Very sorry about your time with us. There is no excuse for those issues. Thanks you for kicking me in the butt to get back on par. I installed the wrong coil on the Stargate have to order the proper one for the left outlane. The f-14 bottom right flipper has been repaired along with the bottom GI lighting. the upper right ordering new coil asap I need kicked in the butt sometimes. Its been a stressful move. But I need to get back on track with maintaining the pins. I have been busy with the video games. Again thanks for coming out and for your post

Thanks
Brandon
Timeline Arcade

I live in the area and plan to go in a couple weeks. I obviously support this arcade, but will try to report back honestly after I go!

Glad to see Brandon reply and get games up to speed.!! Thanks Brandon.!! Alot of times these owner's get consumed with the video games and ignore the pin's sometimes.. Most people don't report it to them in a timely, or most times, don't tell the operator's at all.
Just make sure you keep on top of your pin's brandon, and all will be fine...
Sound's like a great place to play.!!

My wife and I will be in the area for our anniversary in 3 weeks, I'm glad this thread didn't make me change my mind about stopping. Nice to see the owner chime in, hopefully things are running smooth when I get there haha, I look forward to it

Much respect for the operator willing to step it up!

The comments about Timeline would have been better served to Brandon off this forum. It blows my mind how people on a forum about pinball machines set out to destroy an arcade. Same thing happens on KLOV. Do you want Brandon to go out of business? What if a prospective, non pinside customer were to google search timeline arcade and find this thread?

many people don't realize how difficult it is to maintain a room full of 100 or so 20-30+ year old video games and pinballs, in a commercial location, on a daily basis. Flip the switch, everything comes on, no problems, right? Those pins get played by the general public (not people like on pinside who have an appreciation for not beating the crap out of the games), including kids who walk up, start a game, and go "flip flip flip flip" for 10 minutes, then leave in the middle of a game. The games probably log more plays in a week than some home collections log in two years. Games are powered on 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week.

As far as Timeline being "one of the best pin locations in the MD/PA area," how about "one of the only" locations? Where are you playing pinball in MD besides Crabtowne and maybe Volleyball House or Town Hall in College Park? Look at the FSPA database.... there are probably 12 other cumulative pinball MACHINES on route in the greater Baltimore area, if that! There are other arcades in the general area, but none like Timeline. No pins! Would you rather dump $40 in a claw or ticket game and feel robbed, or go to a place like Timeline and, for the whole day, play all of those cool old games?

If you really want arcades of this type to survive in 2013 and beyond, instead of bashing them in a public forum, go to the owner and say what you said, instead of blowing up on pinside. Your comments make Timeline sound like it is a dump, when it is clearly not.

/rant off

Mike F

Did you read the owners response? he thanked him several times for making him get off his butt to fix them. The OP could be saving his business.

My concern with pins in disrepair in the wild is its long-term negative effect on all from selfy-generation that have recently learned about pinball on their devices. Their ipad never has a sticky flipper or out of level adjustment.

A little bit of non-optimal pinball condition is normal, but when people finally find a taxi in the wild after having been playing it competitively at home on a console, a busted down machine can sour them for life. Sometimes public forums are the best place to lay down complaints as it gives the business owner an opportunity to manage their reputation while increasing business awareness. Specifically in this case, if I was in the area, I'd still go to timeline considering the owner's response. But if I went there a month from now and it was still as OP described, I probably wouldn't go back.

I played at Crabtowne for the first time recently, and I have to say, I expected worse based on comments like the one above. A couple of machines were out of order, but the several dozen others all worked fine. Not to say they were 100% dialed-in, but I didn't see any mechanical issues, broken toys, weak flippers, etc. Compared to some of the machines on location in DC (TSPP at Game Room with broken couch, LOTR at Sollys with broken ring, etc.) it was paradise. Given how little revenue they must generate, I was happy with the condition.

I was surprised that there was no indication from the outside of Crabtowne that they even had a huge old-school arcade inside. I guess they rely on word of mouth.

Point taken, well said. Before you edited your original statement, you made it seem like the arcade is a dump, which it is not. I have taken my son there many times, and we've had a blast, playing vids, consoles, and pins. Last time I was up, the Gilligans and F14 played fine (I put up almost 6 million on the F14). Didn't play the stargate though.

