# TOPCast 51: Tim Arnold

**Source:** TOPCast - This Old Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2008-01-23  
**Duration:** 84m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/showget.php?id=51

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## Analysis

Tim Arnold, founder of the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, discusses the museum's operations, recent press coverage, and future expansion plans on TOPCast. The episode features extensive operator stories from Arnold's decades running arcades and game routes, including colorful anecdotes about venue challenges, difficult customers, and the transition from operating small arcade businesses to running a non-profit museum. Arnold reveals the Hall of Fame generates ~$22,000/month in revenue with ~$7,500/month in fixed costs, all donated to charity, and discusses plans to purchase a building to secure long-term stability as their current lease expires in November 2009.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Pinball Hall of Fame generates approximately $22,000 per month in revenue with $7,500 monthly operating costs (rent, utilities, insurance, licenses) — _Tim Arnold stated directly: 'we've averaged $22,000 a month that we take to the bank' and detailed costs of '$7,500 a month' primarily from '$5,800 in rent'_
- [HIGH] All staff at Pinball Hall of Fame, including Tim Arnold, work for free as volunteers — _Tim Arnold: 'nobody at the pinball hall of fame gets paid anything. I work for free. I pay for the hippie out of my own pocket and the other people that volunteer just give their time for free.'_
- [HIGH] The Pinball Hall of Fame saw approximately one-third increase in traffic following Southwest Airlines magazine feature in January — _Tim Arnold: 'we've had a boost of about a third' and 'we've had our second best week ever last week'_
- [HIGH] Current lease expires November 2009; landlord will not renew at current rate of $1.29/foot and wants to move shopping center upscale — _Tim Arnold: 'Our lease is up in November of 2009...he will not sign a lease again after our lease is up at the current rate, which right now is out the door for $1.29 a foot'_
- [HIGH] The Pinball Hall of Fame operates as a legal 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and donates surplus revenue to local charities — _Tim Arnold: 'we run the pinball Hall of Fame as a legal not-for-profit corporation. We've got full clearance from the IRS. We file a tax return every year...the original plan was we were going to turn all that money over to local social service charities'_
- [HIGH] The Hall of Fame's most popular machines for revenue are Pinball Circus ($1/play), air hockey (75 cents/play), and the newest pinball game at any given time — _Tim Arnold: 'It's probably a three way...between the pinball circus, which is a dollar a play, the air hockey, which is 75 cents a play, and whatever pinball is newest'_
- [HIGH] Tim Arnold previously operated arcades and game routes across Michigan in the 1970s-1980s, including venues with topless dancer themes — _Extended discussion of Arnold's work servicing game rooms at 'Modern Bookkeeping' fronts and other venues in Durand, Lansing, Bay City, and Mason, Michigan_
- [HIGH] The museum has not experienced significant security or behavioral issues; clientele are primarily nostalgia-driven, middle-aged visitors rather than troublemakers — _Tim Arnold: 'the nostalgia crowd is completely different than the crowd we used to get back in the day...We never get break-ins, we never get gang-griff-fidi, we never get fights, we never get drunks'_
- [MEDIUM] Tim Arnold met Norm and the TOPCast team around year 2000 at a pinball expo to discuss donating videotape production to Salvation Army charity — _Tim/Norm discussion: 'Yeah, that was year 2000' when Tim approached them about using their video work for charity fundraising_
- [MEDIUM] Spider-Man pinball machine has experienced significant revenue decline at the Hall of Fame, dropping sharply after initial period — _Tim Arnold: 'Spider-Man has dropped off. Spider-Man dropped like a stone' when discussing top revenue-generating machines_

### Notable Quotes

> "we've averaged $22,000 a month that we take to the bank...it costs us $7,500 a month to keep the thing open, there's a big difference between those two"
> — **Tim Arnold**, mid-episode, during finances discussion
> _Directly addresses internet criticism about Hall of Fame finances and demonstrates strong operational profitability_

> "the nostalgia crowd is completely different than the crowd we used to get back in the day...We never get break-ins, we never get gang-griff-fidi, we never get fights, we never get drunks"
> — **Tim Arnold**, late-episode security discussion
> _Contrasts the professional museum clientele with arcade operator experience, highlighting demographic shift_

> "if you had told me that, you know, he's sitting there watching TV and a guy pulls a shotgun and says 'I'm going to blow you away' because he was the local drug dealer"
> — **Tim Arnold**, mid-episode operator story
> _Highlights extreme dangers of arcade operation in 1970s-80s venues; community context of crime_

> "If I could tell what made a hit game and what didn't make a hit game, I'd move to Chicago and work for Gary Stern and make a million bucks"
> — **Tim Arnold**, game performance discussion
> _Humorous acknowledgment of unpredictability in game popularity; references Stern as premier manufacturer_

> "as a not-for-profit, just like a church or a Lions Club or an Eagles Club, we don't pay property taxes if we own the building"
> — **Tim Arnold**, expansion planning discussion
> _Key financial motivation for building ownership strategy for long-term sustainability_

> "there's this place that's unique...tourists get kind of bored just doing the same buffets and the same night clubs and the same slot machines. And they want something different to do"
> — **Tim Arnold**, visitor traffic discussion
> _Articulates market positioning: Hall of Fame as unique Vegas attraction differentiated from casino gaming_

> "the worst thing that you ever came across...somebody had taken and cut the head off a cat and put it on the control handle of the [robotron] game"
> — **Tim Arnold**, vandalism story section
> _Demonstrates extreme vandalism and troublemaker behavior in arcade venues; evidence of crime involvement in operations_

