FREE GAMES!

[OregonPacman]

[savit4l8r]

I'm in the none category... http://forums.lymphoma.com/forums.arcade-museum.com/images/ubbgraemlins/mad.gif

[modessitt]

I currently have 24 cabs, and have sold/traded away about 10, and I've only paid money for about five of them...

[descrentl]

Ive got 2 for free so far.

[jow]

Ive got 2 for free so far.



Me too.

[FullThrottle]

More than 5. (Everybody hates me including myself)

[cadillacman]

big fat muthaf-in ZERO

[MikeyDee]

4 for me. One was 100% working. 3 were complete, non-working.

[chris25810]

Many!

[tec9]

I've gotten several free games, but I remember one instance in particular. I go to work early in the morning(6:00 AM), and go the same route everyday. They are pretty much backroads, but I do have a few traffic lights. As I was approaching the one traffic light, I think I see a arcade on the porch of this old house. I rub my eyes, because it is way early and I'm still half asleep. As I approach the red light, I can then see it better- Yup it is a arcade game!! It has a sign on it that says "Works- Free". I was waiting at the red light, and became too impatient, so I blew through the light to get to the house! Luckiy I was driving my truck, but did not have a hand truck. I actually dragged the machine from the porch to my truck. After I had the machine loaded up, I noticed that many of the house lights were now on. I guess I woke somebody up dragging the machine of their porch! Oh well, went straight to work with the arcade game in the back of the truck!
-Mark
(The game was a converted Elevator Action- to Alcon) http://forums.lymphoma.com/forums.arcade-museum.com/images/ubbgraemlins/frown.gif
But it was free!!

[Umortal377]

Only got one free game that didnt involve trades or anything. It was a semi working time warp pinball

[rm]

2 - Asteroids and Championship Sprint.

[kstillin]

Here's my favorite 'free' story.

My wife calls and says there's a Ms Pac manual on the porch. I figured one of my friends dropped it off, but couldn't really remember loaning it.

She calls back later and gives me the story. The lady across the street asked if she had gotten the book. She says she knew I had several games from seeing them in the garage. She came across a game on the side of the road and this is all she could get from it. She said it was laying down, but didn't look dirty. She gave a rough description of the location.

I search for the road on google and almost give up before realizing it may be under a neighboring town name- bingo.

My buddy with the truck is up for an adventure and we're racing cloudy skies. There's the Ms Pac on the side of the road. Looking real good and complete except for the back door. Powers up, but screen is scrambled- doubled up.

Cap kit, not much change. Figure horizontal oscillator may be too far off to sync up- adjust coil and it looks pretty good.

Most of my other free stuff was free because it was worthless. Games thrown out classify as free, right?

Ooohh- how about SCRAPPED games?
see picture-

[cysnake]

Ive gotten quite a few, my first game ever was a free mortal kombat in a taito cab, then came a battletoads, NBA jam tournament, surf planet, turbo outrun, sega VR, and Mr. Do, bad dudes, (all three thanks to Keith), countless Cherry master cabinets, mario widebody and many nintendo cabs, and im sure a few others im forgetting. It all accounts to being at the right place at the right time, and alot of luck. http://forums.lymphoma.com/forums.arcade-museum.com/images/ubbgraemlins/wink.gif

[SuperGunGuru]

My Tron and Crystal Castles were technically free, but I was doing tech work on other games in exchange.

[beerbarrel]

When I was a kid...around 1982 or so I lived in this house with 2 other guys. One of the guys was a limo driver for the guy that was well to do. The guy owned a couple of the arcades in town as a side business. He owned one in Marietta, Ga at Parkaire mall. He had decided to close down this one for whatever reason. He moved some of the games to his personal game room at his home. My roomate (The limo driver) called me at work one afternoon and asked me if I would help him move these games to his bosses house. Being the super nice guy that I am, I said sure! Anyways, we moved about 20 games that night to about 5 different houses. When we got through, we took the truck back to the mall where my roommate's boss was waiting for us. He offered to buy us supper but we were too tired. He offered me cash but I declined. I was more than happy to help my buddy out. But when he said "pick out a game to keep it you want" I could not resist. I had a mint Defender in my house that night. I wore that sucker out until it got traded for a Hayes 1200 Baud external modem a year or two later. I guess it wasn't really free, but I did not pay any money for it.

