There was a time when this was really the only "courtesy" rule. Respect the quarter!

Inevitably the rule that will be broken at every party... which is why friends don't let friends take bong hits stoned. Which is an ironic paradox wrapped in an enigma, and tied with a existential bow.

This is not a bad thing in our circles. If you are doing it right, there is no problem with double gaming, you just need a double game partner. My brother and I do it all the time when playing at shows. It just requires picking the primary game and switching off when its your turn on the main game. Or if your on the secondary machine and are kicking ass, you pass your turn on to your partner on the primary. Nobody has to wait, but the swap has to happen instantly even if you drain your ball on the secondary game. To the people around you it is no different than me playing the first solo and my brother playing the second solo. Both machines are being played, but by two people at once. This saves a boatload of time when there are literally hundreds of machines to get around to playing... and I don't begrudge anyone else doing this either, but when ball three on the last player is over, you give up the machine if people are waiting. And if people are waiting, I will always ask them to join us if we have an unused player. If they refuse to play multiple players, then thats when I don't mind making them wait, even if we play a couple of games, because they could join us and have fun at any time, then play it solo when we finish, or they can stand there, arms crossed, looking pissed until we finish. If you are one of those people, you have my pity, but not my sympathy.

We do this as well, it depends on how many people are in our group and how packed the hall is. We do not hog machines nor do we double game during crowds... we do it when the hall is empty and machines are sitting idle. And we pick secondary machines that people are not clamoring to play. If nobody wants to play a machine, why let it sit idle? These shows are about playing games you don't get to see often, if ever at all. We play pinball first, cheer and spectate second. And we are polite and cordial with anyone who wants to play with us, no matter what their skill level is, or how bad they stink. The biggest reason for doing this is we don't suck at pinball, and I don't know about you, but watching my brother kick the living shit out of a pinball machine for 20 minutes can get boring to a player itching to play his next turn.

But then you don't have ANY cheering section (or more importantly a witness) when you really blow up a game! You would like playing with us, because we will give you shit about playing like it even while we are not watching you play. We keep track of what we hear... if yer bitching, we will let you have it, and then again, when you hear 'jackpot' over and over in the background, you know your own ass is getting fried right now... we have played this way even when paying to play since the 70's. Its kinda built into us now. But mostly we had to do it by need since our gang of pin playing hoodlums was always bigger than 4 players...

You are playing a double on primary, single player on secondary, not double doubles, and only if the secondary machine is idle. Its all about playing instead of standing idle, not about monopolizing machines.

Ok, you can all do you, we have been doing it this way for 40 years. I'm out.