> "we don't have music...because if we got music, it would interfere with your ability to play the games...I have to rely on hearing things in order to tell me that somebody is picking up the air hockey and dropping it"
> — **Tim Arnold**, caller question section
> _Operational philosophy revealing sound as security monitoring tool and game experience prioritization_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Tim Arnold | person | Founder and operator of Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas; decades of arcade and game route operation history across Michigan; primary interview subject |
| Pinball Hall of Fame | organization | Non-profit 501(c)(3) museum in Las Vegas with 175+ pinball machines and 25 video games; ~$22,000/month revenue; lease expires Nov 2009; founded/operated by Tim Arnold |
| TOPCast | event | Pinball-focused podcast/online radio show; episode 51 features Tim Arnold; hosts referred to as Norm and Shaggy |
| Gary Stern | person | Referenced as head of Chicago-based pinball manufacturer; Tim Arnold references him as benchmark for success |
| Harry Mahoney | person | Owner of 'Modern Bookkeeping' front operation in Durand, Michigan; started with drive-in theater, expanded to adult venues and game rooms |
| Southwest Airlines | company | Published 8-page color feature on Pinball Hall of Fame in January in-flight magazine; drove significant traffic increase |
| CES (Consumer Electronics Show) | event | Trade show mentioned; CrankyGeeks crew attended and visited Hall of Fame to film segment |
| CrankyGeeks | media | Internet TV show/video podcast; covered Pinball Hall of Fame during CES visit in Las Vegas |
| Las Vegas Pinball Collector's Club | organization | Legal entity operating Pinball Hall of Fame as 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation |
| Salvation Army | organization | Primary charity recipient of Hall of Fame surplus revenue; partnership discussed regarding videotape project |
| Norm | person | Co-host of TOPCast; first met Tim Arnold around 2000 at pinball expo |
| Enrico Palazzo / Eric Gay | person | Caller to TOPCast; claims to have met Tim Arnold at expo; references as 'Rico' |
| Pirates | game | Pinball machine at Hall of Fame; performs well in revenue despite age; mentioned as strong earner |
| Spider-Man | game | Pinball machine at Hall of Fame; experienced sharp revenue decline; underperforming compared to other titles |
| Real Fortune | game | Newest pinball game at Hall of Fame at time of recording; performing well in revenue |
| Theater of Magic | game | Referenced as classic game with sustained revenue performance; discussed as example of games that maintain popularity |
| Medieval Madness | game | Referenced as classic game with sustained revenue performance; example of enduring game popularity |
| Twilight Zone | game | Referenced as classic game with sustained revenue performance; benchmark for longevity |
| Pinball Circus | game | Top revenue-generating game at Hall of Fame; $1/play; strong consistent performer |
| Defender | game | Video arcade game; referenced in vandalism story (cat head incident) |
| Robotron | game | Video arcade game; actual machine where cat head vandalism occurred in 1980s arcade |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball Hall of Fame operations and finances, Tim Arnold's arcade operator history and stories, Hall of Fame expansion and lease crisis, Game revenue performance at Hall of Fame
- **Secondary:** Press coverage and visitor traffic growth, Venue security and behavioral management, Non-profit structure and charitable giving, Arcade industry history and operator challenges

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Tim Arnold presents Hall of Fame with pride and optimism about growth and mission, though underlying concern about lease expiration and building ownership needs. Operator stories carry mix of humor and danger/stress. Community criticism about finances is directly addressed and resolved. Overall tone is professional and transparent despite colorful historical anecdotes.

### Signals

- **[venue_signal]** Pinball Hall of Fame facing lease expiration November 2009; landlord upgrading shopping center and will not renew at current rate ($1.29/ft vs. $1.50-2.00/ft market rate); Tim Arnold considering purchasing building as long-term solution (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold: 'Our lease is up in November of 2009...he will not sign a lease again after our lease is up at the current rate...what we're thinking is that we actually want to buy a building'
- **[business_signal]** Hall of Fame generates strong margins ($22,000/month revenue vs. $7,500/month fixed costs) with all-volunteer staff; significant capital available for investment or debt retirement (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold: 'we've averaged $22,000 a month...nobody at the pinball hall of fame gets paid anything. I work for free.'
- **[venue_signal]** Southwest Airlines magazine feature (8 pages, color, January) drove approximately one-third increase in visitor traffic; demonstrates media-driven tourism boost (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold: 'we've had a boost of about a third' and 'we've had our second best week ever last week' following January Southwest magazine feature
- **[venue_signal]** Hall of Fame clientele dramatically different from 1970s-80s arcade venues; nostalgia-driven, middle-aged visitors seeking retro experience vs. troublemakers and crime-prone young crowds of past (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold: 'the nostalgia crowd is completely different...45, 50, 55 year old dudes who are wandering around, reliving their youth...We never get break-ins, we never get gang-griff-fidi, we never get fights, we never get drunks'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Game revenue performance is unpredictable; Spider-Man dropped sharply despite initial setup; newer games perform well; classic games like Theater of Magic, Medieval Madness, Twilight Zone sustain popularity but reasons unclear (confidence: medium) — Tim Arnold: 'Spider-Man has dropped like a stone' and 'if I could tell what made a hit game and what didn't make a hit game, I'd move to Chicago and work for Gary Stern'
- **[collector_signal]** Three machines dominate Hall of Fame revenue: Pinball Circus ($1/play), air hockey (75¢/play), and newest pinball game; suggests strong FOMO effect and novelty appeal for collector audience (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold: 'it's probably a three way tie...Any new game right out of the box does great'
- **[operational_signal]** Hall of Fame intentionally avoids music to maintain auditory awareness of facility; security relies on sound detection of vandalism attempts (e.g., detecting dropped machines) (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold on music: 'I have to rely on hearing things in order to tell me that somebody is picking up the air hockey and dropping it'
- **[historical_signal]** 1970s-80s arcade operations exposed operators to serious crime including drug dealers, assault, theft, and extreme vandalism; demonstrates context of pre-digital arcade era vulnerability (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold recounts shotgun confrontation with drug dealer, wheel theft by frat boys, cat head vandalism, and other violent/criminal incidents in arcade venues
- **[community_signal]** Tim Arnold publicly addresses internet criticism about Hall of Fame finances, providing detailed breakdown of revenue, expenses, and charitable giving; transparency builds trust in community (confidence: high) — Tim Arnold: 'There's been some talk on the Internet that what we're doing is somehow not good or not correct...We file a tax return every year' with detailed financial figures
- **[content_signal]** Previous TOPCast episode featuring Tim Arnold was 'the most downloaded Topcast show ever' according to hosts, indicating strong community interest in Hall of Fame founder (confidence: medium) — Host: 'we talked to you almost a year ago. And it was...I think your show was the most downloaded Topcast show ever. It was very popular.'
- **[venue_signal]** Hall of Fame positions itself as unique Vegas attraction differentiated from casino gaming; appeals to tourists seeking non-gambling entertainment and nostalgia experiences (confidence: medium) — Tim Arnold: 'It's basically just barns full of slot machines...tourists get kind of bored...here's this place that has really unique stuff in it that you can't see anywhere else'
- **[product_strategy]** Hall of Fame uses tiered pricing strategy (Pinball Circus $1/play, air hockey 75¢/play) to optimize revenue across different game types and appeal to varied player preferences (confidence: medium) — Tim Arnold discussion of top revenue games with varying price points

