Actually we are a brand new arcade. We just opened in June. Almost running a year now. Any arcade today has to do redemption. Nobody comes in just to play videos or pins anymore. My arcade has 50 games currently, roughly 50% redemption and 50% amusement. On the amusement end I have 3 pinballs, some various drivers, H2overdrive, guitar hero, pump it up, etc. As for the music volume, nothing I can do about that. thats all controled thru the DJ booth on the restaurant side and the owners like it loud, especially when they do a server dance (at least once an hour if not more). And I wouldn't want to find another job. I'm actually very happy working at the Corvette Diner and running our Gamers garage. Its actually a blast. I get paid to play with viedo games all day. Hell the company even flew me to vegas for the Amusement Expo in March. I have full choice and control over any new games we get, I set the entire arcade up myself. set up and installed all of our games, etc. And let me tell ya, our arcade is doing VERY well sales wise. Hell its hard to even move around in there on a Saturday night theres so many people. and its about 5,000 square feet.
edit: oh yeah, we dont have any paper tickets either. We're using the Sacoa debit card system. similar to Dave & Busters. but we use electronic ticketing. Any tickets won from the games get seent directly to the server and are tied to the card holders account number. Very cool stuff