sure I can get behind the patreon or go fund me just because though. I'd try everything else possible before asking for straight cash donations... even then. Maybe that's just me, because it feels like I see GoFundMe's for everything nowadays.

dupe

It's a crap situation anyway you look at it. Listened to that speech the Governor of NY had yesterday, his proposed solution made a lot of sense. Regardless it's not going to happen till they are able to test people for the antibodies and the hospitals are able to keep up.

Here in Texas the TWC (texas workforce commission) is allowing unemployment claims to go out without it affecting the companies rates. Not sure if its nation wide or not. We told all of our employees to file, pretty sure as an owner you can file as well since your still on the payroll.

If your a sole proprietor or even an LLC, probably the best solution would be like you said, to get an SBA loan. Even if you don't need it right now, there is no telling how long this is going to last. It's first come first serve, so if you haven't done it already try to get it done soon. Best case - you don't use it and pay the loan back. Worst case - your have a loan, but at least you still have a business to pay it back with.

Im a part owner at two bars, decided it was best not to even bother with pool tables at the second location because they bring to much drama. Sucks because most people are great, it's the few that mess it up for everyone. That and they take up tons of room for what they make. I have an air hockey table at the second location that makes/made more then all three pool tables at the first. Thinks it's more a bar staple, like darts more than anything.
On the other side, you might make it up in alcohol sales, because pool people tend to drink more.

We had 3 different pool leagues for a long time, on 3 different days of the week. All I can say is good riddance. There was a reason the second and third one weren't playing at slick willies (pool hall chain in Houston) anymore. Fights never broke out around pinball, darts, arcade or the golden tee people.... Seems like its always the pool table people.

They announced the requirement for us on monday for opening friday. The bar itself can't be used, 6 people to a table max (6ft. apart), hand santizer at the front door, arcades still have to be shut off, dancing is discouraged?, and masks aren't required but recommended. Would be difficult to open if you were a barcade with games in every nook and cranny.

Lot of employees are staying on unemployment, rather than coming back. I know we lost about 4 out of 30ish, heard of a few places that had 90% turn over.

I'm not sure how strict they are with that in Texas, I know pre-covid we had 2 people that were justifiably fired ( sadly we didn't have each incident documented) and they won their case. They were working somewhere else and still getting unemployment, for the full term. Doubt they ever got in trouble for it. At any rate we reported all the names that were eligible to come back, so now its btwn. them and the Texas workforce commission.

I don't know they are such a small part of the equation. Almost seems like they were an after thought in Texas when they reopened everything else.

That's pretty much the only thing I wear. Those regular loop masks get super annoying after a while, when I'm working on stuff. Figure they all do about the same thing as far as coughing and droplets going everywhere. I've seen valve masks all over the place... not sure what to think about those.

I'm looking into a card type system also. I asked the blizzard mountain owner about his. He said he programmed and sourced all the parts himself, which was pretty cool indeed. Seemed like a fun project, but I'd probably take a year implementing it, with everything I have going on. Finding something ready made seemed like a better idea. Would of never dawned on me to use an Arduino or raspberry pi for something like that.

The only time I've used an Arduino for pinball was to do a soft shutdown on the computer for RFM/SWE1 when the power goes out. Otherwise scores don't save, had to have a battery backup on the computer and boards. This is using pinbox on a newer gen computer, not the original.

Why wouldn't you get the game ahead of the crowd since you do tech support?

That sucks, seems like you could at least have the benefit of getting the game earlier then the masses. Since the first few months are when it's going to get the most play usually. I hope that changes for the next CGC release, I guess it's to late for GnR since some places already have it.