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## Transcript

Hello there, Pinheads! This is Triumph the Insult Dog and you're listening to Norman Shaggy on the Topcast. A popular program among fat, 40-year-old men with no sex life. Kind of like Norman Shaggy. Oh, and don't forget to download episode 42, featuring my cousin by Than Angelou. Until next time, see you later Pin Losers! You're listening to Topcast, this old Pinballs Online Radio. For more information, visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com. Flash Topcast! Alright, well, welcome to another episode. Brand new episode for the brand new season, 2008 season of Topcast. And I'm your host, I'm Norm along with... I think you're Shaggy. Oh, along with Norm. So, we have a special guest tonight. Special guest, special guest, special guest, special guest, special guest. Here on Topcast tonight, we've got Tim Arnold from the Pinball Museum in Las Vegas. The Pinball Hall of Fame as it's well known. Tim, can you say hi to us? Yo, ho! Okay, Tim. Oh, I pirate. I pirate. Yes. Alright, how come it has taken so many months for another show? Why were you on here? Hi, Edas, is it the writer's strike? The writer's strike definitely put us on here. Did the writer's strike affect you when Las Vegas Tim? No, no, we're all the way live out here. So, I just said screw it finally, we're not going to use the writers. Yeah. And we'll just do our own thing. Yeah, we're going to sign with them and, you know, like Letterman did, but we decided not to. We're going to do our own royalties. Yeah, they want money. And we don't even get money. Yeah, we're kind of anti-money. So... Yeah, look for the Union label. Yes. Well, anyways, so Tim, you know, we talked to you almost a year ago. And it was... I think your show was the most downloaded Topcast show ever. It was very popular. You told a lot of good, good operator stories. And we kind of want to continue that. We also want to get an update on the pinball hall of fame and how that whole project is going. And working towards the building. And then, you know, we've got to address some comments that we've heard from some other people. And we're going to take some callers too. On the second half of the show, we're going to have people call in. All right, so Tim, looking at the website, you've been getting a lot of good press. Yes, that's true. Yeah, so tell me about the press and these people that wander in. What, you know, how do they approach you on this? Well, usually because one or the other of us, me and myself, or the one we call the hippie, is there just about all the time, there's no real layers of bureaucracy between us and somebody who wants to do a story about us. You just kind of wander in and they say, boy, this place is really neat. I want to do a story about it for cranky geeks, which was the last thing that just happened. With some, I don't know, internet TV show. You know, well, it's what divorce. Yeah, I think that's divorce show is the cranky geeks. Yeah, so they came in, they were in town for the CES show, Consumer Electronic Show. So they came over with a camera and interviewed me and wandered around, you know, getting pictures of pinball machines. And then they just scooted. That's usually the way it happens. And we just got in Southwest Airlines magazine, they're in flight magazine, for the month of January, every seat back on every Southwest plane has a copy of this magazine. Since you're just sitting there in your board, anyways, you pull out the magazine, you read it, and you find out about this pinball museum. And it was eight pages with color pictures. Yes, I saw that. The graph of the thing. The guy is going, this is the greatest museum ever. It's better than, you know, like the Louvre and all those fancy-ass museums. And he said, you got to, when you're in Vegas, you got to come out and see it. So have you noticed an increase in traffic since this whole thing happened? Yeah, we've had a boost of about a third. It's quite a bit. It's about the January. So we've had our second best week ever last week, and usually January is the pits. What do you think that's on the electronic show, or do you think it's from that article? The ES show is over at that point. So it's just people that were coming to Vegas anyways and saw this article about the pinball museum and came out. But now if you move the facility, isn't it, aren't you going to lose some mileage on all this press that you've gotten? No, because they usually go to the website anyways to find out where it is and the website will just send them somewhere else. And the website, what is the URL? Oh, the website. Yeah, I don't know what URL it was. It's pinballmuseum.org. Yes, pinballmuseum.org. So Tim, what other press has been good for you? We get local, any story in the local paper is good for 10, 15, 20% boost for three or four weeks. What about the local hookers? There's pictures that's even better. We had some radio stuff, but I haven't detected anybody that came in because they did a story on the radio. What about TV, have you had any TV coverage? Yeah, the local news shows that evening news on all three channels has covered us. But that only happens once in a while. You know, they can't give you a plug every week. So how do you get a third? The city has been very good for us lately. And mainly what it is is people here that there's this place that's unique. It's not like every casino is like every other casino. It's basically just barns full of slot machines. And you play the same slot machines and you lose the same money. And then here's this place that's kind of like off the strip. It's a couple miles away, but it has really unique stuff in it that you can't see anywhere else. And tourists get kind of bored just doing the same buffets and the same night clubs and the same slot machines. And they want something different to do. So they come out and play pinball. Excellent! Well, okay, so when these guys come, how will Labratt like to... Well, let's take this last one, the crankygeeks.com, which is the Dvorak column. That guy's been writing forever. He's actually kind of old school computer. When he came in, how will Labratt was his crew? Was it just him? Just him and another guy with a camera. So the other guy was just... it wasn't a handheld or a nice camera? A little handheld guy. Yeah, because you know, that was a web... what a video podcast, as it may be, on his website. And you know, two minutes into the thing, you know, he started showing off the museum and him playing. And there's footage of you. I assume you've not seen it, right? No, because I don't have Pivo. He said it was on Pivo. He said it's on Pivo. That's what I like about you, Tim. You're a totally new school up on all the gadgets. No, no, he said it was on Pivo. He said if you had Pivo, you could get it. Party on, brother. Okay, so now, now let's, Tim, let's go back to your interview that we had with you a year ago. The one thing that I get just a crapload of comments about is the Naked Shoesign... Naked Shoesign place with the pinball machines that you worked at. Shoesign. Yes, shoe. Oh, yeah. Modern bookkeeping. Why was it called Modern Bookkeeping? Because it's... Harry Mahoney, the guy that did the... started out with a driving movie theater in Durand, Michigan, just the other side of Flint. And then he started cinema acts and then that turned into deja vu and showgirls and little darlings and all those titty bars that are now literally all over the country. But the whole thing was run out of a Cinder Black building next to the scene driving in Durand, Michigan. And you couldn't tell anyone you worked for them and your check came from Modern Bookkeeping, which is what they told you. If anybody asks, you work for Modern Bookkeeping. What was the thinking behind this? The illegitimate business. Because it was pretty much a banded industry. It was dirty movie theaters, peep shows. They were rigging the peep show business. Yes, money. And they had topless shoe shines and game rooms in all their cinema exes. The one in Flint, the one in Lansing and the one in Bay City, were the three that I did service for. And were they all shoe, all topless shoe signs or different motifs? No, it was just a big Cinder Black building used to be a supermarket that they had peep booths, which back then were 8 millimeter film loops. And they had buckets and toilet paper. A lot of porn magazines and then they had this really lame ass game room where they had five or six tin balls in the jukebox and a bunch of pool tables. Did they own the equipment or was it your equipment? No, no, they own the equipment. And did it make any money? Yeah, it must have made a money because they kept doing it. So the game's still there? Yeah, now when did that place close or change? Well, I eventually ended up getting so busy running the arcades I told them I couldn't