Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Everything Else => Topic started by: IG-88 on January 29, 2011, 03:06:20 pm
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You guys seen this yet?
Arcade Video Games & Pinball Machines Destroyed! TNT Amusements (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PlGhKuE1Rc#ws)
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That video has made its rounds. Story has it that the machines were pretty trashed, but it still raises hackles around here.
TNT's a pretty good place -- they'll just about give away an empty cab.
EDit: Oh, thats a new one. I'd probably have tried to save the Omega Race...
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Hard to tell but it looked like that OR had water damage. The Tempest cab looked like it was cracked. Still irritates the hell out of me though.
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:soapbox:
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Todd's a turd, ripped several people off (self-included). People on RGVAC used to kiss his ass because they thought he'd sell them ZOMG R@RE!! games cheap.
Don't fear. Because of this video, I wasn't planning on doing any business with him anyways.
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:angry:
thats one of the most horrible videos i've ever watched.
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Disclaimer:I did not watch this entire video. I didn't need to.
WTF?
I'm guessing TNT didn't hire a marketing team? How could they possibly think this do good for their business? People looking for these games are fans of these games. I can't imagine there being any customer or potential customer thinking, "Hey, that's pretty cool."
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Sadly, outside of the collector's market, old pins and video games get little respect. I still remember the short-lived tv show last year where they recklessly destroyed things to "learn" how they worked. Funny, when I want to know how something works I ask the manufacturer or a restoration expert, I don't cut it in half with a chainsaw. Three pins, a pool-table and a vintage solt machine gave their life for that abortion of a show.
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Disclaimer:I did not watch this entire video. I didn't need to.
WTF?
I'm guessing TNT didn't hire a marketing team? How could they possibly think this do good for their business? People looking for these games are fans of these games. I can't imagine there being any customer or potential customer thinking, "Hey, that's pretty cool."
Apparently this isn't their first one. I get the impression they've done this before. I have no intention of going on YouTube to find out though.
Sadly, outside of the collector's market, old pins and video games get little respect. I still remember the short-lived tv show last year where they recklessly destroyed things to "learn" how they worked. Funny, when I want to know how something works I ask the manufacturer or a restoration expert, I don't cut it in half with a chainsaw. Three pins, a pool-table and a vintage solt machine gave their life for that abortion of a show.
Is that piece of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- show finally off the air? I saw him recently in a car commercial. Toyota or Honda or something. I didn't care so much when he was chopping a new car in half. But knowing a pin died for his ratings grates on my nerves.
This reminds me more of that dealer that has photos of burning cabs on his site. Says he burns them because he can't be bothered to sell them or some such. Or that KLOV guy that smashed the glass to his Baby Pac claiming he couldn't even give it away because no one could be bothered to follow through with the deal. WTF? If I found out about that glass before then, I would have been more than happy to take it off his hands. What really irks me is the reaction he got from the other KLOV members, they supported his actions ???
Or the raging dumb ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- that destroys the Death Race that was pictured on KLOV. That one completely blows my mind. Guy has a first (or last run) cab and he tears it apart and sells the pieces on eBay? I don't mean he parted the cab out. I mean he literally tears the cab apart and sells the pieces on eBay.
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Sadly, outside of the collector's market, old pins and video games get little respect.
You know, I have seen far more folks inside the collector's market do far worse things than the folks outside ... and far worse things than Todd does.
As far as the video goes -- meh.
It definitely isn't as bad as leaving machines to become rotting rodent motels!
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i woulda taken any of those pinbodies for a vptable project
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I guess they don't care much for making money off parts. Clearly at least some of those pins still had playfields and backglasses. Legs, lockdown bars, coin doors...
Best guess is they were written off tax-wise as end of life equipment. The IRS does require you to destroy/throw away equipment you write off. That is where most arcade games have always ended up. You aren't allowed to sell off parts of games you have written off as a business loss.
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I cant even watch the video because Im at work. :'(
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What a waste. Any cab can be restored to it's former glory or converted to a MAME machine with the right amount of patience and dedication. Most of those cabs certainly had parts that could have been reused (coin doors, buttons, etc.) although maybe those parts weren't harmed in the fall? Either way, I fail to see the point of this video - the only thing it serves to do is piss off potential customers.
