Tell us about your first time ...

[Flack]

For those of you that currently own or previously owned an arcade cabinet, tell us about your first time!

I bought my first arcade cabinet when I was 21 or 22. I was checking the classified ads for computer and ran across an ad for an Elevator Action arcade game for $200. I didn't know anything about owning, fixing, or moving arcade games, but it sounded like a good deal to me. When I called the owner, he said he would take $150. I told a friend of mine about it and he said he would pay half and that we could store the game at my house. I borrowed my dad's pickup, and headed out.

The man's house was about 45 minutes away. When I got there, he showed me his game room. I had never seen a game room in anyone's home before. He had converted his garage and left one garage door functioning, to easily move the game out. I was so unprepared; I hadn't even brought a dolly or ropes or anything. When the guy asked me how I was going to secure it I said just throw it down in the bed. He was not crazy about the idea but we did it and it turned out okay.

At the time I was living in a trailer home. When I got to the house, I moved our front steps, backed the truck up to the front door, and simply tilted the game into the house. I then put the game on a skateboard and rolled it into the kitchen, where it stayed for two more years until we finally got a house.

That Elevator Action was the centerpiece of my collection for several years. In 1996, I ended up moving and had to sell all my games quickly. Pre-eBay days, that was pretty hard to do. I sold Championship Streetfighter II and Shinobi for $25 each. I gave away a Star Wars upright that had a bad power supply. I think I got $50 out of that Elevator Action.

Man what I wouldn't give to have that cabinet again. Now it would probably cost me $500. It was so mint. Anyway, that was the first game I ever bought, and what turned me on to the bug. With the last game I bought, I now have 25 cabinets.

[Vigilante]

I was arround the same age as Flack.... about 20, 21, arround then. Anyways I had flunked out of college and was working at my mom's bank doing messenger work and building maintenence. I was up on the sixth floor when I found my first true love.... Ms. Pacman!! The cab was abandoned from the sandwich guy who used to own it. I dragged it back to my garage in the company's minvan. It kept blowing fuses and it turns out to have been a bad transformer, got it recoiled and had a working machine.

My buddy's father had 3 machines from an old bowling alley that went out of business and he needed to get rid of them...... for $250 each I got Centipede, Galaxian, and Jungle King. All of them needed work and I think only centipede worked.

I stashed them all for a few years but had to sell them off. It was getting too expensive to keep them all in storage. I kept Jungle King and I'm still converting it into a mame cab.

Flack, I feel your pain. I should have never gotten rid of those other cabs. But you do what you have to do somtimes. BTW, when I die.... can I be creemated and burried in your game room? :P

[sniperCCJVQ]

I got my WWF Superstars 4 years ago.

In fact, i was looking to buy the cabinet that my local bowling alley had but one day, the closed arcade to do a bar with poker machine.

Finally, i begun to look on ebay, i found the manual from a local distributor. I asked him if he got the game, he said yes for 150$ CND.

I take the truck of my uncle to pick up the arcade (which save me alot of cash in shipping and the warehouse of the guy was 45 minutes from my home).

The cabinet was in excellent shape with 0 dust inside and an extra good monitor. Everything was there except the sidearts and and CPO (which i bought later). I'm still missing the sidearts.

The guy was very nice and help me to put the cabinet in the truck. I talked a bit with him and he looks like he bought everybody in the amusement business (coin-op, pinball, jukebox) in Quebec. He still selling on ebay under the name "amusement911". He told me that selling arcade machine online isn't easy (especially for the shipping) but he do tons of cash.

[MarioAllStar2600]

My first arcade was a present so we wont count that one. I will go to the first one I bought.

I was 14. I saved up some money around christmas time, but didnt have enough. I bought a Nintendo Vs. off ebay because of how unique it was, two games, and my never ending love for mario. I ended up paying $255 and was pretty close to having it all so I had to pay back my dad. I got the money for the arcade from the FM Towns Marty I sold. I was $50 in debt though, and couldnt be happier. The machine was a little beat up but is still my 2nd favorite machine. Nothing beats x and os football.

[bargora]

In a van, on top of a parking garage in

Oh, wait. Sorry. Which way to the Pub?

[DogP]

Hmm... my first one... one of my friends was moving to North Carolina, but just a few weeks earlier had seen a Vigilante arcade at a Salvation Army for $10, so he picked it up... Anyway, the cabinet was in pretty crappy shape, and he didn't feel like moving it, so he gave it to me for free for helping him move. Of course I started cleaning and fixing up the cabinet, then bought some more JAMMA boards to swap in. Then I noticed the paint was peeling a little, so I decided to scrape some of the paint, and noticed it was originally a Joust.

Ugh, so now I've got a converted Joust waiting to get converted back (I've got the PCB's, just waiting to finish my other generic JAMMA cabinet so I can work on the Joust). Of course now, I've got 20+ arcade cabinets, but that's because I keep buying them and never sell them :P .

DogP

[Flack]

Of course now, I've got 20+ arcade cabinets, but that's because I keep buying them and never sell them :P .

I can relate. That's how many I have now too, but I can't tell you how many I've bought because I was going to fix it or I was going to sell it, and yet they're still in my garage.

