Still money to be made in arcade games?

Tornadoboy

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Here's a vague question:

I'm looking for something to do on the side at home outside of my normal full time work to make some very much needed extra $, and naturally it would be nice to do something I truly enjoy.

Obviously since I'm here I have a passion for coin operated arcade games, so I was wondering if there's an area of that field where money can still be made? Restoration? Reproduction artwork? Everything, especially parts, seem worth a nickle these days as that whole industry has more or less collapse due to home game consoles.

I'm NOT expecting to find something to get rich on, but at least to have it worth doing financially.
 
Rip people off on Ebay...

Sell boards as working, but then send non working boards and use a "no refunds due to the nature of this product" clause.

Or sell boots.
 
Here's a vague question:

I'm looking for something to do on the side at home outside of my normal full time work to make some very much needed extra $, and naturally it would be nice to do something I truly enjoy.

Obviously since I'm here I have a passion for coin operated arcade games, so I was wondering if there's an area of that field where money can still be made? Restoration? Reproduction artwork? Everything, especially parts, seem worth a nickle these days as that whole industry has more or less collapse due to home game consoles.

I'm NOT expecting to find something to get rich on, but at least to have it worth doing financially.

Most games are dirt cheap anymore. People can't sell games at a profit like they could 2-3 years ago. You'd be lucky to break even selling any parts.

Most reproductions and art work is done with very little profit to a group of collectors.

PCB board work and Monitor repair might be the way to go - but you have to be good at it, have the time to do it, be willing to get frustrated, and be able to convince people that you are the guy to send their monitors/boards to.

As far as machines on location - I would look elsewhere. Depending on your area - most 'locations' are taken, you will likely have to get insurance, a Tax ID, and still try to break even. There are some exceptions.

Personally, unless you have 10 pac mans or galagas and a line on a bunch of ice cream stores or pizza joints, I wouldn't bother.
 
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I would look elsewhere. Depending on your area - most 'locations' are taken, you will likely have to get insurance, a Tax ID, and still try to break even. There are some exceptions.

Personally, unless you have 10 pac mans or galagas and a line on a bunch of ice cream stores or pizza joints, I wouldn't bother.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about DEPLOYING games for use like in arcades, bars, etc, I know that's a kill-or-be-killed field where the few remaining table scraps are being fought over! I'm talking about the games themselves in the way of parts, restoration, etc.

I like the idea of reproducing artwork like overlays, side art, etc, but I understand there's very expensive equipment involved to do it right by yourself, and to have someone else print them involves buying in large, impractical bulks that would probably never pay for themselves. I also imagine there are copyright issues involved in doing large runs.
 
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As far as full size games go, there is some profit to be made in a fighting set up with a 25 inch monitor with Marvel Vs. Capcom. That game still sells for maybe $350-$500.

Whenever I have one for sale I get around 10 people wanting it, as opposed to most of the classic games, which only get a response if they are $100. I think part of it has to do with a younger buyer, who wants a full sized game, and who looks at M v C as a classic game.
 
I would PM guys in here that actually do parts/artwork/repairs/games/etc. for a living or secondary income. Off the top of my head, Mylstar, Rikitiki, Arcadecup, Rlevin, QuartrArcade, etc. I can't speak for them, but I would think they could give you insight on their experiences as "retailers" or "service providers."

On a separate note, arcades shouldn't even be considered arcades anymore. At least around here, all the "arcades" are places like Boomer's (family fun center type venue), pizza places, chuck e. cheese, movie theaters, etc. The only games they have are drivers, shooters, ddr, guitar hero, or the crappy ms. pac/galaga. Very rarely will I find an arcade with classics or actual good games. But with the kids these days, they probably wouldn't make very much money.
 
Restoration can be fun but it aint cheap. You need to find buyers with deep pockets that don't care about the price as long as it looks new when you're done and this is not an easy task .
The other more likely scenario is this: You buy/scrap machines to fund your restoration project only to find later after all your hard work that nobody will pay you anywhere near your asking price so the game goes into your collection and now you've got a room full of beautiful games that nobody plays. One day you finally get tired of looking at your games and you decide to let em go so now what are ya gonna get out of em. Do you scrap your beautiful machines to get your money back or sell whole and most likely lose your ass. The purists here will have a fit over this statement but i guarantee when the time comes, they'll do whatever it takes. We've seen many people that swore they would die with their collections that have liquidated everything they have and disappeared.
 
