Rosewood Dairy Bar game revenue

kstillin

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Here's a thread to track the revenue on three game on site.

Rosewood Dairy Bar on Rosewood Drive in Columbia SC has been around for 40 years or so.
A small burger/chicken/shake joint where you can pull up, make an order, get it to go, or eat on picnic tables or the adjoining dining room.

The dining room was a Majik Market way back, floundered as a couple of other things, including a bike shop, and was finally purchased by the Dairy Bar and outfitted with booths and tables. They had some games in there before, but the owner had some 'licensing problems'. Before I stepped in, there was a crane in the corner and a few gumball/sticker machines.

There's a little cubby that I always thought would be perfect for 3 games. I spoke with the manager a long time back asking about putting some games there and got the go-ahead. I finally bit the bullet, bought the required SC tax stickers and put in 3 games.

Ms Pac Man
Joust
Marvel Vs Capcom

1st pull yesterday was after a full 2 weeks.

10/25/2013
Joust 32 paid credits
Marvel Vs Capcom 70 coins (counter 39704)
Ms Pac 98 credits (counter 14987)

total 200 coins = $50.

I only counted 48.50 though- maybe some quarters are bouncing into the bottom or something.

Net: $0
The coins here are going towards the unexpected $60 city licensing that I found out about a week ago. This is required on top of the State fees.
SC Owner/Operator $167 (200/2y prorated through May 2015)
SC Biennial Coin Operated Device $167 each (250/2y prorated)
Columbia machine fee, location fee, zoning inspection - $60 for 2013 - no prorate.

$878 just to get legal. Will be another $60 at the first of the year.
I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Kerry
 
Subbed. I will be interested to see how this develops. That seems like an outrageous amount of money just to get legal. Jeeze!

Are you getting to keep all the profits or do you have to split with the owner?

Have you thought of doing some inexpensive/free adverts to help bring in some traffic? I would go take the fam if it was in my area and I knew about it. Maybe others will also...?
 
2nd pull today was after a full 2 weeks (+1 day).

11/09/2013
Joust 22 quarters
Marvel Vs Capcom 64 coins (counter 39768)
Ms Pac 66 credits (counter 15053)

total 152 coins = $38.
counted total 178 coins = $44.50.

Not sure about the counter/counted discrepancy. Maybe the Ms Pac isn't counting all the credits. I hope nobody is losing money in there.

Joust went down this week- Tuesday, I think. F5 on power supply blown- no +5V. Found the rectifier bridge shorted. Couldn't get a replacement and nothing in my parts boxes. Rigged up an adapter to a switcher- came up with some vertical lines- maybe switcher supply not strong enough. Found an ATX supply that actually had -12V and wired up another adapter. Still with the vertical lines. Repinned the AC input to the power board and replaced the header in preparation for repairing the PS board.

I've got a feeling it won't come up even after that.

If so, I'll probably swap another game in there. Here are my choices- any votes?

Crystal Castles
Xybots
Road Blasters
Rush 'N Attack
Commando
 
I'd be interested to know if those fees are static and haven't changed since the days when it was possible to be profitable despite fees of that amount.

(and I vote commando)
 
Roadblasters. It has a steering wheel and will out earn any other 2 classics combined. Hell the graphics on the thing are just good enough to pass today without even looking retro.

Guns and steering wheels make money.
 
I'd be interested to know if those fees are static and haven't changed since the days when it was possible to be profitable despite fees of that amount.

(and I vote commando)

I'd be interested in that info as well, sounds like an outdated fee held over from the heyday of arcades.

I vote Road Blasters, steering wheel games are always a draw.
 
Yikes. Just another example of what happens when you have an uninformed electorate, I suppose.

It's patchwork where I am. I operated in City of Tempe for years (home of Arizona State University) and they got me for $25 per year per cabinet. Conversions didn't have to be relicensed if they previously were, but you had to have the tag affixed to the glass. City of Chandler got me for $45 per year per unit but the license could be "moved" from cab to cab, so you bought how many licenses you needed and just kept them in the office in a file. Part of why it pains me to be phasing out the vintage arcade at DSG now is that Town of Gilbert requires zero licensing for amusement devices. It's been kind of nice.
 
Road Blasters it is.

Hauled it up there tonight after making sure I had locks and keys.
I first plugged it up and - nothing. It was JUST working 3 miles before!
It finally came up after I pulled the back off. I don't know what kept it from coming up initially. My boy said it was the cold..

No interlock switches or anything. Was odd.

Went into test mode and reset the software counters and disabled the T-shirt contest display :)

The girl cleaning tables asked if you could really win a T-shirt. I let her know it was legitimate back in '87..

Initial counter on Road Blasters is 114967.

Took the 44.50 pulled on Saturday- deducted 12.50 to finish paying the $60 city licensing fee. Remaining $32 split evenly.

Net = $16
(not considering State license fees). If I prorate those out, I'm net loss $14 for the month.

Somebody come play Road Blasters!
 
I would come play it if I was close. I am tired of buying them. My first one crapped out on me and I converted it to Golden Tee 99 back when that was pretty darn current. I had one earlier this year that was rough but I had hope for. But it smelled like a sewer and 3 coats of paint didn't help it. It was stinking up my whole basement.
 
i think it's pretty cool you're keeping track of revenue and posting the results here. i'd do the same but it's quite the drive and i'm too lazy to do the count myself and let the arcade owner do it for me. i get a single check with no per-game breakdown, though when i do go up i usually check the coin box so i have an idea of which perform and which do not.

i pull in anywhere from $50-$100/month from my five or six machines in the arcade (the number has changed as i've rotated/traded/sold some games over the last two years.) fortunately no city cabinet license fees.
 