[atari_overlord]

I was walking to my car after a fairly fruitless day at the local flea market. I was but a wee sprout, freshly 18. I had just gotten my first taste of a salaried paycheck (the job I still have today) and my collecting was just starting to kick from casual into high gear. An NES Playchoice 10 caught my eye. I talked with the guy and he was selling it for $300. After some moaning and haggeling I walked away with it for $100. To this day I brag about that haggle. Next big step was getting it home about 45 minutes away. No truck or van so I went inside and bought about $15 of nylon rope and roped it to the roof of my 91 toyota corolla. Amazingly it worked. Since then it has moved with me through several college lifestyle type houses and is now residing with my little brother. The monitor just died on it but I just bought a house with a basement a couple of months ago so let the games begin. I will restore it back to its former glory and I dont know that I will ever be able to let it go.

[maxlords]

My first time was, strangely, my best. A friend in college told me once that her dad had a bunch of old arcade machines...stuff like Tron, etc. I filed this info away, never thought about it. A couple years later, I came down to her town to visit her, and said "Hey, didn't you say your dad had some arcade machines?" She laughs and says yeah and shows me her garage....has like 20 games! @_@ So I was kind of in shock and then she tells me "there's more in the storage unit." Naturally I have to look. Lo and behold, a whopping SIXTY arcade units! All in various states of repair/condition. Stacks of PCBs. Boxes of parts. Pinballs, Videos, Jukeboxes full of 45s! Apparently her dad was an operator in the 1980s and when they shut down the business, the owners BURNED everything! He saved whatever he could and everything he didn't get was destroyed. So depressing! Anyway, so I talked with him for a while. They're pretty poor so I knew he couldn't afford the storage unit fees. He told me that if I wanted to haul them off, I could, and could pay him for them later. So I did.

60 machines. 2 semis. 10 guys. 1 day. We did it, and it was INSANE. Moving 60 machines is a LOT of work! Hauled them back home to the back of my friend's store and paid a tech in games to get em all working. Ended up trying to run a retro-arcade. Failed in the lame small town I lived in (damn you Southern Oregon...you and your lousy economy!). I even borrowed some other machines and pool tables to make it nicer! No dice :(

So I ended up selling them off online. Posted them all for auction in one lot. Had a private buyer come down and buy them all for $10,000. A steal individually, but whatever....I couldn't afford to keep em forever. The guys that bought em stiffed me over $1000 too. Bastards. Regardless, I split the profits with my friend's dad, and still have 38 boxes of parts, a stack of marquees and PCBs, and over 300 arcade manuals to call my own as leftovers. THAT was my first time buying arcade machines :)

Recently, I just bought a few more and sold them off, all except for the Neo Geo 6 slot I've got in my monther-in-law's garage as it won't fit into my apt. I don't want a big arcade. Just a couple nice machines :) I learned my lesson buying 60!

[Flack]

Wow Max, I had no idea! That is an incredible story!

It's a shame when a business like that fails. I too have/had dreams of opening an arcade ... it seems like there would be no way to lose money.

Generally speaking, what were your operating costs, and how much money were you making/losing trying to stay open? Just curious.

[maxlords]

Generally speaking, what were your operating costs, and how much money were you making/losing trying to stay open? Just curious.

Ironically, I had virtually ZERO operating costs. I had to pay someone to fix the machines, but I paid him in games. I sold about 10 machines so I could buy paint, rewire the building to code, paint the walls, buy stereo equipment, etc. I repainted the whole place they were in (huge warehouse with 30 foot ceilings). Bottom 2/3 was BLACK, multiple coats, top 1/3 was white, even painted the ceilings, added poles for power boxes in the center of the room, etc etc. Painted Pacman and such on the walls near the door, added framed sideart and hung marquees all around for decor, borrowed spare machines, pins, and pool tables.

Rent was free because the place was in the back of my friend's bookstore...back happened to be a huge empty warehouse room. Power was free but we only ran machines a small amount of the time. He paid for power. I paid for flyers and posted them all over town...told EVERYONE I knew. Rented it by the hour for $100, all games free play, unlimited credits. Was hoping to get b-day parties and such. Nothing. Got something like two rentals the whole 6 months we had it available. Then my friend decided to move his business and we had to sell everything. Didn't lose any money trying to stay open, just couldn't run a place like that. I didn't have the money to run it as an arcade either, and the maintenance would have been sky high. Plus, in a town of 20,000 with nothing else within an hour's drive, my old games wouldn't have cut it.

I never bothered to take pics of it all set up....probably should have. I just have a few pics of some of the machines before we finished fixing.

Basically I threw away all the money I spent fixing the place up...easily a few thousand bucks. I had fun tho, so I guess it was worth it.

[Querjek]

I was 13 when I bought it but 14 when I got it :D



I BIN'd a Vs. Baseball sit-down cab thing on eBay for $125. One moniter has a blown fuse, but that's ok, because weeks later I got a board with Vs. SMB and Vs. RBI Baseball for $25. Lucky for me, Vs. SMB is on the moniter that works :D

[Mr.FoodMonster]

If I had any damn room, I could have 2 machines now. One being a Battle Shark, and the other being a Cocktail of sometime. And, knowing how much my dad loves Missile Command (he actually told me if we had room, he would get one in a second) would be a third. Damn small house!