Mike

Stand up guy. The fact that Brandon was the 1st one to respond shows that he does care, and takes responsibility for making it right.
If I'm ever out there, I'll stop by for sure.

I'm sure it's not easy at all maintaining these machines. Hell, one keeps me busy lmao. Super cool to see the owner chime in right away. If I was in the area I'd make it a point to head over and support his efforts by playing a few.

Just wanted to revive this thread to follow up. I went to Timeline today with my parents, brother and 2 - year-old daughter. Was impressed. The pins were clean and generally played well. Great selection of vids, too. I assume it was Brandon who was there. Very gracious. Will be back.

I have known Brandon for a couple years now and he seems to be a generally great guy but I think this year he got himself involved in a little too much to give anything 100%. Not only did he move the location of his arcade - he & Rich took over the York Show (Whiterose Gameroom Show). Rich is not involved with Timeline but they joined forces to take over running the York Show when the original promoter decided he had done it long enough.

So my hats off to Brandon for all he has done in Central, PA and for his love for the hobby. York was as good or better than ever but I don't think Brandon knew moving an arcade & being a promoter of a pinball show were going to be as much work as both were.

Hopefully now that his first York show is behind him and the move of the arcade is also completed he will have more time to be sure everything is as good as it can be with his pinball machines at the arcade.

I was a little upset to see the original post because I know Brandon has been trying very hard to make things work but I also think outside input is important so operators & promoters realize when customers are not happy.

Anyway - I wish Brandon & everyone else involved with preserving the old arcade feeling & these great machines & this hobby a happy & healthy New Year. Keep up the good work in 2014!

I was able to stop at Timeline for my anniversary this month. My wife and I had a great time and felt that the all day pass was a great value. Played a ton of Monopoly, Whirlwind, Tommy and some others. I can only recall 1 issue on 1 pin that affected gameplay which considering the amount of pins & arcade games was very reasonable. I look forward to getting back down there soon

Thanks for the follow ups, It has been more than a stressful year to say the least. Please support the classic arcade and pinball rooms in your areas. If they work as hard as we do they would love to see some support and just a THANK YOU once and a while.

HAPPY NEW YEAR
Brandon
Timeline Arcade

I can tell you from experience we run around 75 pins and 50 videos in one of our locations and sometimes you get Yelp reviews of people who hate the place BECAUSE all it has is old pinball machines! LOL

It is very difficult to keep up with games for sure.

I can't wait to see the gentleman down here with 800 games putting them on location in less than a year. That's going to be a technician's nightmare.

Timeline arcade= awesome arcade! I must say Brandon does a hell of a job and the new location is nice and has way better hours. I want to see a location that has even one pinball machine in perfect running order! Or as stated above even any pinball machines, he just got done moving 2 months ago. Anyhow be glad there is someone like Brandon who is willing to bring back arcades like they used to be. I have been to both locations and would recomend this place to all my friends! Be supportive not critical!

This is funny to come back and read how much better things were years ago here. I really want to love this place, but I drove an hour down there to find 8 of the pins were out of service today. Metallica still has the same double ball eject issue as it had last year. First tombstone drop is broken and the second works intermittently. Taxi is down literally every time I go. Jack Bot has a bad shooter spring so you can't make the skill shot. Demolition man goes into ball search every time you hit the upper right scoop. Many weak flippers. I guess if you are going just to play the pins, call and ask how many are down before you commit a long drive to going.

Games powered down today:
WCS94
Monopoly
Tommy
Taxi
Whirlwind
Metallica (came back up and then went down again)
Fish Tales
One of the early SS machines on the left had no displays.

So 8 pins down... meaning what.. there were still like 20+ working?

They have pins spread out over 3 different rooms, plus the full room of arcades.

More like 16 or 17 total. So almost half the pinball machines are down. Pins are in 2 of the 3 rooms. Back room has a broken Monopoly and a working Slugfest. Small size room has zero pins. Where are these 20+ working games you speak of?

It sounds like you haven't been there in quite some time. It's definitely not the same place it was a couple years ago. The downtown York location still has both Ghostbusters scoops shooting STDM since day one, and ive offered to come fix the coil setting myself to no avail.

Also, I'm not the only one to notice recently...

