KickStarter is not the proper means to resource capital to start any physical type of business. This was not the intent of these types of "go fund me" type of actions.

If a person wants to accomplish this dream, find an investor, or take out a proper loan. A person is donating tax free money for a potential profit company location venture with little to no return, reduce another's financial risk, and becomes virtually untraceable. The backers are not winning anything, especially if the business is poorly managed, or even closes in six months.

There is some evidence of lack of demographic and market research of the region, which does not add credibility.
As a final note, offering lifetime transfer memberships decreases viability of the location survival. Continued loss of further income.

1000 bucks for a transferable lifetime membership sounds interesting. Assuming the the place sticks around for a while...

Speaking about Kickstarter campaigns from direct experience, almost all of the money comes from the first three and last three days of the campaign with a large yawning gap of doom in between.

Does anyone know the creators? They must have the mother of all pinball collections to fill out 70,000 feet.

Anyway the creators really should be talking up their idea here and other well-known online venues if they want to succeed...

It's a pipe dream. There is no way they are hitting that $250k goal and a kickstarter is not the right way to go about raising money for this type of thing.

just a wag .... but i suspect they are only trying to gauge interest and already have funding / investors since that amount of $ wouldn't get it this project off the ground

its atlanta, so many stupid things get done in the name of tourism (atlanta streetcar & college football hall of fame - wtf?) so we shall see

No, he is not known to the local operators, pinheads, leagues, or SFGE staff.

Someone reached out to him and said he will have to buy the machines with the money raised. He wants to fill half the museum with EMs and will be training all new techs to service them.

The internet has made people lazy. Instead of laying the groundwork through research, networking, and gathering human intel, people think they can just throw something out on the internet and start a successful business.

Everyone on Pinside has dreamed of opening a successful arcade/barcade/operating business at one time or another, but few have the hubris to think they can flip a switch and make it happen.

Let alone have other people just give you the money.

This isn't limited to pinball though. I see these types of asks for every pipe dream you can come up with.

They don't even have the machines yet? Geez.

I love pinball, but this is poorly executed.

I count about 150 machines in that layout.

He's getting some great pricing.

I don’t do Kickstarter anymore, there is no monitoring of where the money goes......seen so many get money and the project dies, what happened to the cash?

They piss it away via poor management. "Tale as old as time...."

I've never had an issue with any project I've backed on Kickstarter.

Also, Kickstarter does have far more rules and oversight than IndieGoGo. That places is the Wild Wild West.

I've backed a couple of small Kickstarter campaigns. No money gets transferred until the project is "funded" and then Kickstarter will notify you a week before they draft the money from you. So if a campaign doesn't reach it's goal, no money ever changes hands.

NOPE NOPE NOPE

MASSIVE RED FLAG even beyond anything else.

For any enthusiasts that want to start a business future location model with the "history of pinball" in mind, not just a simple route with a couple of games and do a few pulls:

It takes months of training to properly train coin operated technicians, years if specializing in dozens of types of game manufacturer systems, not considering EMs. EM technicians with the propensity to handle large amounts of game titles are rare today with both skill and experience. They just are do not exist due to the age of the games. Some companies outsource some of their operations due to specialty. These type of people you cannot just "hire off the street", because they simply don't exist anymore like they used to 20 years ago. Talking EMs with modern technicians is like speaking Swahili. BTW, the salaries of technicians are not "amazing" either, so you are not going to lure the few left away from other operators. Tough luck depending on where you want to open that location!

Some of the minimum periods for reference. A basic training curriculum for a coin operated technician is six months. Bench tech one year. Field technician 2 years with some supervision, but it depends on the aptitude of the worker and the skills they bring prior to employment. If a person is "average" in learning, double the length of time. If a technician is being asked to service all types of games starting say from 1960-2018, lord almighty they better have worked in the industry before.

A good example of this whole process is how painful the PHoF came to be, and why it still has problems today, but that is a different story.

Learning how to clean a game versus properly non-hack and troubleshoot a game are two distinct differences.
Just like home use restorations versus route preparation/maintenance operation.
Any potential new company that thinks they can do it "on the go", and figure it out later, are already in a state of confusion with no plan, and ultimately a very high chance of failure.

He should open it in Conyers.

In February I ran a Kickstarter for my replacement Skee Score display boards. Project funded (the target was silly-low) and I delivered selected reward to every contributor. Here's a link to it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2111218102/skee-ball-display-pcbs-redesigned/description . Two previous kickstarters I ran didn't reach funding but I brought the products to market anyway.

Coolest one I ever supported that got funded was called MakerPipe. If you've seen my booth at a pinball show lately you've seen the product from that campaign - the overhead contraption that holds my KAHR.US Circuits sign is assembled from MakerPipe.

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my replacement Skee score displays for Model H & Model S Skee Ball

Wow they have no pins, yet? Yikes.

I suppose you can buy a lot of EMs for about a thousand per machine. But I’ve been to probably a dozen pin-museums or large barcades and the EMs are lightly used... to put it mildly. It’s a shame but that’s what I’ve observed. If they want enough paying visitors they’ll need most of their games to be no older than the nineties, won’t they?

I wonder how many admissions per day they would need to break even. The power bill alone on a space that large is going to be breathtaking. Do they at least own this seventy thousand square foot building?

OP's name is "huge pockets," but is asking for money.

What’s wrong with people these days? How did we go from, I want my dream so I’m going to work my butt off for years and make it happen to- I want something and I should have it, give me money. Wanna open a pinball place? Cool, pay for it yourself- earn it, inherit it, borrow it. The whole Kickstarter sounds like it was written by a junior high kid, we’re gonna have this and that and another, and oh ya tons of free parking....where the f they think all this comes from and costs?? Looking at the mock ups, I’d say they need several mil, at least. Someone go smack some sense into these kids. Worse than saying you wanna write a book and disappear like a fart in the wind.

There are still people from the first category. Lots of them. They are quietly chugging away doing their thing still.

We just now have more visibility into those looking for a shortcut or who have no business acumen. They haven't dealt with large scale P&L and also typically have no experience working with the types of vendors they will need to fulfill their promises.

Thankfully, you are right, there are still a number of hard working people around. I’m just irratated every day by those who don’t. Hopefully someone with business sense and cash signs on and helps their idea.

The founder of this Kickstarter has joined GAPAS, our local pinball mailer. The discussion has been cordial but skeptical. I’m willing to remain friendly as long as it’s all above-board and nobody loses money. But I give it about a 3% chance of actually working on the scale that he’s envisioning. Maybe he’ll dial it back, buy some games and put them on location somewhere. To my knowledge he hasn’t bought a single game yet.

The potential founders have also Facebook followed just about every major pinball collector in the United States for increased visibility in attempts for canvassing potential contributions and games. I cannot speak for other social networks.

I would visit this place if it happened. Hope it does, but it would not surprise me if it goes the way of the do-do. Good luck with that one.

Any word on whatever happened to the ATL Pin Museum? I see they did a 2nd KickStarter and raised even less than the first. Supposed to open winter of 2018

Public pinball in Atlanta is indeed wholly lacking. If there ever was a place that needed more pinball on location, it is Atlanta. Sure, there's a few places around Atlanta that you can play but nothing really awesome IN Atlanta.

I think the most pinball on location is in kennesaw and they have under 30 games.

The other place has 10 games.

That's it for public pinball games in the ATL... unless you're into joining weekly tournaments at collectors private homes.

I'd totally support a place that I could go and play 100 or more pins. Atlanta needs a galloping ghost or a pinball hall of fame.