How To Arcade With Amy McDonough of Tilted Orbit

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 5m·analyzed·Dec 18, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.023

TL;DR

Amy McDonough details her path to opening a commercial arcade in Massachusetts and lessons learned along the way.

Summary

Bash A A Pinball Podcast interviews Amy McDonough of Tilted Orbit about her journey starting a commercial arcade in Massachusetts. Amy discusses her pinball origin story (rediscovering the game at Fun Spot in New Hampshire), accumulating 56 machines before securing a location, navigating liquor licensing challenges, running the Upper Playfield pop-up pinball club, and her vision for a dedicated family-friendly arcade space in the Five College area with food, beverages, and complementary partnerships with other regional pinball venues.

Key Claims

Amy owns 56 pinball machines acquired before securing a permanent arcade location
high confidence · Amy McDonough stated directly: 'I ended up buying, in total, I have 56 Pinball machines.' She identifies this as one of her first business mistakes.
Massachusetts liquor licenses are allocated per capita and constrained in rural areas; a closed bar's license in Northampton sold for $100,000
high confidence · Amy explained the regulatory environment: 'liquor licenses are available for towns based on a per capita calculation' and 'there was a bar that closed down in Northampton and their liquor license was for sale. But it was like $100,000.'
Amy uses ClickUp (free project management software) to manage arcade development with task interdependencies
high confidence · Amy stated: 'I'm using I think it's called ClickUp. It's a free software online that just allows you to put in all of your tasks. And the most important thing is it has interdependencies.'
Upper Playfield, a pop-up pinball club in Springfield, MA operated by Amy and a partner, ran the New England Pinball League (NEPL) League with 40+ locations
high confidence · Amy: 'we were doing what's called the New England Pinball League (NEPL) League, which is a really big, it's like over 40 locations in New Robert Englunds. And we were doing Monday nights.'
Amy's target arcade will be 4,000-5,000 square feet with a 75-25 pinball-to-video arcade game split
medium confidence · Amy stated: 'I think I need something like 4,000 to 5,000 square feet' and later 'probably a 75-25 split pinball to arcade games.'
Amy rediscovered pinball at Fun Spot in New Hampshire after a 20+ year absence and immediately became captivated
high confidence · Amy: 'she was working on an island. So she had two weekends off... It rained the whole weekend... I went running upstairs. My kids, three hours later, they're on the like, you know, the PA being like Amy McDonough.'
Western Mass Pinball Club has approximately 80 pinball machines and is located about an hour from Northampton
high confidence · Amy: 'the Western Mass Pinball Club, which is great, and it has like 80 pinball machines. Not all of them are on the floor, you know, all the time... That place is about just a little shy of an hour away.'

Notable Quotes

“I ended up buying, in total, I have 56 Pinball machines. Wow. And I'm not going to be able to fit that many.”
Amy McDonough — Reveals her impulsive pre-location purchasing strategy and acknowledges it as a business mistake, illustrating the challenge of separating collector passion from entrepreneurial discipline.
“It breaks my heart that they're going to be alone there... when they should be played.”
Amy McDonough — Demonstrates the emotional connection pinball enthusiasts feel toward their machines and the drive to share them with others, a key motivation for her arcade venture.
“I have visions of a pinball passport where we're quoting each other... I have really focusing more on the arcade feel, like bring your family, bring your kids, that kind of thing. So we're going to complement each other.”
Amy McDonough — Shows forward-thinking collaboration strategy with other regional pinball operators, positioning her arcade as part of an ecosystem rather than a standalone competitor.
“There's not enough pinball. Like even if even if there was a place like down the street, I think I would still be doing this.”
Amy McDonough — Underscores the passionate belief that the pinball market is undersaturated and driven by community demand, not pure profit motive.
“It's like a little study. We really want to get into the minutiae of how you do this instead of it just being like this vague nebulous thing.”
Host (Matt or Don) — Explains the series' mission to demystify arcade startup processes for the community, framing interviews as educational documentation.
“I love it. I absolutely love it... projects with a lot of paths that have to move forward with interdependencies and timelines and risk and cost and schedule issues.”
Amy McDonough — Reveals how her background in complex project management gives her unique skills for tackling arcade startup logistics, a transferable professional advantage.
“But the thing about a bar first with pinball machines... I think a lot of bar owners don't even understand the actual value and the community behind pinball. I think it's just like another, put something in that corner and maybe people will play it.”