do service for them anymore. So basically, you know, they found somebody else. And since they don't spend a lot of time hanging out in titty bars or adult bookstores, I heard from somebody that eventually they stopped doing it. So it was probably late 70s that the whole thing peered out. Now what are the risk of worth? Yeah, nice choice of worth. What are the risk-a locations did you either provide machines to or do service at? It was actually pretty boring stuff, you know, the usual roller rinks, bars, the shit-kicker bars were the worst though. What do you mean? The country western bars are the worst because the hats and belts love to fight. And they love to throw things and they love to spill beer all over everything. So, you know, if you had games in a shit-kicker bar, you could count on having a lot more broken things. And a lot more gooey coin doors because of the beer. What was the worst broken thing that you ever came across? The worst episode of crime or vandalism or whatever that you encountered? Well, they tip them over from time to time. And that always messed them up. Especially the EMs, man, the insights get to scramble when you tip them over. But probably the weirdest thing was the dead cat head. What? I was working in the arcade in the basement one night in this guy who didn't look like, you know, a troublemaker, he looked like a normal guy. It comes up to me and he looks just like all white. And he says, like, I don't think I'm seeing things that I think there's a dead cat head on your game. So, you know, I didn't think he was faking. So, I jumped right up and went over and there was a defender game. No, it was a robotron, robotron. And somebody had taken and cut the head off a cat and put it on the control handle of the game. So, you know, I told the guy, you know, thanks a lot. That's good you told me this. And he left and then the police came in and they took pictures of it and put it in a bag and for evidence and took it away. So, that was pretty damn freaky. So, was that like a fresh cat head or was it like something taken out of it when the anatomy labs down at the school? It was like, still bloody and stuff. It was really weird. Freak me out. And what was the reasoning for this? I don't know. You know, I figured out, you know, maybe it was, we had a lot of trouble with, with, with Frat boys who did, you know, grotesque pranks. Well, like what, you know, this happened at your arcade. Is that what, did it put more pizza? Okay, now what, now the Frat boys, what did they do? What, how did they cause trouble? They were constantly getting way too drunk. And there's a difference between getting drunk and getting way too drunk. And they were always, you know, filled with testosterone and yelling and slamming pool cues around. And they were just, they were bad rowdy. Wanted to fight. And then, early on when we were putting games in the Frat houses, they, one time they dumped a bucket of piss on me as I was going out the door. And another time they stole the wheels off my truck. Wait, wait, wait, they stole all four wheels off your truck? No, they turned the two on the street side. So I came out to get into my truck of wheels or gone. And did you immediately notice this? Yeah, yeah, because I went around to put my tools in the truck and the two wheels are gone. So if you do on blocks, if you had driven off your truck. Yeah, I picked it up, put on blocks, so it took my wheels just for a joke. And if you had driven off your truck. So, yeah, it was, you know, did you get your wheels back? Oh, yeah, yeah, they thought it was a big joke, it was hilarious. And then they came out and put my wheels back on. So when the guy dumped the bucket of urine on you, what did you do? I went home and took a shower. You know, I hear different stories about you. Number one, there was a guy, man, I sold a pinball to him. He said that you were quite, you could really handle yourself in a fight. These guys would come in and be able to do all kind of, you know, they think they could handle you, take you, which you were known to take out people with one punch. Yeah, I'm a big strapping buck. I think I was like five, six, and a hundred. No, that's not what I hear. I hear that you just knew what to do and how to take care of business. Every time I ask you that, you deny that to this day. Well, yeah, I didn't get killed, so. So yeah, there's some truth to the story that you can, you take out some big football player some time to time with one punch. Wait, wait, you got held up once? Yeah, once. How did that go? Oh, a guy pulled a shotgun on me, demanded that I leave town. I said I would, and then he put the shotgun back in the case and walked out the front door. What do you mean the case? He had a, well, I'm sitting there watching TV on a Saturday night. Wait, wait, you're at the arcade? Yeah, yeah, this is an arcade in Mason, a little town south of Lansing. And I look, I'm sitting there watching TV, and I look up, and there's a guy who's just come in and he puts a case. Looks like a pool cue case on the pool table nearest where I was, and he's zipping and unzipping it. Like the zipper is stuck. So I say, hmm, and I go back to looking at the TV, and then I figure out, hey, I know this guy. So Robert the Nero. Look up again, and at this point he's got the thing open, and he pulls out a shotgun, and he points it right at me and says, I'm going to blow you away. And then I recognized him, he was the local drug dealer guy. So at this point I pretty much just shit my pants. And he started going on about how this was his town, and I was taking his business, and that I was a narc, and then that I worked for the police, and that he was going to have to kill me because I was narking him out. Which is all true. And I said, yeah, well, I'll stop doing that. He says, well, you're going to leave town? And I go, yeah, yeah, I'll leave town. Tomorrow, and I won't come back. So apparently that satisfied him. He put the shotgun back in the case and walked out. So immediately there was two guys like five feet away playing foosball who didn't even look up. They were so engrossed in playing foosball that they didn't see the whole thing. So I gave him $0.50, kicked him out, and I was going down the street to use the pay phone because we didn't have a phone at the time. And I was going to call a police and tell him that this guy, the local well-known drug dealer had just pulled a shotgun on me. And all of a sudden I hear him say, hold it. So I stopped right in the middle of the street, and he's over by the bank behind the teller machine pointing the shotgun at me. So I'm standing in the middle of the street. It's about 11.30 at night. And I got my hands up in the air, and all of a sudden I look down the block, and there's a car coming. And I'm standing literally right in the middle, right on the center line of the street. And I got my hands up. So I look over again, and it looks like he's got a ski rack on top of the car. So I look over again, and it's not a ski rack, it's a police light. So the one and only police officer in Mason, Michigan, happened to be driving down the street at the exact moment that I'm standing out in the middle of the street with my hands in the air. So he pulls up between me and the guy, and I kind of scrunch down and run along with the car, and I say it's that guy, his name, and he's over there and he's got a gun. So immediately they go screaming off around the corner, and I go down and hide under some boxes next to a garbage dumpster. So then about five minutes later, I hear sirens and stuff, and I figure, okay, they either caught the guy or killed him. So I go over to the next block, and they got him spread-ygold on the cop car and they're handcuffed on them. So yeah, he got bailed out in my saw him the next day. He drove down the street in front of the arcade and gave me the finger. So apparently he didn't stay in jail very long. So they didn't cut off his head and put it on one of your games? Nah, nah, live and let live. And so did he ever approach you again because I assume you did not leave town? Well no, actually the arcade we had in Mason was doing spectacularly poorly. It was everything that could possibly have gone wrong, did. So we decided to close it, and we actually sublet it to somebody who was going to put in a nice cream parlor, and that's how we got out of our lease. It was subsequently murdered. And got out of there and never thought about it again. So you actually did- Or days in hell. So you actually did listen to the guy and leave town? Yeah, but not because it was him, or I was a narc, it was simply the thing that wasn't making any money. We were earning about a dollar an hour, you know, being there. It just wasn't- there was no money. It's very, very sad. I also heard- Where in Federales? The Monten Police? I also heard that you used to superglue, I don't