Buying games from establishments

TheDrewster

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Tonight, a few friends and I will be hitting the mini golf course. They have a decent arcade and there are two games that I wouldnt mind having in the garage, an ailing Paperboy on its last legs and a Space Harrier Cockpit that is "Out of Order." Now, I have previously contacted the manager about possibly purchasing the Paperboy, but they pretty much told me to pound sand, because they "only keep them until they break" and Paperboy still had a twitch of life in it. I forgot to ask them about the Space Harrier at the time.

Has anybody here sucessfully purchased a broken (or otherwise) game from an establishment simply by offering cash or a trade? I was also thinking about offering to trade my Golden Tee for one of their down games.
 

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I'd figure Golden Tee would be less of a draw for a mini golf place than a bar, but once the paperboy goes down, you could probably trade it straight up for both of them. Hard to argue w/ "hey here's something that will start making money as soon as it's plugged in" for someone running a place like that. :)
 
Why is the paperboy on it's last legs?

Monitor has foldover, sides are torn to hell, voltages dip and make the game reset, and if you tried hard enough, you could probably yank the handlebars right off the machine.
 
Go back and ask about the Space Harrier just to get a feel of how they react... Mention the Golden Tee.
Maybe slip in the Paper boy in the conversation if they bite.
 
Best to get to know the owner. That's worked well for me anyway. They have more of a "big picture" view and don't usually get all worked up about power trips like the managers do.
 
That Space Harrier looks like it is in decent shape. It would be a pretty neat cab to have... but would take up a lot of space!
 
I've thought about doing this at my local mini golf place,but thought I'd get the "pound sand" reply.I may just ask....if they still have any games left.
 
if a game still gets played enough they probably will opt to fix rather than sell. If it rarely gets played and takes up space they may be willing to let it go. At least that's what I've found in my experience. If you get in good with some one high up (manager/owner ect.) you can at least set yourself up to get 1st shot when they sell.
 
I've gotten a bunch of games this way . If I see a game anywhere that I want , I'll go and ask if they wanna sell it , and usually they let them go cheap like $100 . I've gotten 10 games over the years this way from different businesses . All you gotta do is ask ,
 
i have, somewhat. i got my first mario bros. from a video store that had it. wouldn't sell it and then it stopped working, due to a kid yanking the control panel wiring off. saw it sitting in a storage area, asked 'em about it, and they let me have it for free.
 
If you have something that's ready to go, they might be more open to a trade. In their eyes the games earn money, so offering them something working and ready to earn is sometimes worth 2 or 3 dead games.

Best of all, you can usually trade common JAMMA stuff towards classics.
 
When most of the arcades where around here Venders owned the machines Arcades did'nt .
99 Percent of the games around here where owned my Music Vending in Seattle at the time.

I think thats a dream your living in *Arcade giving up 3 broken games for 1 working one.
 
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