Tilt fall machine sale

Discussion of arcades and other gaming locations with music/rhythm games

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Ho » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:21 am

Merk wrote:I would be willing to make a good bet that their UFO machines make more money than DDR. I don't know how we would find out since I'm sure the management there wouldn't tell us. DDR is niche at this point and it might make $15 a day on average. Every retard in Indy would play a crane game and cough up quarters to win a Sonic plushie. At $0.50 a pop I'm sure the crane games get more than 30 plays a day on average.

Best redemption game? Deal or No Deal. I don't think I've ever not seen anyone play that game at every arcade I've been to that has one. It's only downfall is that the average game takes 3 minutes instead of 3 seconds like a bunch of other games do.
I think it's pretty safe to say that redemption games (including cranes), in general, are more profitable than any video game (including DDR). A look at the ratio of redemption to video at nearly any arcade should speak to that.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:26 am

Ho wrote:Although, I think it may be possible for an arcade of niche games to be successful as a standalone "pure" arcade if it could find the right niche and the right location (i.e. a local community to support it). My personal collection probably wouldn't be enough. Think something like TGA--except not in BFE. But then again, even AI eventually closed, so perhaps even this is wishful thinking.
Yeah AI closing is a sign that that business model is doomed to fail. If an uber niche arcade full of imports in the middle of fucking Asia Town can't make it in the US then I have no idea where you could pull it off. DBA and TGA all closed down but yeah their locations were pretty questionable.

Putt-Putt in Fort Wayne is probably the most successful arcade I've been to but I'm sure it's because they have Go-Karts and Mini-Golf. The arcade is steadily becoming exclusively redemption and they expanded their party room for the chillins.

Gemini and Arcade UFO are probably the only places in the US that are still rolling with the AI model. I have no idea how Gemini is in business.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:32 am

I bet they do make more than DDR, but you have no idea by how much. I can't image all 12 get 30+ plays a day. I doubt they were cheap to purchase anyway. I also disagree that the reason Ho's Fun House (my name for Brian's imaginary arcade) would not succeed is because of crane games making money. It's probably more likely that Japanese rhythm games just aren't super popular to the masses. We've had this discussion a bajillion times before.

Rather than make baseless claims about what works and what doesn't in an arcade, I'd rather analyze figures from D&B, Gameworks, Tilt, whatever. In what little I know from talking to Daniel in Bloomington, ticket redemption is where the money is.

Deal or No Deal was $4900 if I remember correctly.

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:40 am

If I were to own a standalone arcade without doing any sort of research other than my own experiences as an arcade customer, I would have:

A lot of redemption shit (Cyclone, Deal or No Deal, Basketball Shooter, Skee-Ball, Crane Games, Pump It Up lololol)

Video games (Big Buck Hunter, Initial D or some other racing game, Time Crisis, Pac-Man/Galaga, Golden Tee, and DDR if I could one for cheap)

A jukebox (these things rake in ridiculous cash)

Essentially the GXS model plus a jukebox.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:53 am

I know they have one of those Multicade cabinets that has a collection of the classics for old people like me. I wonder how much those make. Not a lot, would be my guess, but I do see people playing them now and again.

What are your thoughts on $10 Tuesday in terms of revenue? Good idea?

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:56 am

Fluffyumpkins wrote:I bet they do make more than DDR, but you have no idea by how much. I can't image all 12 get 30+ plays a day. I doubt they were cheap to purchase anyway. I also disagree that the reason Ho's Fun House (my name for Brian's imaginary arcade) would not succeed is because of crane games making money. It's probably more likely that Japanese rhythm games just aren't super popular to the masses. We've had this discussion a bajillion times before.

Rather than make baseless claims about what works and what doesn't in an arcade, I'd rather analyze figures from D&B, Gameworks, Tilt, whatever. In what little I know from talking to Daniel in Bloomington, ticket redemption is where the money is.

Deal or No Deal was $4900 if I remember correctly.
12 Crane games undoubtedly cost less than a DDR cabinet these days unless you're smart and are willing to look for deals on eBay. No research here, but I would fathom that a crane game costs no more than $800 while a new DDR is roughly $10,000 give or take a thousand.

