$1 per game. All games priced at this level, however, should have DBVs/DBAs in the coin door ready to accept currency. While I don't think $1 per play is unfair (anymore), I do think it's asking a lot for the player to:
1. Approach the game to ascertain how much it is to play
2. Get out their dollar to play
3. Realize that they need to get the dollar changed into four quarters
4. Find a change machine to accomplish this
5. Return to the machine
6. Insert four quarters, one-at-a-time.
7. Hit start and play

If you want the $1 (which you do, or at least you should...), you need to do your part to make it as easy to spend/insert the dollar as possible. Fair is fair. Any machines which don't readily accept a DBV in the coin door can be the exception(s) to the rule, but in my view, they should be priced lower as a result.

You should note that what you're referring to there is PAID plays, which is altogether different from TOTAL plays. Replays, high score credits, specials, matches, service credits...these things all add up, and don't count towards the bottom line, but *do* count toward wear. Not all plays are revenue generating.

Well, to be fair, the desire of the ruling bodies of operators back in those days was very much into $1 per play all around. Didn't matter the machine (or its type or cost), they wanted $1, and they were really pressing for a new $1 coin here. They finally got it with the Sacajawea Golden Dollar, but since the paper unit never was pulled from circulation, it didn't do them any good. They even had their own little "DOLLAR PLAY IN THE U.S.A.!" slogan at the time, which I thought was complete and utter greed (and it was). There was certainly no issue paying $1 for a "deluxe" game such as Daytona USA (in the twin cabinet) or others like that when they were new, but imagine paying $1 a game for Fish Tales or any standard "monitor with two joysticks and buttons" game back in the day. Never, *ever* would have happened, especially without DBVs.

I fully admit that this attitude pissed me off at the time, and for some time after, since operators were raking money in hand over fist. Twenty years later, $1 for a game (to me) should pretty much be the standard.

But it's *their* quarter, now isn't it?

Not to stray too far off the path/subject here, but do you have any Aldi grocery stores in your area? Are you familiar with how they disperse their grocery carts? It's commonplace in Europe at every grocery store to utilize a Euro dollar to "release" a shopping cart to you for your use, and when you're done, you return the cart to the corral, connect it to the others, and get your Euro dollar back. In the USA, they utilize quarters for the same effect, and boy howdy, does it work in *spades*!!! It might be kind of an inconvenience at times, but I'm absolutely *sold* on the concept, because whenever I go to an Aldi, the parking lot is absolutely bereft of stray carts. You *might* see *one*, and I can guarantee you that it won't be there for long, because hey: free quarter! People WANT THEIR QUARTER. And they WANT THEIR QUARTER *BACK*.

I totally understand the desire to not lose a quarter in a game that's $.75 per play. So, apparently, do most other people. $.75 is just such a weird, awkward price for a game. You might as well just automatically boost the price to $1, just because.

They were, though, Lloyd. The resurgence of revenue from coin-op games in the late 80's and early 90's was pretty manic. Not like it had been a decade before, no, but operators were doing *just fine*, as evidenced by the fact that so many of them were putting a lot of their earnings up their noses. $1 per play back then would have been ridiculously high, considering the cost of the machines themselves. Many things were paying for themselves within 3-6 months at most, and that's an *incredible* ROI. Think about how much fighting games took in. Drivers of all sorts. Even pinball, at $.50 a game, was earning, and earning *hard*. You paid $3000 for that TAF? Paid in half a year, and probably less. It was boom time for operators of coin-op amusement all over. When a standard Mortal Kombat is pulling in $750-$1K a week, it's kind of hard to argue against the history. So many, many other examples.

And basically *nothing* was honestly $.50 in 1981.

But it does, even if it's just subconsciously. You're better off just charging the buck for one game. No one feels gypped then, and it's really high time for games of pinball to require that price. I don't think anyone's cheap for not wanting to put $1 in a $.75 game and losing the excess. Were it me, I'd change that dollar into four quarters first, insert $.75, and be better off for it. In the same way, when I see a quarter on the ground in front of me, I pick that bad boy up, because hey! Quarter!

I don't think we're that far away in our thinking, I just think that the nature of humanity as a whole doesn't want to give away money for no particular reason. That, and I think it's time to stop discounting multiple game purchases. $1 per game, straight (none of this 6 for $5 garbage or anything), with winnable extra balls, replays, specials, etc.

*You* can't, and perhaps *I* can't, but that's because we're pinheads. We live for the stuff, so the extra quarter wouldn't throw us...in this particular instance. I can guarantee you that there are things in your life that, if you knew you'd have to throw in an extra, unnecessary quarter for, you'd just not buy it. I can fully see most of the population seeing a 25% Idiot Tax be a detriment to spending, rather than an incentive.

$.75 just comes back to being too awkward. I'm here to tell you that there are local car washes here that charge $2.99, $3.99, $4.99, etc. and you had better *believe* that they keep tons of rolled pennies around for change.

And I would add that the price per play doubled to $.50, so we've achieved detente, comrade.

C'mon, Lloyd, $1 per play in the early 90s for all games was out-and-out *ridiculous* greed, inspired by stars in ops' eyes that were fueled by many types of illegal substances. It's odd to be making this statement from the point-of-view that I am, in favor of the rise to $1 now. And I mean it: when ops put out pinball machines today, as many of those with coin doors that have places for bill acceptors should have them, even on older machines. When they're brought into the shop to be cleaned, rerubbered, rebulbed, etc. one of the things that should be done is they should grab an older MARS DBV off the shelf, install it on that Sega Harley-Davidson, and set it for $1 a play, and send it back out into the world to actually *earn*, rather than just exist.

It's 2016. It's time.

You didn't have a Daytona USA back when it was new?

I saw WG on test in Chicago, at a well-known WMS test location. I *think* I may have seen one person play it one time, over several hours. It really did appear to be an absolute dog. Just awful.

And lest anyone think it was the location itself, that same location had a *massive* crowd when Mortal Kombat 3 went on test. I remember (I think it was) Ed Boon stopped by to play a bit himself, and when he beat someone, before he'd enter the Fatality code, he'd cover up the control panel with his body so others couldn't see what he was entering. That thing was raking in the cash...and War Gods couldn't even get people to coin it up.

There were dogs, yes...but there were many, many moneymakers in the day.