Ops with no love for their games

playpin35

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Donor 2011
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What is the deal with ops and no upkeep on their machines? The wife and I were at a pizza place for lunch today and in the back corner was a Pirates of the Carribean. While waiting for food, I tried playing a few games. The playfield glass and the playfield were dirty, the ramps were hazy from being dirty as well, the left kicker rubber had slipped down at the post bottom and wasn't working from no switch contact, the plunger tip was worn off so metal to metal for ball launch and the display was working but seemed somewhat dim. I could be wrong but it appeared to have issues with the sinking ship stages as well (only second time of playing POTC).
I realize that ops are trying to make money, but this place was a high traffic area and I'm sure would have been worth it to keep it maintained properly.
Only being a 3-4 year old game in that condition made me want to call up the op and make an offer to buy it to keep it from further deterioration.

Do you guys feel the same way when you see the same situation?
 
Pretty much any pin on location anywhere is in that state these days. Not alot of money to be made, even when they are working....there has been a TON of discussion about this type of thing on RGP if you want to read from the OP's perspective..
 
I was at a local movie theatre a few weeks ago and walked into the arcade. They had a simpsons pinball party that was extremely dirty. Almost all the g.I. lights were out. Flippers were weak and the pop bumpers were dead. Also the knocker was randomly knocking.

I too wanted to call the local op and see if I could purchase it but I know what they would prolly say. Oh well I guess
 
I sometimes wonder if they make more money with the games not working? Someone puts a quarter in, and the game play sucks so they abandon the game so it's always available for another sucker to sink money into.
 
The sad part is it would only take a few hours and some parts to fix all of the issues that I saw. I guess their time is more valued on collecting money than working on machines. I can't imagine paying $4,000 plus for a new machine and letting it fall apart.
What would be a good offer on the POTC as is if the op was willing to sell it?
 
theres a DRACULA in a hamburger joint up in kansas city
same deal
location is right up against the back of the back of the griddle

grease is EVERYWHERE
barely can see the playfield through the glass
looks like someone tried to clean it
but
they were unsuccesful

sad

my friend and i called the owner from the label on the front
she said she wanted 1400.00 for it

as-is
 
Maybe a business could be born from the neglected pins.
If you could maintain the machine and split the coin with the owner or an intial cleaning and basic refurbish fee and than a split of the take, it might be worth the time.
 
I can tell you exactly what the deal is, from an op perspective.

First is time. The economics of this industry isn't what it used to be. Many operators can't afford a large staff and a full time in-shop tech is becoming a rare thing. Route guys are usually stretched thin and maintaining a fleet of pins is very time consuming. So when faced with a choice of servicing multiple accounts in a day, or servicing pins in one location all day, the answer seems obvious.

Second is the, incorrectly assumed, attitude that pins don't make money anymore. Many ops have decided that pins don't earn, and won't put the time into them. The truth is, dirty and broken pins don't earn and it becomes a nasty circle of dirty pin = doesn't earn and non earning pin = no service.

But, don't throw all ops under the bus, ok? There are some of us that understand that clean and working pins earn. We have a pretty good sized pin fleet. They all get rotated on a regular basis, they come thru the shop on a regular basis and get full (and proper) shop jobs on a regular basis. At any given time there are usually no fewer than 6 in our shop, some awaiting service, some fully shopped and ready to go out so that another can come back. We actually take pride in our route pins.... but then we are kinda pin-heads anyway.....

D
 
I'm sure some ops are better than others. This op is local and only services one town of 75,000 so I'm sure he is just a one or two man operation.
 
The contemporary in Disney world has a POTC. It is in sad condition. filthy like a pig. It did seem to work correctly.. but the DMD was going and the thing looked like an orphan needing a home.

I know the black rubber lasts longer but really .... Is it really worth the filth. From a collector's perspective I was bothered. I guess I will never fully understand the economics or operator perspective.

I guess if you had 60-100 machines to take care of pinballs would be a pain in the arsh.
 
there are a few problems with up keep on a pinball from an operators view.

1. most owners don't play the machines and may rely on the route person to take care of the machine and not be aware of the condition of the machine sine he will not see it.
The route guys are under pressure to get more stops done and don't wont to spend the
amout of time to fix it because it will mess up the whole day sechedule. Then the more they put of basic service then them more it will need to get it right.

2. many ops and service people are scared to work on pins and most smaller operators may not have their own tech or only have one in the shop. The shop tech won't just volunteer to leave and spend 1/2 a day and maybe 2-3 trips to get the game up and running.
Then he will be out of the shop all day and not get caught up on all of the other repairs waiting. Or some may have to hire someone else to repair them and they don't want to spend any money on that. Also the machines are heavy to move and almost alway need 2 people to do it. If they could be moved easy, they would just pick it up and bring it back but since you need 2 people then that makes it hard to find the time. You also take into account the fact that unless you have a large amount of parts, you will never have all of the parts to fix it right and with the lack of local distributors and the ones that are here don't stock pin parts any more.

This really has been a problem with pinballs and this is why there are very vew left on location. It is a very distructive pattern. The machine are more complex and require more service with all of the new toys. The price of the machines keep going up and since the machine is not working, it wont earn. When the playes keep playing bad machines, the quite playing all machines and the money keeps going down and then the ops quit buying and the factorys close and the industry dies.

I am an op and love pins. always have. but they are a lot of work to maintain. If the machines were more simple and you could shop them with out taking the whole thing apart, I think more ops would try to run them and would take care of them if the were simple. Sometimes you have to take half of a machine apart to just change a rubber. Don't mention all the bulbs that are impossible to get to.

Instead of slamming some of the ops out there, take a few minutes and call their shop and first let them know the machine is in need of some service. And be specific. You might even offer to do the work for a fee and help them out. If you just offer to buy the machine, you might get a good deal, but I would bet that they won't replace that pin on location and then there is another one gone. If you offer to help, you might get the chance to save some games and still get to buy many pins from them and then everyone wins. If you offer to help and they still don't service the machine then they just don't care and then slam away.
Eric
Cointech
 
I hate that even when they work, the volume is turned down to low and you can't ever here what is gong on.
 
I hate that even when they work, the volume is turned down to low and you can't ever here what is gong on.

I'm sure this is often due to the store owner not wanting the game to disturb their business, rather than the op making the decision to keep the volume low.
 
I was at a local movie theatre a few weeks ago and walked into the arcade. They had a simpsons pinball party that was extremely dirty. Almost all the g.I. lights were out. Flippers were weak and the pop bumpers were dead. Also the knocker was randomly knocking.

That's weird ...TSPP doesn't have a knocker! Stern's don't' have knockers...when you get a replay, it's just an audio 'knock' from the speakers.
 
That's weird ...TSPP doesn't have a knocker! Stern's don't' have knockers...when you get a replay, it's just an audio 'knock' from the speakers.

Good to know but yea it was a loud knocking sound. The few people that were in there kept looking at me.
 
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