1 crane game vs. a DDR cabinet would without undoubtedly favor the crane game in profitability. You'll probably never recoup the cost of a DDR cabinet in today's market before going out of business while the crane game can turn into pure profit in probably a year or less.

Ho's Fun House just might turn a profit by virtue of the fact that he owns all of the machines but if he got that shit on loan then he better have those bankruptcy papers ready. He would have to put it in a place with a lot of traffic with cheap rent which would not be possible unless the landlord is a dumbass. I think there's enough casual appeal to pay rent/wages and if you can hook the niche crowd and host tournaments/events then you just might pull it off. You would have to do this in a big city like Chicago where people aren't immediately turned off by fukken ching-chong moon speak.

This begs the question of whether or not AI owned their machines or not and why they decided to up and leave. None of us will know, obv, but it seems like they got decent traffic to support the business. Maybe they got tired of the business, maybe they couldn't pay off loans for new games, none of us will know.


EDIT: This thread is moving too fast to have my posts be relevant ahhhHHHhghhghghghg
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:03 pm

Fluffyumpkins wrote:I know they have one of those Multicade cabinets that has a collection of the classics for old people like me. I wonder how much those make. Not a lot, would be my guess, but I do see people playing them now and again.

What are your thoughts on $10 Tuesday in terms of revenue? Good idea?
Depends on the market, if your place has exclusively niche appeal then you'll end up losing money since the average Bemani player probably would spend more than $10 a day in an arcade binge. If you have a lot of casual traffic then it's a great draw for people who just want to roll in, spend $10 to beat Time Crisis, and roll out.

Overall I say it's a good plan but that's just the niche fag inside of me saying that.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:23 pm

The fact of the matter is that music games have had their heyday and there isn't really anything out there now that people just won't play at home. Do any major developers still have an Arcade division? Konami does, Capcom does, and Namco does. Gaming has sort of become a giant FPS, DLC, Micro-transaction, Achievement fest which is hard to pull off in an arcade without something like e-Amuse. People really like to compare e-peens and timesink achievements!

I wonder how well Guitar Hero arcade does since it sort of did a reversal compared to Jap music games. That game got incredibly popular on the home console and then moved to the arcade instead of the other way around. As far as I know it doesn't offer anything that you couldn't do at home so I imagine it hasn't performed at all like DDR circa 2002-2003 where you could not replicate the arcade experience at home.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:15 pm

SEGA UFOs are way expensive. The cheapest I've seen was in Europe for 3,000 Euro. Other sites has as much as $9,000.

I think we do know why AI went under, more or less.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UdKSyNAgx0

http://www.bemanistyle.com/index.php/ne ... -time-2031

L.A. County denied the application for a business license extension that was requested by the owners of Diamond Plaza. The County wants the Tao brothers to close shop, pay for a new license, and wait for all of the hearings and city council votes in order to stay open (this could take up to 8 months). Ken stated that it wasn't the money that was the problem this time, it's how long AI would have to remained closed while waiting for the final word, which would have likely been "no" anyway. The arcade is closing its doors on February 26th, 2011.

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:29 pm

Ya know what would be fun?

A Tilt arcade draft. We draft all the games among players, have a few 'on the bench,' and see whose picks earned the most money. Trades allowed.

I'd totally play.

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:32 pm

A UFO machine is probably an outlier since it has all the fancy gizmos and whatnot that a normal crane game doesn't. I'm talking carnival level shit here that you find in bowling alleys and restaurants. Let me find some figures...
L.A. County denied the application for a business license extension that was requested by the owners of Diamond Plaza. The County wants the Tao brothers to close shop, pay for a new license, and wait for all of the hearings and city council votes in order to stay open (this could take up to 8 months). Ken stated that it wasn't the money that was the problem this time, it's how long AI would have to remained closed while waiting for the final word, which would have likely been "no" anyway. The arcade is closing its doors on February 26th, 2011.
God this is bullshit. Why deny an extension? Why not just let them pay for a new license and let them stay open, why does the city council have to get involved?
Fluffyumpkins wrote:Ya know what would be fun?

A Tilt arcade draft. We draft all the games among players, have a few 'on the bench,' and see whose picks earned the most money. Trades allowed.