Entities

Amy McDonoughpersonBash Pinball PodcastorganizationMattperson DonpersonTilted OrbitcompanyUpper PlayfieldvenueWestern Mass Pinball Clubvenue

Signals

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venue_signal: Amy McDonough is establishing Tilted Orbit, a dedicated family-friendly pinball and arcade venue in the Five College area of Massachusetts (Northampton/Amherst), addressing a perceived gap in the regional market where pinball is typically secondary (bars/breweries) rather than primary.
high · Amy confirmed she left her job to work on this full-time; target space is 4,000-5,000 sq ft; she explicitly identified market demand: 'there's not enough pinball' and noted absence of dedicated spaces in the Five College area.
?
business_signal: Massachusetts liquor licensing laws create significant operational and financial barriers for arcade operators. Licenses are allocated per-capita by town and rarely available; secondary market prices ($100k+ in Northampton) effectively prohibit entry for small operators, forcing relocation to less-populated areas.
high · Amy spent months mapping liquor license availability before narrowing viable locations. She noted $100k cost for a closed bar's license in Northampton and described the licensing cascade: 'wine and malt licenses' from local authorities, then state-level approval for liquor.
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community_signal: Emerging pinball arcade/venue operators in the New England Route 91 corridor (Connecticut-Massachusetts-Vermont) are developing informal partnerships and cross-promotion strategies, including the concept of a 'pinball passport' linking venues and high scores across locations.
medium · Amy discussed vision: 'pinball passport where we're quoting each other... we can all complement... set high scores and you got to go over here to get it.' She's building relationships with GameCraft (CT), Almost Famous, Gravitate (VT), and others.
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collector_signal: Enthusiast/operator Amy accumulated 56 pinball machines before securing a permanent arcade location, citing FOMO on deals and collector expansion. She recognizes this as a critical mistake, illustrating tension between passionate acquisition and business discipline. Games are distributed across storage spaces (Chris Cardassi's warehouse, electrician friend's space, other friends' homes).

Transcript

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0:00

Hey, Matt here. There is also a video edition of this interview on YouTube at Bash Pinball and there's a direct link in the show notes if you want to jump straight there.