Tracy

[cueball]

my free game was another story of the right place/right time. during my quest for an indiana jones TOD, i bought the controls (no panel), marquee and pcb on ebay while i was away on business. a week later when i got home, i logged on to CL and found that a guy put a Roadblasters for free.. didnt know if it worked and wasnt plugging it in.. i then went and got it, found a couple of disconnected wires and i had a working game. got some steel and custom bent a control panel for indy and i have my grail.. now i just need to restore it.

[Spike10]

About 6 years ago, I had a really good friend next door who owned a Donkey Kong Junior machine. This was before I knew anything about arcade games, me and some friends would always go over to his garage in the summer and play on it. If I had to rate its condition, its about a B+ to an A- with all origional art intact, including the bezel instruction card, and 'Insert Coin' sticker. It had a case of vertical foldeover and was showing signs of needing a cap kit, but at the time we didnt really care.

When he moved, he couldn't afford to move it with him and gave it to me for free since I probably played it more than he did, and he knew how much I liked the game. It sat in my upstairs spare bedroom for about a year, and then for the next 5 years sat in my garage colleting dust with an occasional bit of play.

Then for no apparent reason, one night I went down to play on it, and after about 3 minutes the screen flickered abit, and I didnt think anything of it, then it did it again and I noticed the light behind the marquee was trying to start. Low and behold, after about 5 minutes it flickered to life and stayed on untill I shut the game off. One thing led to another google search... and I started getting more and more interested in arcade games as I looked at countless restoration projects people posted online, and when I gave the machine a full 'once over' with my new knowledge I realised just what I had and decided to fix up it's minor imperfections, and repair the monitor. I added a High Score/Diagnostics Kit and replaced the audio board after capping it failed to rid the game of the constant humming. All the art including the Bezel, Marquee, and CPO is nearly perfect, except there is a medium sized tear in the corner of the Side Art on the right side. Not enough to make me want to replace the origional art though.

[OregonPacman]

Last year for Christmas, my cousin gave me a Time Soldiers that had been sitting in her barn for somewhere between 8 and 10 years. It was in a Make Trax cabinet. The original Williams power supply had gone bad and took the Time Soldiers board with it. It also had no vertical deflection in the monitor. I got what replacement parts I needed from E-bay and got it running, sanded it down and painted it. I put about $100 into that free game but it looks good and works well now.

The other is the Space Invaders I recently got from a customer. I discovered it while on a delivery for work and asked if I could come back later. I got it for diagnosing the Space Zap she had sitting next to it.

[Nixs]

just picked up a Mappy tonight

i have also got a Donkey Kong,Tempest,Frogger,Asteroids,Mr Do!,Golden Tee cocktail,Nfl Blitz 2000,a bunch of Archnid dart boards and Pacman

[cleverlyj]

worked at a indie movie store in 2003. there was a mario bros. in a vs cab that was there, always had the coin door open. one day it was gone. asked about it to the manager and he said it didn't play but turned on, said i could have it if i wanted it. turned out some kid yanked the wiring harness off the control panel, so you couldn't play the game. logged on the internet, dl'd the manual, and i had a working game!3

[shred]

I got one as a gift for my birthday from my brother and parents.

Dave

[EthanB]

I got my Red Baron cockpit off a CL ad. Said it was free and sitting in his yard. Come and get it.

So I did. And amazingly enough, the guy was telling the truth. All it needed was a power cord! I did rebuild the monitor "just because", however.

[NotreCaine]

Picked up a free PC-10 Dual Monitor cab, 10 minutes from my pad! Cabinet is in fantastic condition and the side art is completely intact! No tears! AMAZING! Back door, harness,coin mechs, all there. Still stunned!