know, somebody's eyelid shut or do weird things to Fred Boys when they were drunk in your place? Yeah, we used to, one time, the two Fred Boys were passed out in the- I don't know if they were Fred Boys. And they had to- Certainly, very drunk and very passed out. There used to be this little narrow corridor that went to the bathroom. So they were passed out, so we superglueed one guy's hand to the other guy's hand. So that then they woke up, they were going to have their hands superglueed together. So that was pretty funny. Now, what was the- what's the- you know, working in the arcade and that, what was the kinky-est sex thing that you ever saw there? Well, we caught people having sex on the back stairs quite a few times. And I think that's about it because mainly what we got were, you know, just adolescent boys who were too geeky to ever get laid anyways. So that's why they ended up at the arcade. You know, generally when you got old enough to hang out in a bar and get laid, you pretty much gave up on the arcade and went to a bar. So who was having sex? It was a man and a woman, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's qualify that right now. Yeah. There was no other stuff going on, was there? Uh, the same flat house where I got my wheel stolen in the piss dump dummy. Yeah. Uh, I walked into the president's room to give him his half of the game money because it was a commission split deal, you know, just like usual. And the first time I ever saw anal sex in progress was when I walked in and he was butt slamming some guy. I said, uh, uh, here's your money. Uh, talk to you at the first time. I think the first time. Yeah. It should have been the only time. How many times have you seen that? How long does this have to do with pinball? Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about pinball. How many times have you seen that? Okay. There, you just got like all my juicy stories from like 30 years of being in taverns and pinball. Well, you haven't told us about some of the fights you've been in there. The guys you've taken out. You got to get one. One story. Tell us one. Okay. There's only one thing you have to know about about fights in an arcade. And you just got to remember you're not as drunk as them. You can run faster. So what you do is when trouble like that happens, you just go the other way really, really fast. Yeah. That would take so. You don't want to fight people that are drunk. Now what about at pinball hall of fame? What is the worst thing? You know, you've only been open a couple years. But what's the worst, you know, the worst altercation or drunk or drug-y guy? Nothing. It's been, you've got to remember that the nostalgia crowd is completely different than the crowd we used to get back in the day. What we get is, you know, 45, 50, 55 year old dudes who are wandering around, you know, reliving their youth, you know, they're almost tearful because, you know, they've seen something that they haven't seen in 30 years. And the place is pretty much, you know, on autopilot. We never get break-ins, we never get gang-griff-fidi, we never get fights, we never get drunks. Occasionally we get somebody panhandling, you know, one of the local bombs will be panhandling in the parking lot. We just tell them, you know, just leave, you can't panhandle here, but that's about it. Yeah. Another like senior citizen pinball, eh? Yeah. What is the worst game makes the most money at the pinball hall of fame? It's probably a three way, usually it's a three way tie between the pinball circus, which is a dollar a play, the air hockey, which is 75 cents a play, and whatever pinball is newest, which right now is real fortune. So that game's doing pretty well? Yeah. Any new game right out of the box does great. I thought your pirates was doing really well. Pirates is doing real well considering its age. It's held up real well. Spider-Man has dropped off. Spider-Man dropped like a stone. Right, right, right. Why do you think that was? Because the kids don't like it. Well, what do you mean? If I could tell what made a hit game and what didn't make a hit game, I'd move to Chicago and work for Gary Stern and make a million bucks. But why is theater of magic and medieval madness and Twilight Zone? What makes those games continue to be hits when other games from the same era aren't? To figure out that, you just make hit games every time. All right, Ari, Tim, we're going to take a little break. We're going to run an ad. But I want to put out throughout the phone number. If anybody wants to call in and ask Tim Arnold of the pinball hall of fame, any sort of question relating to pinball? Our phone number is 10. We'll be back right after this message. Deep in the forest of eastern Canada, you will find something...well... Who went home to break, Kate? And something that's very, very pinball, but something that's really, really small? Presenting classic play field reproductions. Two guys in their basement. We've got the passion, we've got the gear, and we've got the quality. Doing our very best to remake classic and more modern pinball replacement parts. Classic play field reproductions. playfields, back glasses, plastic sets. On the web at classicplayfields.com. Okay, we're back with Tim Arnold. Tim, can you hear us, okay? Yeah, doing good. Okay, we've got a call around the line. Well, with a question. Caller, can you hear us, okay? Uh-huh. Okay, why don't you go ahead and ask Tim a question? Well, hi, my name's Enrico Palazzo. Also known as Eric Gay. And I didn't know the first time you guys ever met. Was it around the pinball gathering or was it on other social events? Wait, what guy? Who met? Who, who met who? You and Joshua Clay, Tim Arnold. Oh, oh, I think one of the expo or something? Yeah, yes it was, it was an expo. And I'll give you the... Is old, I think you had a lemonade stand out in the hall? No, that's not how I went. What happened is... What happened is that me and Norm had just done top number one, the first video. And we just did it as a joke. And we were only going to show it at expo. And which we did. And then Tim came up to us and said, hey, you know, we've got this project where we make video tapes. And, you know, we hold parties with the Salvation Army. Which would be interesting in donating the master. And, you know, we'll give the money to the Salvation Army. And that's how I met Tim, the first time. If he wasn't going to do it, I was going to burn his house down. Wow. Oh, he was going to take him to the fraternity boys. He was going to cut my head off and put it on the joystick, the defender. Robots were going to throw a rough crowd. Which, come on down. Yeah, I think one of the early expos. Yeah, that was year 2000. Honestly, really. The way that Joshua Clay had just shaved for the first time. He was like nine years old. Shaved what? Any other questions? And Rico, any other questions? Emily, no. What were you shaving? And Rico, any other questions relating to pinball? That'll do. Okay. You guys have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Greg Juan, home your mother's calling. Thank you. She is, I know. Bye. Eric shaved when he was two. Is that a manion? He shaved like 10 times a day. Okay. Now, Tim, there's been some criticism at the Hall of Fame about what exactly you're doing with all the money. So, what do we talk about? How much money you bring in every week or month, however you want to break it down? What percentage goes to where? Who gets paid? Who doesn't? Why don't you talk about that? Right. There's been some talk on the Internet that what we're doing is somehow not good or not correct. Basically, what's happening is we run the pinball Hall of Fame as a legal not-for-profit corporation. We've got full clearance from the IRS. We file a tax return every year. And when we get money in, the first thing we have to do is pay the rent in the electric bill to the museum. All right. Hold on a second, Tim. Hi, you're on the air with Tim Arnold. Yeah, this is Bob from Bob Bobing. I got a question for Tim. Fire away. Actually, two questions. One is what kind of music does he play at his facility? Does he have both kinds of music there? No, we have country and western. No, actually, we don't have, we don't have music at all. Because if we got music, it would interfere with your ability to play the games. And two, it would interfere with my ability to keep an eye on by myself a 4,500 square foot facility. I have to rely on hearing things in order to tell me that somebody is picking up the air hockey and dropping it. So we don't do music. And what we found is a lot of people just bring in their iPod. They plug the iPod into their ears. And they just play away and they get the music they want instead of the music that happens to be on the radio or the jukebox. Yeah, we don't do music. Plus, I'm too cheap to buy a license. So do you get any groupies