0:20

Hello, Matt. Hello, Don. Look at this beautiful space. We have a drum set, a lute, a bass. Is that a... We have lamp. Is that a tambourine? That is a tambourine on a hi-hat. And a weird keyboard from the 80s. Oh, and I think that's a tabad. Like a Casio? So where are we, Matt? We are in our little studio. It's a real studio. It's a baby music studio, yeah. Yeah, so this studio is like part of our shop where we make stuff. Right now, we're making a podcast in here. Right, so the Shedcade is temporarily kind of down because you're waiting for some fiber to be installed. Yeah, there's not as many fibers as there should be. But yeah, the internet sucks at the Shedcade right now. And it was supposed to be fiberified today. But they lied. Most of our future videos will probably be in the Shedcade and there may be pinball machines in the background instead of musical instruments. But this is still cool. Yeah, it looks cool. So what are we going to talk about? Today we've got like a different sort of episode than the usual. I don't know what is considered a usual episode for us. We like to switch it up, but this one's going to be extra different because it's an interview. Yeah, I would almost say this to me feels almost more like a side project within the project because part of what we're doing this season on the podcast is covering routing games. Yeah, I wouldn't call it a side quest because it really is what this season is about. It's just a different aspect because we've talked about earlier how our own aspirations are to start an arcade. And we thought, well, how are we going to do that? It's kind of complicated. It's confusing. There's a million different ways you can do it. So what better way to figure out how to do it ourselves than to talk to other folks who are doing it and who have done it, who are trying to do it, who are in the middle of it. And we kind of happen to know a decent number of folks who are kind of in this process. And so we figured let's talk to these folks and get this information out there, like how different people are going about this endeavor of routing games, routing pinball machines, building arcades. Right. So, yeah, basically this is going to be like an interview type series where we're going to talk to different folks at different stages, you know, starting halfway through maybe having owned an arcade for a couple of years to kind of get like a pretty broad range perspective of like what it takes to start it, to run it. Yeah. OK, we're going to talk to people all over the country. Maybe we don't have anybody now, but maybe we'll find somebody in another part of the world that's trying to do it. That would be great. Side note, contact us if you're in, I don't know, Bangladesh and you're trying to start a pinball arcade or anywhere else. It'd be cool to talk to somebody in a different country who's trying to go through the same process. Right, totally. Because it is different everywhere and every community and every place that you might consider putting an arcade is going to have completely different community, different types of populations, regulations, so many considerations. So, yeah, we just want to make this information more readily available to folks so that everybody can feel like there's less hurdles to actually jumping in and starting an arcade. And I mean, selfishly, we're benefiting from this ourselves because, you know, ultimately this is a dream of ours as well. Yeah, maybe find some like common pitfalls, common themes, common reasons why people do this. Yeah. It's like a little study. We really want to get into the minutiae of how you do this instead of it just being like this vague nebulous thing like, well, what's actually involved? You know, what are the steps like how how much money does it cost? You know, there's all these different things. There's so many elements to it for this series. The episodes can be a little longer, too, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just however long it takes and probably more conversational, right? Less of the kind of sound effects per se or production value more of just like conversational kind of understanding and learning about the process of starting an arcade or routing games. These are going to be more not formal because we're going to be talking to people we like that we're friends with largely. But we're trying to actually make something that is useful and functional. So we're going to be asking a lot of folks the same types of questions on these different interviews because we want to know how different people in different parts of the world are approaching the same types of problems. Yeah, this will probably be a little bit more informational. