There are assholes everywhere you go…pin shows, at the grocery store, Disneyland, even my office. As others have said, fortunately they are usually the minority. A handful of people that are abusive can’t ruin it for everyone…I find kicking them in the back of the knee while they are playing will make them walk away from the game they are abusing.

This thread actually made me chuckle. I was hauling pins to the show for others, so unfortunately didn’t have room to bring one of my own for free play. But all of this talk did make me remember Pinfest.

I took my restored Vampire (well, 85% restored). The amount of people that told me I was “stupid for bringing it” or that were surprised I did made me laugh. I remember telling a few of them, “I did all of this work, and am I supposed to just leave it at home to stare at it?” I wanted other people to enjoy it and see the work I had done. The game plays awesome, and there are always a ton of EM’s at shows that just play like crap.

During the three days it was there, somebody was nice enough to keep playing with one of the pop skirts locked down, melted the spoon a little and almost burnt out the coil. No big deal, and this is a game with all brand new parts. I lifted the playfield, took it apart and fixed it. Game was back up and running in 5 minutes.

A few people were a little abusive on it, and I was more than happy to say something to them. The game came home with a few minor scratches, but nothing to sulk over. I was glad to let people enjoy it, and plan on taking it to York as well.

At Pintastic, I saw a couple people doing some stupid things on games, and I didn’t hesitate to say something to them, even though it wasn’t my game. That’s all we have to do.

Thanks man...maybe you’ll make it out to one of the NE shows and throw a few games up on it. It’s definitely not a game you see often, or at many shows.

I will say, at Pinfest a few times when people were being rough with it, I did turn it off for 10 or 20 minutes. It was funny, because one guy was shaking it pretty rough to avoid the outlane drain over and over, so this happened after the second time he did it:

Me: Oh wow. Is that your game?
Him: Nope...but it’s friggin nice.
Me: It is nice and it’s mine...so stop fuckin shaking it like that.

He walked away and I didn’t see him again.

Here’s some help for when you make it out to the show next year. #stoppinabuse

I think that is a bit extreme...it’s not about what they are built to tolerate, it’s simply about respecting someone else’s property.

Nobody has a problem with nudging, etc. It’s people lifting up and dropping games, sliding them across the floor, carving their initials into the side, and being overly abusive.

And as Odin pointed out, let’s be honest: older solid-state and EM games are built like damn tanks, whereby newer games are built like total shit and cheaply (and some complete with OOF manufacturing defects that make them even more prone to damage).

Do I expect a game on location for three years being played by God knows who to get some abuse and have some damage? I sure do.

Do I expect a game I bring to a two or three day pinball show to come home with significant damage or in need of serious repairs? I shouldn’t.

We can all enjoy other people’s games and be respectful at the same time. It’s really not that hard. Nobody is saying the games shouldn’t be played the way they were meant to be played.

It was sarcasm...someone kicking the front of a machine to perform a death save would be a different story.

And that is perception, as Mike said.

Tell that to the guy at the York show three years ago that brought his game home with the leg bolt receiver and the cabinet ripped apart from someone that was dragging the game sideways to make a save. I think that constitutes significant damage, so it does happen.

And there is also a difference with a totally restored game or brand new, versus an old players condition game.

Little did that guy know that when the ball gets stuck, you can just remove the glass.

I agree with most of what you said. I have brought a ton of games to tournaments and events as well, and my experience has been mostly good.

And when someone is at my place playing my games with kid gloves, I’m the first to tell them, “go ahead, give it a nudge or shake it a little. You’re not going to hurt it.“

But chimp flipping is just plain annoying. It serves no purpose in gameplay and there is no need for it. It puts unnecessary wear on your coils and switches, which I certainly don’t feel like rebuilding right after a show because some moron felt the need to just keep aimlessly whacking the flippers over and over again.

On a crappy condition players game, nothing. If that’s your thing.

Flipper buttons are there for a reason, and games wouldn’t have a tilt bob if they were meant to be slid 3 feet across the floor. When you tilt a game, that means you did something outside of how it is supposed to be played. It isn’t a prize, it’s a penalty.

If you like sliding games, go play a bingo or a flipperless machine.

And the reality is some people think they “work on games” because they change some bulbs and rubbers in a few hours.

When I spend a good amount of money and 100+ hours restoring a game…yeah, I don’t want someone roughly shaking or sliding it around. I don’t really give a shit what someone else thinks is “acceptable”.

I play my games all the time and put up high scores, with some nudging, but without doing all the stupid crap I watch other people do.

I’m not playing for the IFPA championship title every time I toggle a game on. Neither is anybody else.

I can agree with that post. As Flynn said above, I think the real issue is some people are considering some things abuse that are just laughable. Somebody putting a drink on a game glass isn’t the end of the world, but if they spill the drink on the glass, that could be very problematic.

I think we all know what being way too rough with a game actually means, and that is really all I am really concerned with.

I didn’t start the thread, just commenting on what others have wrote, and throwing out some of my experiences & observations.

I do take players condition and my nice games to shows and all over the place. Have even rented them out for events. I do supervise my games and have no problem telling someone if I think they are doing something inappropriate, or I just don’t like. I will let people do whatever they want most of the time.

The guy I said something to at Pinfest, in my story above, was literally shaking the thing so hard that the BG was rattling and the backbox itself was actually moving flimsily. And yes, the bolts were tightened. Unless he can tell me where to buy a new Vampire backglass, he ain’t fucking shaking my game like that just for the risk alone.

And I would never not take my games, even restored ones, to shows. For every 30 people that enjoy it, there’s one asshole. I’m OK with that statistic. I just hope I’m in proximity to the game when the asshole happens to be playing.

Well, that depends. Did they tell me beforehand that it was not OK to break the glass and throw the ball back onto the playfield?

The death save is cheating. Not permitted in tournaments for that reason. And if somebody feels the need to do that to beat my score, so be it.

God bless ya Mike...I’m laughing my ass off at that post. Rough day...I needed that.

Good to see you at the show, even though it was only for a few minutes.

This is what I imagine you doing while reading your post.
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Maybe see a gastroenterologist? Lactaid pills? Haha. Just bustin chops Whodey and Gabe.