down there coming there and want to see the great Tim Arnold? Yeah, but they're all dudes, unfortunately. There are no Chick-Penball groupies. All right, let's get back to what you were talking about, the money that you take in and where it goes. Yeah, okay. So being a nut for profit, we have to pay the bills first. The bills come to about $7,500 a month. That's $5,800 in rent. And the rest goes for insurance, utility bills, license fees, things that can't be avoided. Right. After that, we have a considerable amount of money left over. Mainly because nobody at the pinball hall of fame gets paid anything. I work for free. I pay for the hippie out of my own pocket and the other people that volunteer just give their time for free. And if you've ever run a business, you know that your largest single and the only controllable expense is labor. So if you have $7,500, all it takes to open the place every month. And we've averaged $22,000 a month that we take to the bank. That doesn't include disc sales, which are PayPal, or interest from the investments, which is separate. So if we're taken to the bank, $22,000 a month, it costs us $7,500 a month. To keep the thing open, there's a big difference between those two. Now, originally the plan was we were going to turn all that money over to local social service charities, salvation armies, St. Jude's Ranch, things like that. But we have a problem coming up in the future. Our lease is up in November of 2009. Now, the guy that just bought the shopping center that we're in paid $6 million for the shopping center, which was about $3 million more than it was worth, and he's currently spending a whole bunch of money to renovate the place. And he's said to me that he wants to attract tenants like Starbucks and Jamba Juice and a record store, and he wants to move the whole shopping center upscale. And he's already told me that he will not sign a lease again after our lease is up at the current rate, which right now is out the door for $1.29 a foot. Currently, other leases in the neighborhood are going for a buck and a half to two bucks. So what happens when our lease is up in November of 2009, we have to either move it or close it. Now, if we're going to move it, we're probably going to run into the same problem. We have, if we stayed where we're at, we don't have the cash flow to support a much higher rent. If our rent went up from $1.29 to $2, that would almost double our $7,500 a month number, that would crimp us quite a bit. So what we're thinking is that we actually want to buy a building, and the Las Vegas Fembao Collector's Club, the legal entity that we are, the tax-free, not-for-profit corporation, would own the building. There's several advantages to this. First of all, we don't have to put up with a landlord who refuses to fix the parking lot or change the light bulbs. If there's something wrong, we can just do it ourselves. And that's a very good thing, not depending on other people. Second of all, as a not-for-profit, just like a church or a Lions Club or an Eagles Club, we don't pay property taxes if we own the building. Now, right now, our landlord pays about 30 to 40% of our rent to the county as taxes. So we're paying taxes indirectly as part of our rent. If we own the building, we would pay no taxes, and we could either retire debt with the 30 or 40% savings, or we could give more money to charity. So the idea is we want to really try to buy a building. So now, you've been wanting to buy a building for a long time, though. So is the scheme different now than it was three years ago? No, we've been finatically putting money in the bank pretty much since the time I conned you into giving me the master for the first disolving tin ball. Yeah, but you were at that time, actually, this was Norm's big criticism. At the time, when you originally contacted this for this, the money was going all to the Salvation Army. There was no building fund. This was all just a pipe dream. And I don't even think you had the whole thing concocted at that point. And you've kind of changed gears here on us, midstream. That's true. That's true. And I have also been meticulously honest about it. I have not kidded anybody. I have not said 100% of your quarter goes to the Salvation Army. Nowhere in the museum does it say that, except for the candy machines, which do, in fact, 100% go to the Salvation Army. We don't trumpet it. We don't, you know, go out and say, hey, play here and help the homeless because at this point, what you're doing is about 50 to 60 cents of every dollar you put in a machine at the tin ball, a fame, is put in the building fund as retained earnings. So at some point, we hope to buy a building. Now, then comes the next question, well, what if you don't buy a building? What happens to all the money? Which is usually the next question that comes up. And I'm going to say it again to anybody that will listen at any time, is that the state of Nevada and the Internal Revenue Service are watching us very closely. And if we took that money, which right now is over half a million dollars that we have sitting in the bank, if we took that money and gave it to ourselves, stole it, made it disappear, gave it to Norm, gave it to us. We're looking at major problems with the IRS and with the state of Nevada. So put it in the paper bag and we tell me what it says. So what it says is with what's going to happen to the money when the project ends, which at some point it may end. We can either give it to the IRS or we can give it to another charity. We can't keep it, we can't give it to ourselves, we can't buy a car with it, we can't pay it to ourselves as salary. So at this point, I look at the half a million dollars that sits in the bank as eventually being the property of the salvation army if we can't find a building. And what are you shopping for a building? Yeah, I've gone to see four or five buildings in the last month. We're working with real estate people. I'm also on the internet every night looking at different buildings that are for sale in and around Las Vegas. We looked at one that was $8 million, we looked at one that was $5.2 million and these are the list prices. This is not the price that we would eventually negotiate it down to but it's like an opening bid price. And we've looked at a couple of two and three million dollar buildings. They're scary expensive. We looked at a roller rink that was out on Boulder Highway that they wanted four million dollars for a building that was built in the early 70s and it was basically just a big 10 shed. And the problem right now with commercial real estate is that the market is still kind of like it was with housing a year ago. It's all frothy and people are speculating and the prices in no way reflect the underlying value of the real estate to produce rent income. And what we're hoping is that in the next six months to a year that the prices of commercial real estate will realign themselves with their traditional levels. In other words, the prices will come down and we'll be able to buy something. We hope. Okay, now what about, how much are you looking to spend on a building? If you've got a half million in the bank, you can't really go out and spend $5 million on something. No, and it's not truthfully it's not a $5 million idea. If we were selling Maserati's and we were getting $100,000 every time we sold one, that would be different. But you got to remember we're just like a laundromat or a car wash where we're dealing with quarters and we're not going to get the best corner in town. We need to have something we'd like to get something between two and three million dollars. You're going to buy a single use. We're going to get $500,000 down on and at that point we could afford the mortgage that we would have to pay off the rest. Are you trying to tell me that it's that hard to find property for two to three million dollars in Las Vegas? Well, see, the other criteria is that it has to be big enough. I mean, I could go right now and find a building. In fact, there's one on the corner of Flamingo and Pecos that's listed at a million two. We could probably get it for $900,000. That's slightly bigger than the space we're in right now that we could get for, you know, we basically put 50% down. We'd only have to, you know, mortgage $400,000. But the problem is right now we can only display 200 games. The idea is that we want to get a space that's big enough that we can go for six, 800 games. Yeah, but you've got the reality of it is you're having a hard time. You and the hippie maintaining 200 games. Do you really want to pump it up higher than that? No, I disagree that we're having a hard time. What we're doing is we're spending about 50% of our day getting games ready for home sale. The other 50% is what we call tending to the flock, which is going around, you know, fixing flippers, replacing light