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There is a small opportunity in the restore and resell market, but it is very small. I have been able to fund my hobby by doing board work and just sold a couple of games, but it really does just barely fund my hobby efforts to collect the video games that I want.

ken
 
It's a pity to see how devalued all the staples of the arcade industry have become, looking at old cabs with severe water damage, vandalism etc to me is like a car collector looking at the wreckage of a Model T, but hey that's the world.
Right now I have a Buck Rogers - Planet of Zoom cab I'm working on which had been violated in a number of needless ways, including rotten particle board and a front panel obvious kicked in which now needs replacement. One example that blew me away was the Sundance cab Prok rescued, it had been left for years out in the open on the dirt of a field with nothing but a tarp to protect it, what an atrocity to commit on such a rare game! Here's the story on that if someone doesn't know what I'm referring to:

http://www.rgvac.com/blog/2009/01/28/sundance-resurrected/

How about specialty cabs? In other words unusual cabs for classic games? There are certainly plenty of homeless PCBs to be had, and for very little. I guess it would all depend on whether I hit the right notes with the design, it might be worth doing one and see what happens, I have some interesting ideas for a custom Tempest.
 
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It all depends on your definition of "money" to be made.

Cash for hobby? Living?

Living is definitely difficult. Find a niche that nobody else does (or few others do) and stick with it. I've been doing chip sales and board repairs for 5 1/2 years now as arcadecomponents.com and it's not quite enough where I can eke out a living, but then I have a full time job and don't have the time to devote to it.

I could probably make it a living if I dedicated more time. It's horrendously difficult to find some of the parts. Spending time to gather inventory is time that I could be making money doing repairs or testing chips to put on the website to sell.

Spend time looking at all the aspects. Try to find the competition and see what they are doing that you could do differently. If you can offer more or additional services then you stand a chance to take customers from them.

There are sooooo many aspects to this: cab repair, custom cabs, manufacturing parts, board repairs, custom harnesses, chip sales, custom artwork, reproduction artwork, parts sales (sticks/buttons/light fixtures/bulbs/etc), parts refurbishing, and more.

Maybe you have a knack for one or more of those areas? Maybe you can do parts refurbishing? Clean/strip parts, fix dents/bends, bondo a bit to level things out, paint or powder coat, etc. If you did that you'd need to find someone that can do chrome or nickel plate in small quantities or set the tanks and chemicals up yourself. (Special permits???)

RJ
 
be real careful, i absolutely love this hobby and i started to do restorations and thought about putting games on locations (build a route) and the passion quickly turned into work aggrevation and pressure... so i ended it all, and decided to still enjoy the hobby!
 
I hate to say it on this forum, but the money seems to be in 8 liners and other non-gambling gambling games. Redemption games and multi-player racing games seem to be the high price leaders. And pins.

There is enough to keep a few people mostly employed (see RLevin & a few other high volume dealers) but most of them also run routes as well as fix machines and anything they can do to get some cash flowing.

I very often think that I would make more working at GameStop than I do working on arcade games.

But that is why it is a hobby and not a living.

ken
 
never had arcades on location but had a few pop machines and vending. after they get damaged/robbed enough you will wonder what made you sink money into that line of work IMO.
 
I hate to say it on this forum, but the money seems to be in 8 liners and other non-gambling gambling games. Redemption games and multi-player racing games seem to be the high price leaders. And pins.

There is enough to keep a few people mostly employed (see RLevin & a few other high volume dealers) but most of them also run routes as well as fix machines and anything they can do to get some cash flowing.

I very often think that I would make more working at GameStop than I do working on arcade games.

But that is why it is a hobby and not a living.

ken


I would venture that later gun games also would be O.K. (Buck hunter types), too.

Forget the 'classics' in a route environment. As others said, Pizza places and Ice Cream places would be good locations. I know a couple of operators that have just those kinds of locations and do alright.
 
It seems like finding people to do repair/restoration work is difficult. A lot of people on the forum here do their own repair work, but many other game owners don't know how or are not interested or would rather pay someone else to do it right.

There are (seemingly) only a handful of people/businesses in the entire country that do this kind of work full-time so there is a lot of room for people doing it part-time. The demand probably also varies quite a bit depending on location.
 
nobody wants to pay for proper restoration services... every once in awhile you get lucky but not usually.

unfortunately theres just not a ton of money int hese things, especially right now..

if the econ was better yes the potential to make some profit would be greater however we would be paying more for the games so we would be right back int he same boat..

i hate to say it but form a profit only standpoint, multicades and parting games is where the money is.. theres also money in monitor work if you get good at it.
 
I thinker a lot buy games and flipping them but it takes a ridicules amount of time to find that 65.00 ms pac that you at these days and prices get 350.00 for but that gives me the cash to buy that star wars for me for essentially a 65.00 ms pac plus another 50 or so. But when I tried to flip enough to make more money I dreaded go out to the garage to work on the games which is why I started this to begin with at that point I slowed the flipping down to just bettering my collection and let the money fall were it falls.My 2 cents be carefull making your fun hobby/past time into a job that your spending money depends on.
 
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