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're still going to edit these things. So, you know, they'll move along quickly. And I mean, if you have zero interest in arcades, then you might not find a lot here. But if you have even a passing interest in routing games or you've ever thought like, wonder if I can make some money off the games that I own or anything like that, you're going to get a lot out of this series. And we hope that this can be like a benefit to the pinball community at large. Sweet. Great idea. Nice job. We have at least three or four more episodes like this that are sort of lined up over the course of season two, which I don't know when that's going to end at this point. But this is going to be an ongoing series as we meet more and more folks who are engaged in this tomfoolery of trying to start an arcade. So on this first one, we've got Amy McDonough, who we met through the podcast about a year and a half ago. So and since we met her, she's kind of had this idea and she's just in the last two years started to really like put forth great efforts to to start like a really cool, legit arcade in Massachusetts. And so we're going to be talking to her about where she's at in the process, what she's been through to get to this point, what she's done right, what she's done wrong. It's really cool to have her as the first guest too because we were kind of there unofficially as this was kind of starting from inception in a way. She contacted us and made it known that she was like, hey, yeah, I kind of have aspirations for sometime pretty soon, have my own place. And sooner than later, man, we're here, she's doing it. Yeah, and usually when somebody says that, I'm like, uh-huh, right, right. It's sure. Usually like a 70% chance that it's probably not going to happen or maybe 60%. Right. I mean, who doesn't want to start an arcade? It's cool. But yeah, Amy is legit and like really was serious about this thing. No, she's serious. Yeah. So, yeah, it was cool to follow along and see where she's at now. And, you know, we look forward to kind of seeing her continued development and progress. But right now we have a really cool snapshot of being right in the middle of starting a commercial arcade. A big one. Not just like a little side corner thing, like an actual thousands of square feet in multiple areas. Yeah, so we hope this will be inspiring and informational and useful. And thanks to Amy for jumping on here and just being very open and transparent about sharing all the ins and outs of what she's gone through to get to this point. Yeah, thank you, Amy. Yeah, thank you so much. And without further ado, here's Amy. Amy, I'm really excited to talk to you because we've been basically emailing back and forth for like, has it been over a year? I think so. Man, I am so excited and so happy that we're finally doing this. We are actually chatting on the podcast about what you're doing and you've been keeping us basically updated kind of along the way and it's been really, really cool to kind of like just see someone doing it. And now, you know, it's even cooler to actually have you here to talk about that. Thanks. So maybe, Amy, you can tell us, how did you get interested in pinball? That seems like the first place to start, right? Sounds great. I played a little bit of pinball when I was a kid, but it wasn't like where I lived in Ohio. There weren't like the kind of places where you can get on your bike and, you know, go. There were two places. I really got into it in graduate school when I was at the University of Vermont. I had done all my geology field work and I was supposed to be writing my thesis and I didn't want to. And I was going to the local pizza place a lot and he put in two pinball machines and Adam's Family because this was mid-90s. Okay. Adam's Family and a Theater of Magic, I think it was. Nice. Ooh, awesome. That's a good starter pack. Yeah. And I was captivated with the Adam's Family and I loved it. And Mike was the name of the pizza guy, the pizza owner, and he was really into it. And we started putting tournaments together after we just, you know, wanted we wanted to play with more people all the time. And then I graduated and moved to Boston and got a job and got married and had kids and I just didn't think about pinball. It wasn't accessible back then to just like, where am I going to go? You know, look up on my app and figure out where the pinball machines are. So I kind of forgot about it until just like several years ago when my daughter was working up at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire at a summer job. And she was working on an island. So she had two weekends off and I got one and her dad got the other. It rained the whole weekend and it was where Fun Spot is in New Hampshire, which is a really big pinball. And our kids got everything in there, bowling, golf and all kinds of stuff with my son and my daughter and their friend. And I was like following them around like a mom does, you know, like, oh, what are they into? You know, and all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, do you have pinball? Because it was all arcade. It's like three levels. You haven't seen any pinball yet. And they were like, yeah, you got to go upstairs in the museum. And I went running upstairs. My kids, three hours later, they're on the like, you know, the PA being like Amy McDonough, blah, blah, blah. You know, because I was it was like riding a bike. I went home from that and was like, I got to play more. And that's when I started to realize like the whole landscape had changed. And it wasn't too long after that that I was like, wait a minute, I could get a pinball machine. You can get one, yeah. If I'm at a place where like, you know, I could do that. It's funny how that happens. It kind of like sticks in your pinball. Pinball has like a space in your craw. Right, your pinball craw. It kind of lays dormant there for a while. And if you haven't played it for a while, and then, you know, you kind of always come back. It is kind of like riding a bike, like you said. You never fully lose those basic skills. Instincts. Pinstincts.