I also played the skee ball today. Gives you 5 severely out of round balls, and several of the score display bulbs are out, so you have no idea what you actually scored.

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I just want to say it is ridiculously hard to keep old pins running. Many operators will only run newer Sterns due to constant breakdowns. Even when I went to Pacific Pinball Museum a couple of years ago there were a good 20 machines turned off on a Sunday night. For our machines at least 3 go down a week. If not for a weekly volunteer crew we might be in the same position. If I were Brandon I would just take the broken machines off the floor until they can be fixed. As is it just turns into bright red target for critics to take aim at. And to those criticizing you paid your money, you didn’t feel you got value, you have every freedom to criticize. But will said location going out of business provide you any sense of justice here. How about just asking for your money back. I would gladly do that for any customer who felt I didn’t provide them a worthwhile experience and it is a whole lot less traumatic than this public shaming and perhaps more constructive too.

Since we have a small arcade & several A pin titles in our house we only visit Timeline a few times a year just to support the business. Anytime I see a pin out on location I always throw some credits on the machine no matter what. Our local pizza shop has a Transformers Pro & though I have worn it out, I help the cause just to be sure that or another pin will be in place at that location in the future.

When I was young a long time ago, there were pins & arcade machines everywhere. Every mall had a full arcade, the laundry mat & even Turkey Hill always had some sort of machine just to draw kids there probably to buy slushies & such. With Timeline or any other arcade venture, I can't even begin to comprehend the overhead that's involved w/ commercial rent, employee salaries, insurance & plus the constant upkeep or maintenance that these machines require constantly. Put yourself in Brandon's shoes & try to wrap your head around that.

A great solution to this would be for the Pinside community to come together & offer some assistance for Timeline or another local arcade venue. I live five miles away from the Timeline York location & would be willing to help w/ the upkeep of those machines simply because I enjoy it. Possibly Brandon might be willing to offer some free-play in exchange for our maintenance service. Several experienced Pinsiders at one location could service these machines quickly & this would make a major difference in the preservation of these very few & far between arcades. Please chime in & offer your thoughts.

Yes, this is how we all can help support these efforts. We all get together on Thursday nights and address the issues from the last week on each machine. It’s done as a labor of love, nobody gets paid other than free dinner, and we all take pride when we’ve made a machine better. Affording a full time tech is not feasible for us and if not for the volunteer crew we would have lots of black displays each week. It’s rare we have all 75 machines up in any given week. The good news is that we love fixing them and getting new ones brought back to life. It’s like therapy for us.

I usually get more upset with pay per play places that aren't well maintained. It's annoying when you loose 5-10 dollars in tokens because of coin mechs, or pay a dollar to play a game with a non-working or super weak flippers.
If it's a free play arcade, you have to take into account those machines are probably getting at least 5 times or more in plays than your average location.
Not saying it's impossible to keep up with a free-play arcade, I wouldn't want to do it though.

As for locations having old machines (pre-2000) vs. new machines (2000 and up), personally I don't have any more or less issues with older machines. For me, it's because ALOT the time I put in on them and the new parts I add. Don't want the headache of a machine breaking down every couple of days because of something I could have prevented. Also at most locations that aren't freeplay, it's harder to justify giving a spot to a game that is going to earn 5 to 10 times less then a newer one. That and most ops aren't going to want to spend the time on preventative maintenance... It's not worth it for the most part. Without tournament players, I doubt I would have any old machines (pre-90's). (to bad because there are a lot of good ones).

Like I said, myself and others have offered help, but they do it seem to have any interest whatsoever or are in denial. At the York location, Freddy doesn't even have leg levelers on it. The legs are flat on the floor, and the building has an old out of level floor. Freddy is nearly unplayable because the tilt of the floor sends the shot out of the shooter SDTM.

Some places don't have spare parts or money for them, or are fine with the way things are (people have different standards).
Pride might be in the way..... you don't really know, all you can do is either keep going in or stop going.
Think the best way to let people know about conditions is pinballmap, otherwise people tend to get really defensive.
Maybe you and a few others could test the waters and route a couple machines, I know there are several places down here that have asked me over the years.
At least that way you'll have a few local spots to go to, and it'll help pay for the hobby to some degree.