do you have too many games and not enough space?

DPtwiz

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I do, and it's starting to bug the shit out of me. i have 8 games in back room that i use for my workshop. My den is full of games i'm restoring for other people. My 12X16 yard barn is full, with enough room to get the lawn equipment and some of the kids bikes etc in. The loft is jammed full of parts. Also have a 10X20 storage unit, packed full of games.

Even if i start restoring my machines, i have no place to put them. My long term goal is to tear off my 19X19 addition i use for a workshop, and build on a 25X40 addition. Also, will be removing a stupid wall in my garage to open it back up to 19X24. After that, it's take off the roof, and add a second story to cover the entire house, and above the new addition.

Once i do that, i'll have a little over 6000 square feet. There will be a room upstairs that will be a wide open 44X50 for my arcade. 2200 square feet, i can get a hell of a lot games in that.. 100 maybe?

Right now i'm looking at getting another storage unit, or stripping and boxing a bunch of games and pitching/giving away the cabinets till i get to where i have room, then make new cabs and reassemble. I've already got about 10 games that are stored in plastic totes because the original cabs were beyond repair.

So, where are all your excess games?
 
My problem is voltage. I'm in a rental place where I can't really screw with the wiring but I'm already draining two different circuits dry to run all my cabs at one time during parties. The couple of games I'm adding this month will probably be my last in this location since I doubt I can stretch it much further... I don't even have that many cabs, this house is just not very... electrically planned =/
 
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And when your done doing all that building, give it about a month and you will be out of room again. Trust me on this. LOL..I know your pain, I need to find more friends to put games at there house's.
 
Yep, I'm in the same boat but without all the projects. Living rm is full, Formal Dining rm is full, A few in the family rm, a downstairs bd rm is packed, a few in the foyer along a wall and more in the garage.... All my parts are also in the garage stacked on shelves.

I hope you're planning on reinforcing the floor for your upstairs addition? 100 games is one hell of alot of weight plus people!!! If not you'll have a house of cards real quick!
 
I am down to 10 games now. My 2-car garage currently is used for my workshop and my arcade, but I am selling off most of the tools and the workbench. I am going to outsource most of the work from now on, so I will only be doing minor repairs. Getting rid of the tools should give me the space for 5 more games without getting too cramped.

I have an electrician friend who I just hired to add another 2 20A breakers and 10 more switched outlets. When that is done, I am going to have the garage insulated and re-sheetrocked. This is the space I have to work with for the foreseeable future, so I am going to make the best of it. I have had 22 games out there at one point, and I hated it. Way too cramped to enjoy the space.
 
My basement arcade is full!! My garage is full (have not parked my car in there all summer)!! My storage area is full to the top with projects!! I have sold everything that I don't want and still am out of room. I guess there are worse problems to have but I need more space. My wife has a love hate relationship with my hobby, but I won't put any upstairs in the living space as to not press my luck.
 
Yeah, might be a good idea to built to higher than the usual 40 psf standards.

Yep, I'm in the same boat but without all the projects. Living rm is full, Formal Dining rm is full, A few in the family rm, a downstairs bd rm is packed, a few in the foyer along a wall and more in the garage.... All my parts are also in the garage stacked on shelves.

I hope you're planning on reinforcing the floor for your upstairs addition? 100 games is one hell of alot of weight plus people!!! If not you'll have a house of cards real quick!
 
My plan for the upstairs- First thing i'm doing is taking out my 16' garage door, and installing two 7' doors. that will give me a space in between the doors, and i'm putting an engineered beam from above that, to the back wall, with a single post in the center. When the second story goes on, i'm using floor joists, spanning the 19' across the garage. I'm using floor trusses on the entire thing. make it easy to run the heating/cooling ducts, wiring, plumbing etc.

under my house. there's pylons (that's what i call them) of cement blocks all the way down the center of the house. the interior walls for the hallway and the wall that seperates the living room from the kitchen are all directly above the pylons. The floor joists are supposed to carry the weight from outside wall to outside wall, but with the pylons and interior walls that run the center of the house, i think it should be able to carry all the weight. The area above the living half of the house, the floor trusses will span 28' Probably take me years to get it all finished, since i do all my own work. I'll need to get a ton of help here when it's time to take the top off, and put it back on. i plan on building all my walls on the ground, floor trusses, roof trusses etc so it should go back up quick.
 
Once i do that, i'll have a little over 6000 square feet. There will be a room upstairs that will be a wide open 44X50 for my arcade. 2200 square feet, i can get a hell of a lot games in that.. 100 maybe?

In 2200 SQFT, you can get a LOT more then 100 games in there.

Figure if you give each game 2' in front of it to play, and 1" between games, you should be able to get close to 220 games in there.

Average game width (gw) = 26"
Average game depth (gd) = 33"
Player Space (ps) = 24"
Game Spacing (gs) = 1"

Games = 2200 / (((gd + ps) / 12) * ((gw + gs) / 12))

Games = 2200 / (4.75 * 2.25)

Games = 2200 / 10.6875

So with that calculation, you should be able to get approximately 205 games in there where it would be comfortable to play. Realistically, though it would closer to 200.
 
Once i do that, i'll have a little over 6000 square feet. There will be a room upstairs that will be a wide open 44X50 for my arcade. 2200 square feet, i can get a hell of a lot games in that.. 100 maybe?

Just build over the tennis court. You hardly use it anyway.
 
In 2200 SQFT, you can get a LOT more then 100 games in there.
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So with that calculation, you should be able to get approximately 205 games in there where it would be comfortable to play. Realistically, though it would closer to 200.



Yeah, I have a 13.3 * 15.3 room = 204 sq ft and I have :
1 pinball
11 full size
2 almost full size
11 mini's

24 videos and 1 pinball in that space and it's 'workable' even with 10 people in the room, including a 20" wide path to exit.

2200 sq ft would definitely be enough for 11 times that or:
11 pinballs
121 full size
22 almost full size
121 mini's

264 videos and 11 pinballs :) That would be more than I'd ever need.

Of course you'll need 400 amp service for that.. I'm running about 36 amps IIRC for my 24+1 pin currently.
 
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I used to not have enough room but since we bought our current house, I could put in a few more but I don't have any money.
 
The thing is a 200+ game personal arcade would be a full time job just to keep them all working. Being on the second floor would complicate that problem as it wouldn't be as easy to keep an arsenal of working "filler" games to stand in for the broken regulars. That, and I can't even imagine the electrical upgrades you would need to turn it all on.
 
Not to mention the heating cost for that much space.

Course I suppose you could just leave the games on and that might keep it warm.
 
I used to. My wife was kind enough to agree to let me have games in the house a couple years ago. I only have use of a re purposed small bedroom. At one point I had 2 pins and 6 vids stuffed in there plus 7-8 games in the garage. I trimmed it down to 3 vids and 2 pins inside currently with one more to come in once it's ready. Then all my games will be in the house and I'll feel more comfortable having another project or 2 in the garage.

I let the hobby overwhelm me and my space (and maybe the wife a bit) so now it's more manageable. Of course all that would change with more space and $$$ - Barry
 
I feel your pain. 10 games already in my arcade, and I've run out of space. Now I'm limited to cabarets only as there is just no room for big cabs.

My rule now is to only get games that REQUIRE their own cab, like Crossbow, Paperboy, Star Wars, etc, and all those games that are reproduced in the multi-pcbs get to live in one little cabinet. It's a bummer, as I love the look of all those cabinets, but I can only work with the space I have.

And to make it worse, the only new game that gets 100% approval from my wife is Tempest (her favorite game) but there is no room for a full-size, and no luck finding a little one yet!
 
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