Amy's arcade is planned for the Five College area (Northampton/Amherst, MA) with approximately 30,000 population

high confidence · Amy: 'Northampton has like 30,000 people and UMass, sorry, Amherst up the road is equivalent in size' and 'there's nothing really up there' in terms of dedicated pinball spaces.

Bash Pinball plans 3-4 more arcade operator interview episodes as part of an ongoing series

high confidence · Host stated: 'we have at least three or four more episodes like this that are sort of lined up over the course of season two.'

A new arcade with 8 pinball machines and video games opened in Northampton during Amy's planning phase, featuring Stranger Stranger Things (Premium/LE)

high confidence · Amy: 'eventually I did leave my job and I started working on this full time. And an arcade did open up in Northampton. And it was eight pinball machines and video arcade games... They have an awesome Stranger Stranger Things (Premium/LE).'

Amy McDonough — Identifies a market gap and a value proposition: dedicated, well-maintained machines in venues where pinball is primary, not secondary, which contrasts with typical bar/brewery routing.

Chris Cardassi Pinball Servicescompany

Albany Bells and Chimesorganization

New Robert Englunds Pinball Leagueorganization

University of Vermontorganization

high · Amy stated: 'I ended up buying, in total, I have 56 Pinball machines' and later identified this as 'probably one of the first [mistakes] was like going on a pinball buying spree before I had a location.' She notes: 'You never really think about it when you have one or two. It comes quick. You run out of space pretty fast.'

operational_signal: The New Robert Englunds Pinball League operates 40+ locations across New England with distributed tournament scheduling (Amy ran Monday nights). Pop-up venues can serve league needs, but operator burnout/life events can disrupt league infrastructure.

medium · Amy co-ran Upper Playfield as a league venue with 40+ total league locations. When her partner experienced personal hardship (broken leg, job loss), the venue closed, forcing league relocation: 'I kind of can't do this... we were doing Monday nights and we had a pretty solid family of people coming to play.'

venue_signal: Pop-up pinball clubs (e.g., Upper Playfield) serve as testing grounds and community hubs before permanent installations. They can host league tournaments, build operator/community relationships, and validate demand, but lack stability if dependent on volunteer operators.

medium · Amy and partner started Upper Playfield with 4 founders; 2 dropped out ('just wanted to play their games a little bit, you know, not at home'). Operations continued as 2-person team running Monday night New Robert Englunds league tournaments until personal circumstances forced closure.

market_signal: Western Massachusetts Five College area (Northampton/Amherst, ~30k population + major university) lacks dedicated pinball venue despite local pinball community presence. Western Mass Pinball Club exists but is ~1 hour away, BYOB, and restaurant-centric venues (4-8 machines) offer poor maintenance and lack food/beverage services.

high · Amy: 'there's not really like a dedicated pinball space. It's pretty limited... there's nothing really up there' in Five College area. 'I would be frustrated sometimes with the quality of the games because it's restaurant first.' Identifies unmet demand despite existing players.

business_signal: Amy applies complex project management discipline from renewable energy sector to arcade startup, using free tools (ClickUp) to map interdependencies, timelines, and risk. This contrasts with seat-of-pants startup approaches and suggests a more systematic operator entering the market.

high · Amy: 'projects with a lot of paths... I love it. I absolutely love it... what are all the paths and then you start to break those down.' Uses ClickUp for 'interdependencies... dates, you can put in what's related, what can't start until you get something else done.'

content_signal: Bash Pinball Podcast launching multi-episode series interviewing arcade operators and routing game entrepreneurs at various lifecycle stages (planning, pop-up, permanent). Series aims to document decision-making, costs, regulatory pathways, and community dynamics to demystify arcade startup process.

high · Hosts stated: 'this season on the podcast is covering routing games... we're going to talk to different folks at different stages... 3 or 4 more episodes like this are lined up... walking up to owners and saying, how do you do this and why do you love it?'

design_philosophy: Amy's arcade philosophy prioritizes pinball as primary attraction (75-25 pinball-to-arcade split) with family-friendly atmosphere and food/beverage service, contrasting with bar-first venues where pinball is ancillary and often poorly maintained.

high · Amy: 'I wanted to be able to provide [food and drink]... the biggest revenue driver and liquor and drinks is liquor... restaurant first with pinball machines... bar owners don't even understand the actual value and the community behind pinball.'

product_strategy: Amy plans to use her 56-game collection as a rotating asset and secondary sales channel. Partnerships with remote collectors (Chris Cardassi in Providence) enable game swaps (e.g., rotating inventory between Northampton and Rhode Island) to keep offerings fresh and move refurbished inventory.

medium · Amy: 'we're kind of viewing our game collection... when there's something that's old to me now, I can send it down there and it's like new down there... provide opportunity... to potentially function as a sales floor... turn them over.'

sentiment_shift: Amy's journey from casual childhood pinball player → 20+ year hiatus → adult rediscovery → passionate community participant → arcade entrepreneur reflects broader pattern of adult rediscovery driving demand. Her 'riding a bike' metaphor suggests latent skill retention and emotional resonance.

high · Amy: 'I played a little bit of pinball when I was a kid... didn't think about pinball. Wasn't accessible... graduated and moved to Boston... It rained the whole weekend... wait a minute, do you have pinball?... it was like riding a bike... I got to play more... the whole landscape had changed.'