The gameroom floor is actually the guest room since my 3.5 year old daughter occupies the real guest room. I sold my POTC so the Cybernaut from the garage will be taking its place in the gameroom in good company with Mystic, Skateball, Space Invaders, Xenon, Flash Gordon, Fathom, Centaur, Lady Luck, HUO TOM & some vids (mini Missile Command, Stargate, Joust 1 & 2, Robotron & Tempest)

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MWM

thanks so much for those responses! they’re very much appreciated. it really helps to know these things about the games, and that you’re available to your public :)

thanks for all your hard work

We have 2 field techs for 115 locations so we get behind from time to time. We try to keep the pins fairly dialed at Clinton, B-Rays, G-Foot and other heavy play pin locations. I need to stop by BR’s and fix Frankie. It’s a weird intermittent problem.

1) There is no set maintenance schedule for a location but I try to get a tech out to clean and re-lamp machines on location when we have any down time. Rotations are done purely on location owner requests and when a machines revenue has droped below a certain level. If a machine you are playing has problems write them down and give them to the bartender. They will call our tech service line and we’ll get the problems fixed. When we get a call saying “the machine is not working right but thats all I know” it makes it much tougher on the techs to find all the problems on their own. Especially “intermittent” problems which can be a bitch to troubleshoot.

2/3) You can keep lists of problems that don’t get fixed after a tech has been to work on it. Email them to me @ mwmahaffey@comcast.net I will make sure they get fixed.

3)Pinball maintenance is time consuming & can be expensive but it needs to be done. A lot of amusement operators in the PDX area got rid of most of their pins back in the early 2000’s because of the high maintenance and high cost of parts.
We’re still running a lot of Williams/Bally pins from the 90’s that have 100’s of thousands of plays on them. All parts are not available for all games. Once a pin is so trashed and wore out we trade them in on a newer model.

4) When a machine gets installed in a location it is leveled and the tilt set to a “normal” level. What happens is most bars have floors that are far from level and just moving the machine a few inches can throw it out of level which also throws off the plum-bob tilt maiking it tilt easier. Again, if you find a machine that has a hair trigger tilt or has issues let me know via email.

5)One problem is a game of pinball should be a buck not 50 cents. 50 cent pins were introduced back in early 80’s when a new machine cost around $2K. New Sterns are $4K and operators are getting flack for trying to get .75 per game. A typical service call costs an operator about $65. Pins have a lot of mechanical parts and like to break a lot but thats pinball and will probably never change.
Family Guy, Spiderman, WOF, Shrek & IJ4 are all set from the factory with 75 cent pricing.

6)The problem is the older pins are a lot more prone to being service call nightmares. We have kept a lot of the higher earning older pins on the route but they are getting close to the grave and becoming service call whores. Several of our MM’s have earned over $65K each but we keep them since they still make good money and usually will out-earn a newer Stern sitting right beside it. We got rid of most of our Data East, Gottlieb & Sega pins due to them falling apart and not earning very well when they actually worked. We have one TZ & TAF left on the route but we got rid of all our IJ’s, STTNG’s, CC’s, CV’s, Shadows etc since they were killing us in the service call department. However just because a machine is newer doesn’t make it any more reliable, some of the newer Sterns break down as much as a 10 or 15 year old Williams pin.

7)That might be a reality in he near future.

8)Generally we only reset high scores if they are known to be bogus (machine malfunctions awarding a pile of points), or the location owner requests they be reset. When a machine comes in to be shopped out we usually reset the scores since it will be going into a new location.

9)CFF players have helped Quality continue to operate over 100 pins in the Portland area. Rarely do players inflict damage to a machine. Graffiti on the glass and cabinets really sucks, if you see anyone doing this throw his ass out.
Leagues and tournaments can only help pinball stay strong. The more players the more money goes into the machines which is an good incentive for operators to buy more pins.

We don’t sell directly to the home market, we usually trade them in to a local Distributor like Specialty Coin. So far we have never destroyed a pin, video games? well thats another story ;)

“Just stop erasing my grand champs. PLEASE! They are all legit. Some, im still sad to have gone”

Ha! I never erase scores unless I know they are bogus so it must’ve been someone else or the batteries died. If I had more time I might try to get out more and actualy beat some of those scores myself ;)

Keith Elwin will be in town June 5th & 9th and will be at the Seattle show. Last time he was in town he de-throwned DEN’s GC’s on WH2O & TAF @GK playing only one game each! You might see some more KME GC’s around town but he prefers early 80’s Bally’s if they’re available.

Keep those questions coming!
Thanks,
MWM