I'd totally play.
Yeah that'd be fun as hell actually with side bets and shit for us degenerate gamblers (Over/Under on how much a certain crane game earns in a week, etc.). It's pretty much The Stock Market Game we all played in high school or whatever except instead of actual stocks it's actual arcade games.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:15 pm

TILT is giving me a lot of bad information here. They said I would need to wait for authorization for the regional manager, then stopped returning my calls, then I finally catch an employee that says Beatmania has already sold because someone showed up with cash in hand. I reiterated that I was ready to make the pickup whenever, but I was told that this could not occur without the general manager checking with the regional manager.

I'm not sure exactly why they're making it so difficult for me to give them my money, but it sounds like we're on the same page now. Call day of to verify, show up between 11 and 4, bring cash, get game.

This is one of those situations where life would be simple if I owned a truck.

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:36 pm

Now they're starting to piss me off. Aside from selling Beatmania I can't get their general manager to simply say, "I will be there between <time> and <time> for you to get the game." They have told me during every single call 'we need cash before we can make the sale,' and I say every time that I have cash and just need to know when I can come in to buy the damn thing.

Now, seemingly out of the blue, the only hours this can occur are between 11:00 AM and 4:00 PM Tuesday through Friday. This directly contradicts what the general manager, who now won't speak to me directly even though he is in the office, told me last Wednesday when he and I spoke.

I expect this information to change (as it has before) on a moments notice. Did I mention they never got back to me on whether or not the $300 would be added? I gave up on that line of questioning long ago.

I get that this is designed to quickly get inventory off their floor, and they don't want to spend a lot of energy, but I don't think I'm asking for too much here. I've been polite, organized, and easy to contact. Most sellers probably wish their buyers had more of these qualities. I have the cash, had the motivation, and want to purchase a product their store is offering to sell!

Tilt has made me feel like the bad guy here, and generally been awful to work with. I know some other IndyDDR members may have had different experiences with Tilt, but I'm giving negative feedback here. I'm not trying to start a fight with anyone, but this experience has been one of the most frustrating buying experiences I've ever had. Their general manager, Vic, really left a sour taste in my mouth.

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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Merk » Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:46 pm

I don't know where the fuck my post went where I totally called it weeks ago that some bullshit like this was going to go down but let me just say that I was hating on Tilt before it was cool and you all were lapping on its poison teats like whipped dogs. Chad I am genuinely sorry that we all got screwed out of a cheap Beet and your very own DDR machine.

"Yo dude we gots this DDR cabinet for sale, $995, you interested?"
"Yeah sure I'll--"
"It has a 27" monitor in it we're going to have to add $350 on that price"
"Okay, whatever I'll take it, where and when do I get it?"
"..."
"Hello?"
"Bring $995 in cash to Tilt and you can take it off the property!"
"Okay, great! When can I pick it up?"
"Wait a second I have to talk to my manager first"
"Okay when should I expect a call back?"
"Tomorrow"
(3 days later)
"Hi I was wondering if I can come in and buy the DDR machine, I have the cash, did the regional manager approve?"
"What?"
"The manager. Can I come in and buy the machine?"
"Uh you'll have to talk to him yourself you can reach him at xxx-xxx-xxxx"
"Okay! I guess I'll call him!"
*Manager is unreachable*
*Calls Tilt back*
"Hey when can I come and pick up the DDR machine?"
"What? Nope. Fuck you. Sold it already. Get out of here"

And that's what happened.
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Re: Tilt fall machine sale

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:54 pm

Merk wrote:"Yo dude we gots this DDR cabinet for sale, $995, you interested?"
"Yeah sure I'll--"
"It has a 27" monitor in it we're going to have to add $350 on that price"
"Okay, whatever I'll take it, where and when do I get it?"
"..."
"Hello?"
"Bring $995 in cash to Tilt and you can take it off the property!"
"Okay, great! When can I pick it up?"
"Wait a second I have to talk to my manager first"
"Okay"
"..."
"So, what did your manager say?"
"..."
"Are DDR and Beatmania still for sale?"
"Beatmania is sold. We can sell you DDR if you bring $995 cash to Tilt."
Again, not trying to start a fight... but this is pretty accurate. Made some additions.

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