bulbs, cleaning games. So right now if we're running 200 games and spending 50% of our time building games for home sale, we could give up on building games for home sale. And we could devote 100% of our time and immediately go from 200 games to 400 games. And then there's also the fact that we could get other people to volunteer to help us do, you know, routine maintenance, game cleaning and helping us out. Right now we just do it me and him because that's just kind of handy. And the 200 game game room fits two people real well. And you thought of building a building and getting a piece of property or that's just crazy? Well, that was the $8 million project. We were going to pay $2.5 million for two acres of land. And then we were going to build a two-story building on the land. And just the parking lot alone was $400,000 for the pavement under parking lot. So there's no little bit of that. And we did that with three different builders. So yeah, you know, we're exploring a bunch of things. We refer to it as kissing pigs. We're going to have to kiss 100 pigs before we find the one we like. But you only have a year and a half to really do this. I mean, you're kind of on the out of time. No, not necessarily. Because right now time is working in our favor every day that we wait, our position gets a little stronger because we bank up a little more money. And the real estate market is heading for, if not a collapse, certainly a correction. And the landlords are going to be more anxious a year from now to sell something than they are right now. Wow. You're crystal balls working better than mine. Well, how good are things around Detroit? I mean, this is Detroit, though. It's a completely different environment. No, but I think there's such a amount of overbuilding here that prices, it's not a question of if prices will realign themselves with the underlying rents. It's only a question of when because any speculative market eventually gets back to the fundamentals. This is what happened in housing. And it's going to happen next in commercial real estate. So you're looking at just a single tenant building. No, you're not going to buy something right or do anything like that extra space. We're going to buy, you know, I'd like to find a supermarket size building four or five times as large as what we've got. I'd also like to be a little closer to the strip because what we found out is that tourists are a larger part of our audience than we originally anticipated. Yeah, you thought the locals were going to play into this heavily and they just don't, right? Well, they show up, but they don't show up in the numbers I originally, because see, I was basing my numbers on fun night, where it was 90% locals, 10% tourists. And you also got to remember when we signed the lease where we're at, we were next to a prosperous $2 movie theater that has since slid down hill and closed twice. And as even now as we speak, just barely open. They're only running three of the six screens and it's going to close again eventually. So the problem is we don't want to be where we're at when the lease is up because, you know, why be there when there's no theater? Yeah, you're turning into the anchor of the plaza, aren't you? Yeah, I guess we've kind of turned into us in the bar next door or the only reason anybody comes to that shopping center. And originally it was about a third movie patrons, a third tourists and a third locals. And since the movie theater has kind of crashed and burned, we've kind of switched to about 60% tourists and 40% locals. So I'd like to be closer to the strip so we can get more tourists. So tourists tend to play more of the novelty stuff and they don't win as many free games. So they end up spending more money than the locals, most of which are diehard tinheads that just win huge quantities of free games. And they constantly demand a flow of new machines. You know, I have to keep rotating stuff in to keep my base of locals, but the tourists, it to them everything is new. So we thought that the tourists business would do well with you if you played into it, especially if you came up with a tour of anti-gambling. You know, you can come to Vegas and gamble and do these things, but if you could string a load of businesses together, museums, things like what you're doing and play into those that aren't really gamblers, I think you could even increase your not even higher. Oh yeah, yeah, there's definitely, we've gotten a lot of feedback from people that come in and say, you know, I spent $200 and 20 minutes at the casino and then I came here and I've spent $8 and three hours. So yeah, that's definitely part of it. One of the things we were looking at was the Liberace Museum on Trappicana is in a shopping center that's currently about half empty. And we could get about twice the square footage we have right now. We'd go from $4,500 to about $10,000 square feet and we could rent from them because they don't want to sell part of the shopping center. They want to continue to own it. But you know, that way we could be next to the Liberace Museum so then mom could come out and do the, you know, the pianist that she used to watch in the 50s and dad, you know, he said, I don't want to go to that, see that gay guy who played the piano. Oh, there's a pinball museum next door. Yeah, let's go to that. Liberace was gay. Not only that, not only that, but that is a lot closer to the strip. Right, it's half again as close to the strip. And then you're getting free advertising. They're taking all these idiots and torn them and you're going to get the benefit of that. Yeah, why don't you sign up for that now? Can't you sign up for that now? Well, no, we're not near the end of our lease. Yeah, but that guy would get shot there, wouldn't he? Well, the lawyer said he can get us out of the lease, but at this point we're still hoping to find something we might be able to buy. What's the nut on that? Paying rent sucks. Because if we had twice as many square feet at this Liberace Plaza that we have right now, we're going to be paying about twice the rent. And then we're going to see our $7,500 a month, double to $15,000. So let's say there's a little savings in there because you're getting less electric bill and less insurance. So let's say we could say it's $13,000 a month, then we're looking at the fact that we're paying out $13,000 and taking in $22,000. That's not as nice as paying out $7,500 and taking in $22,000. So what we're trying to do is by owning the building, we would literally only have an electric bill to pay. Everything else could be used to retire debt. Well, back to some of the other stuff. If somebody wants to come down and view your books or see any of your accounting or understanding this better, are you available? Are these things available for viewing? We're required by law to give anybody that asks for a copy of our tax return. That's not just me, that's any charity in America. So anybody that wants can request a copy of the tax return. If you're at the museum, we have a copy of it there you can inspect. If you want me to mail you one, I'll mail you one free of charge. On that tax return it states exactly to the penny how much money we have, what we spent last year, last year we gave away, even though we've been retaining capital like crazy, we still managed to give away $20,000 to local charities. And I prepare and sign that tax return myself under penalty of perjury. So believe me, I take it very seriously. Anybody that wants to physically inspect our books has to give me a couple days notice and I will bring whatever you want to see up to the museum and you can go over the books with a fine tooth comb. We have nothing to hide. Nobody gets paid. The only thing we do is we take in a dollar, we pay out 40 to 50 cents for rent in our electric bill and the rest gets retained as earnings. That's basically in a nutshell the whole thing. Have you ever had any runs in with the IRS before? No, but it was explained to me when I set up the not-for-profit corporation by several different people that it's not a question of when you'll get audited or if you'll get audited it's only a question of when. And when you do get audited the things that they look for that always trip you up they're not interested in the fact that you paid $3.29 for soda when you could have waited a week and got it for $2.99. They're more interested in do you have a company car? Do you go on trips or junkets or seminars? Do you have a home office that you take a deduction for? Do you take mileage? The kind of things that allow the president of the Red Cross to earn millions of dollars when he's the head of a charity. That's what they're zeroing on. And as long as you're not paying yourself anything and as long as you don't have a company car that you drive, as long as they're not paying for your health insurance or anything like