[ekeeb]

Picked up 2 robtron and sega eswat in may 08 in garland,rom issue on robtron fixed gave to buddy.Put cap kit on eswat to bring it back to life.Spent $9.59 in parts.nov 08 pick up 3 in fortworth monaco gran prix needs steering wheel with tach assembly,still looking.marvel vs capcom empty but excellent cab just missing game and monitor,and sega fighting vipers pick up moniter at dallas auction should be done this coming weekend.All have been found on craigslist.

[thebman80]

Never got anything free but really close. I won an auction on eBay a while back for a Double Dragon in a Mario Widebody cabinet plus 2 other cabinets (empty). The other cabinets were Rolling Thunder and Buck Rodgers. I also got the monitor for Buck Rodgers broken neck board and 2 other monitors for the amazing price of $20.50. The Mario Brothers is almost done needs side art and the High score kit the other 2 games will take a little while longer to get to. Won an empty Defender cabinet for $20 at an auction in NJ a while back. I also won a Ms. Pac man cabinet for like $20.25 off eBay this summer. So I have been in the $20 range for a game and or games which might as well be free Since $20 is easy to make back.

[_sentient_]

Pole Position (cockpit) totally free. Thanks to BrentRadio for posting the link. I think he labeled it "free games in MD" or something similar I think. The add as on Google groups.

[pinballDan]

Just last week the phone rings and the guy says he is getting a divorce and needs to finish cleaning out the house. he has 3 games he bought 12 to 15 years ago and wants to get rid of them, I ask what type and how much? He says they are new coin operated games he bought and never opened them up, was going to try and make some money with them and never did. My question how much you thinking? He says I just want to get rid of them "you can have them or I will need to hall them to the dump". I would post pix but someone needs to tell me how to do that>....Christmas come early this year....I did not even open them up till I got to the shop....new ...games, cabinets, monitors, power supply, coin mechs and all........

[cysnake]

What games did you get?

[gibbous]

My only free game in 12 years of collecting is a non-working but decent condition Ikari Warriors in a dynamo type cab. The guy said he got it from a halfway house. I haven't had much time to work on it, the connector on one of the rotaries is broken, but it's very clean other than that inside, and complete and fairly clean on the outside except for a few inches torn off the side art on one side. The grey-ish rather than black paint on the outside makes me think it's a little sun-faded, but the art doesn't look faded at all.

I've been jonesing to play some Time Soldiers, and was going to convert another cab to do it, so getting one complete and hopefully easy to fix is cool.

[jehuie]

Let's see....

Got a free Pole Position, Tempest, Road Blasters, Warrior, Star Wars (sort of), Joust (sort of), and a few others over the years.

[Pleiades10]

I've been collecting for about 18 years (damn, that's a long time) and in that time, I've received these free machines.

Two Tigers (Tron conversion)
Pulsar (dedicated)
Street Fighter 2 (Rampage conversion)
Super Baseball Double Play (Joust conversion)
JailBreak (Defender conversion)
Merit Pit Boss countertop

a partially stripped "Nicole" generic cab - no PCB or marquee, but it had a working monitor with a great picture which I used in another game.

And the best was the dedicated Track & Field cocktail which a friend gave me from a bulk buy as he never liked T&F OR cocktail cabinets. I've put maybe $150 into it with new overlays, new buttons, a spare PCB, and a replacement monitor, and she's still in my collection today!

Kyle http://forums.lymphoma.com/forums.arcade-museum.com/images/ubbgraemlins/cool.gif

[descrentl]

My only free games were a Galaxian and a Golden Tee Fore.

[djgil]

0...I suck.

[Wizard 555]

got my first 2.
both in the past week.

1: Rush'n attack (basicly a hacked spare parts machine.)
2: fully functional super pac-man

[scottrod]

My first game, an in-op Stargate, came with the house I bought! It sat for 4 years, then decided one day to see if I could get the thing working. Fast forward 4 years, now I have 5.

Stargate, Tempest (in-op at auction), Joust (ebay), PacMan (ebay, to make the wife happy), Asteroids (ebay, picked it up in a blinding snowstorm in Ohio)