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When challenged on these points before, I believe his response was that no one was willing to come buy the stuff. :dunno
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When challenged on these points before, I believe his response was that no one was willing to come buy the stuff. :dunno
Then offer them for free. I realize the tax implications of doing that vs. the right off (reminds me of Kramer on Seinfeld), but the good will in doing that is much better than sending these to a landfill. :banghead:
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Then offer them for free. I realize the tax implications of doing that vs. the right off (reminds me of Kramer on Seinfeld), but the good will in doing that is much better than sending these to a landfill. :banghead:
The good will is not going to pay the rent. The only unusual thing these guys did was make a spectacle of breaking up the games. We're not going to like it but we're not supporting our families with coin op equipment.
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In at least one case, nobody was willing to come and haul away the stuff.
To be fair, hobbyists and collectors like us are not the preferred clientele for folks who sell this stuff retail. Many of them are happy to deal with us, but our occasional $35 marquee purchase doesn't put us in the same league as someone who throws down $2500 on a turnkey game. I have lived within a 10 minute drive of a large op/distributor and have bought a ton of stuff from them over the years (cabinets, boards, trackballs, guns, joysticks, buttons, etc.). They have made less on my years of purchases than they would from a retail customer who buys a single game.
People are eager to say the obvious truth that anything can be restored, but the point is that nobody shows up to buy or even take this stuff away. The simple fact is that all of this stuff costs money to store --the guy who pays for that gets to do what he wants with his stuff.
Todd has given away literally hundreds of cabinets and I have stuff in my shop from him that I couldn't find anywhere else. He has a generally good reputation, despite what PBJ says.
He is, however, an idiot for posting these videos (he uses them in TV ads for retail customers, with the point being that he doesn't sell junk -- he would rather trash it) so that people can make a mountain out of a molehill.
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Then offer them for free. I realize the tax implications of doing that vs. the right off (reminds me of Kramer on Seinfeld), but the good will in doing that is much better than sending these to a landfill. :banghead:
The good will is not going to pay the rent. The only unusual thing these guys did was make a spectacle of breaking up the games. We're not going to like it but we're not supporting our families with coin op equipment.
That's a short sighted approach. Giving stuff away versus lowering a tax liability is one thing but when you don't create good will, you don't have the opportunity to generate a loyal base of quasi-customers who decide to support you rather than someone else.
Edit: Fixt poor quotefu
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That's a short sighted approach. Giving stuff away versus lowering a tax liability is one thing but when you don't create good will, you don't have the opportunity to generate a loyal base of quasi-customers who decide to support you rather than someone else.
Edit: Fixt poor quotefu
Dunno -- he's been in this business a lot longer than any of us have and he's been doing the exact same stuff for a long time.
:dunno
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That's a short sighted approach. Giving stuff away versus lowering a tax liability is one thing but when you don't create good will, you don't have the opportunity to generate a loyal base of quasi-customers who decide to support you rather than someone else.
Edit: Fixt poor quotefu
That's not how his business works. Ops don't change sources over stuff like that and that's where his money is made. Collectors get ticked about stuff like this and then show up at his door with wads of cash the first time he has a sought after game for the right price. Collectors are all talk and impulse buys. See Ram Controls for an example of how poorly an arcade business can be run and still pull in orders hand over fist.
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I don't see a reason to get upset over it. Yea, they could have been restored, but who went there to haul them away & do it? No one.
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Did he offer them to anyone? It just came across as a slap in the face to the collectors/restorers.
Post this crap over on one of those 8th grade destruction sites if he needs a laugh.
And frankly I don't care if the guy has done nothing but donate stuff his entire life, wanton destruction of limited, viable parts is farken ignorant.
But I guess from the little bits and pieces I've been picking up over on KLOV the guy seems to have ego issues anyway ::)
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This is plain retarded. A low blow to intelligence.
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Todd's a good guy. He's helped me out a couple of times on little piddly stuff. At the end of the day, he runs a business. What makes the money rules. These most likely are tax write offs, which puts more money into the business than parting them out and dealing with the time and effort to get rid of them. Let's face it; not all these games can be preserved, and that's just the way of it. Do what you can and move on...
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Todd's a good guy. He's helped me out a couple of times on little piddly stuff. At the end of the day, he runs a business. What makes the money rules. These most likely are tax write offs, which puts more money into the business than parting them out and dealing with the time and effort to get rid of them. Let's face it; not all these games can be preserved, and that's just the way of it. Do what you can and move on...
In that event, I wouldn't spare the time and effort to haul them up to the roof.....
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If any of those pins were Williams I would have sh*t the bed. Still a waste of parts.