that, they're pretty much going to look at your books and say, yeah, that's okay. You guys gave away $20,000 and retained $150,000 for your building fund. That's good. Don't spend any of the money on the building fund. We'll see you again in two years. Now have you had any celebrities or high profile people come into the museum and talk to you or just come into the museum much less talk to you about any of the financial aspects? We had Leonard Malton come in two weeks ago. What was he there for? He was there for the CES show, the Consumer Electronics Show, and he saw the article in the Southwest Airlines magazine. So he got his limo to come over and he paid the limo $50 an hour so he could hang out inside for about 45 minutes and spend $5. But yeah, he really liked the place. So that's the best famous guy we got. Yeah, it's pretty low end. We don't get any of the famous rock stars or anything. There's been John O'Smeme money. Yeah, why? He came over, he took back when I had all the games in the shed in the backyard. He's doing his big red piano show here in Las Vegas at Caesar's Palace. And they had a jumbo tron screen. He sits there and he plays this red piano and sings a little song or whatever the hell he does. And he's got this jumbo tron screen where they show pictures of pinball machines when he's singing about the pinball wizard. So he sent this film crew over here and they had a 35 millimeter film camera and they had like six guys. One guy's job was to change the focus. That was his only job was to move this lever and keep the whole thing in focus. So they took this 35 millimeter Panavision camera and took all these pictures of pinball machines. And he was supposed to make a donation to the building fund and he was supposed to get us some Elton John tickets for the raffle at fun night, neither of which he did. So I kept calling up the guy who was in charge of the film crew saying, look, Rocket Man owes me some cheese here. I want to get paid. And he kept saying, well, you know, I've left the message three or four times but nobody's gotten back to me. Give me another week on this. So finally, I just called the guys up and I read the riot act and I said, look, this is not how rich celebrities are supposed to act. You know, they're supposed to be like better than that. And if somebody gives them a bill, they're supposed to pay it. So finally, the guy that ran the camera crew, he made a $500 donation just to shut me up. But that doesn't get him off the hook. Elton John owes me money. How much does he owe you? How much? I don't know. I would think that $500 to $1,000 for two days worth of my time. And he could get a couple tickets to his show that we could give away. You know, that make a dandy raffle price. Now, you're obviously not doing fun nights anymore, right? No, no. Fun night got dangerous. We had to quit that. What do you mean it got dangerous? There was too many people back there. You've been back to the shed. The aisleways are too narrow. There's no ventilation. There's no proper fire doors. There's things stacked up 30 feet in the air. And if something bumped into something else, everything would fall down and crush people. And it was literally the last couple of times we get did fun night. When it was all over, all we could say is, wow, you know, we almost like just barely escaped with nobody dying. Let's not do this again. So we decided instead to open the museum. But you still got your shed, right? What do you have your shed and how much has happened depleted? The shed is about half empty. Really? So is that a good thing or a bad thing? No, I'd like to get it all the way empty. You know, I've got 450 games ready to go tomorrow. You got still a lot of stuff stacked. 200 that are in the museum and I got another 200 sitting back there ready to go. Now, if you did double the space on the museum, what other 200 machines that you'd bring in, what era of stuff would you bring in or just more the same? It would be all older stuff. Believe me, every new game that I've got that would earn well is already up there. You know, all my 90s Williams games are up there. All the new Stern games are up there. What I would be adding in would be the 50s, the 60s and the 70s. Well, that's some of the criticism. Some of the criticism you've been getting is that you know that you're because you've got all this newer stuff there that you're really more of an arcade than you are a museum. How do you respond to that? You know, I've seen that criticism but unfortunately again when you're staring down the barrel with $7,500 a month, you tend to pay attention to the numbers and new games do earn more money than all games. I would like to get it to the point where we could get the rent boogie man off our back and then we could run, I'd love to run games from the 50s. There's some great wood rail games that nobody's ever played. You know, why is it that the only good game we have from the 60s is Kings and Queens? You know, why don't we have Buckaroo? Why don't we have Magic Clock? Why don't we have some of the other great 60s games because we don't have space? I would love to add in lots of the older stuff but it's not going to happen with the current cross structure. And I'd also like to say that there's a lot of people that have been saying that it's not a proper museum. All it is is a room full of games. And I think that's a room full of games. And to me in my mind, what we're trying to do is recreate the arcade going experience that most people had in their youth. Back in the day, there was never fancy exhibits, there was never interactive animatronic pinball displays. There was never a lot of history. It was just a room full of games. So wait, you're going to get some 15 year old girls and halter tops with flower, two and gum? I'd like to but the problem is this is what we run into a lot is that the experience that people had when they were in their teens and they were playing in their local arcade, they're not going to be able to get at all. First of all, they're not 15 years old anymore, they're 45, 50, 60 years old. And second of all, their reflexes aren't what they used to be. I've had people say I used to be able to play that game for hours and now I have trouble playing it for 15 minutes before I lose. Another problem is that when you were a kid and you were in the arcade, part of the experience that made it special was that you didn't have a lot of money. You had to try really hard to win games so that you could play for a long time. Now people show up there in their prime earning years and they have plenty of money, they just, you know, if they win a game, they just leave it on there and they walk over to play another game. Part of the whole arcade experience was that you were hungry and you wanted to win. It's like the eye of the tiger is gone. The monomer something that have changed about the arcade business is things like there's no smoking now. Back in the day, about 50% of our customers would be polluting the air and you don't get that at all right now. And like you said, there's no 16 year old girls hanging out. But we do try to keep it as pure an experience and just feature the games. And we don't really do a lot of the history things. We don't do a diorama, a two story mobile that shows you how pinballs are manufactured mainly because people can get that somewhere else. They can go on the internet, they can buy a pinball book, they can get the history from, you know, the website. Marvel3M.com. Do that when they come to us. What they want is a room full of games, preferably a room that's dark so that you don't have, I used to play in our Cades all the time when they had neon everywhere. And the neon would wash out the colors on the play field, especially red neon, and then it would bounce off the play field glass and into your eyes. So there was always a glare problem. And my idea of a great arcade experience is exactly what we've got. A big square room that's dark where there's just a bunch of games, there's nothing to interfere with your enjoyment of the games. And the games are kept meticulously clean. I'm not saying that the games we've got are perfect because every game probably has a lot of things wrong with it. But we try awful hard, we certainly try harder than your average arcade. And just about everybody that's been there said, yeah, the games run good. And that to me is what I want is a room full of games that runs good. I don't want a hoi, hoi, hoi, paloi, fancy museum. I don't want any of that other stuff. I just want people to come in and recreate their youth by playing the actual machines. Alright Tim, we're going to take a little break. Hold on a second, we're going to take a little short break here with a message.

_(Acquisition: whisper_import, Enrichment: v1)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 6bdd7284-1360-402a-a776-d53db840ce04*