I really wouldn't trust someone else to do that for me.

At my last job I had 8 snack/soda/coffee machines that I handled. I was of course 100 percent honest in my collections, but the owners didn't even seem to know the machines had counters for how much they took in. They just had me pull out all the money and refill the machines from stock in the storeroom with zero bookkeeping (just empty all the cash in all the machines in an envelope and drop it in the safe). I guess I am honored they trusted me like that, but I wouldn't trust me like that.
 
I worked for an operator in South Carolina and had some interesting stuff happen regarding licenses over the years. Lots of neat stories.

The $250 thing is actually, believe it or not, CHEAPER than it was in the early 80's. I get games all the time with $125 or $150 a year stickers on them from the early 80's, I think there was a $175 one too. Not sure what the difference was. So the fee as it stands now is $125 a year. If you place a machine that doesn't have a video screen like a crane or a pool table, it's only $50 a year. Pinballs are also $50 a year.

The reason the fees are so high, is because it was the only way the state was able to get it's hands on gambling money. Up until 12 or so years ago, poker machines were legal in South Carolina. Bingo machines (pinballs) were legal as well... so the $125/yr was originally so that they could tax gambling machines (since the ops wouldn't pay taxes on all the money they earned anyways). The ops would argue about what constituted a gambling machine, so they eventually made the law that anything with a video screen paid the same amount. Note that pinballs are only $50 now, but were $125 in 1981.

If you don't pay the license and just put the game on location, you can get away with it in some cities. In columbia though, hell you'd never get away with it. They send an agent around, and if you don't have a license displayed on the game, they confiscate the game. They put a sticker on it saying it's the property of the state of SC, and then write you a $50 fine (per game)... plus a $250 bill (per game) to get the sticker for two years. My boss tried that once, the fine at each location was about 5K.

Back in the early 80's, the licenses weren't transferable. They all had the name and serial number of the game on it, so that you couldn't even move it! So if you swapped a new game into a location, you couldn't take the license off the game that was in there before... Crazy.

About 10-12 years ago they made poker games illegal in SC, but kept the license law. So a Ms. Pac Man has to have a sticker. Effectively, this has made it where there aren't many arcade games in SC on location anymore.

I BELIEVE you can get around that law if the games are for sale, or if you charge an admission to get in. I wouldn't want to test it though, with the hefty fines involved. I've read the legislation though in the SC constitution, and it clearly says that if you charge an admission fee you don't have to have the stickers. Good luck finding the tax guy that knows, and agrees, and understands that law though.

Georgia is worse. MUCH worse. I almost got arrested once just because I was collecting a game without a sticker. The guy said "We could turn this civil situation into a criminal situation if you'd like". Had a gun, the whole nine yards. He said "We don't appreciate you foriegners coming down here and taking all our money back out of state"

Crazy tax laws, man.
 
I got a call yesterday from a guy:
MadQuarter said:
"I'm down here at the Dairy Bar and my son put two quarters into this Marvel Vs Capcom and it didn't give him any credits."

"Well, I hate to hear that, but.."

MadQuarter said:
"So basically, you don't care?"

Well, I'm working and probably four miles from there right now. What would you like me to do?"

MadQuarter said:
"You should put a sign on these games that they may take your money and not give you anything in return"

I told him where I was and said if he was coming by the neighborhood, I'd give him a refund. He declined. He did tell me which coin slot gave him the trouble before he hung up. I went down there last night and checked it out in test mode and ran about 100 quarters through there, both in test mode and game mode. They all seemed to register.

Hell, there were only 9 quarters in the bucket since Saturday anyway. I left the old mech in there and didn't tape up the slot. I also called him back and left a message saying that I was taping a small bag with a few quarters in it to the top of the machine and to look up there the next time he dropped by.

Wasn't really sure what I should do. It's 50 cents.
 
Often enough the kids are lying about losing their change in the first place. Once they figure out their parents or an attendant will give them a free game or more quarters they start faking it.
 
Anyone know what the laws and fees are in NY? Just curious. I'm sure they're probably high. Don't think I've ever seen a game here with stickers, but then again, I wasn't really looking.
 
I got a call yesterday from a guy:


"Well, I hate to hear that, but.."



Well, I'm working and probably four miles from there right now. What would you like me to do?"



I told him where I was and said if he was coming by the neighborhood, I'd give him a refund. He declined. He did tell me which coin slot gave him the trouble before he hung up. I went down there last night and checked it out in test mode and ran about 100 quarters through there, both in test mode and game mode. They all seemed to register.

Hell, there were only 9 quarters in the bucket since Saturday anyway. I left the old mech in there and didn't tape up the slot. I also called him back and left a message saying that I was taping a small bag with a few quarters in it to the top of the machine and to look up there the next time he dropped by.

Wasn't really sure what I should do. It's 50 cents.


Wow. People actually call the operator of a game to complain/seek a refund when a game has eaten their kid's .50?

Back in the day if a game ate my money I usually responded with an "Awe man." Then I'd leave. Sometimes I'd ask someone working there and they'd refund but usually I just let it go.
 
I got a call one time because a guy put a 20 dollar bill in the jukebox, and thought it gave change. So he wanted me to drive out there and give him 19.50 back.

Of course they'd already played 40 songs.
 
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