Arcade liquidating inventory - Portland, OR

[Borkunit]

Came across this ad on craigslist.  I am not affiliated in any way with this sale.  Just though people here might be interested:

http://portland.craigslist.org/clc/ele/223105776.html

[RayB]

Weird. Why the heck is a "multi-williams" among the photos?

[shardian]

I sure would like to get a world rally or 1000 miles rally for $100. I mastered world rally when it was in my high school gameroom.

[Ken Layton]

It said the machines could be between $100 and $500 each.

[ChadTower]

Well, unless someone is really dumb, they will be... no one will pay more than $500 for any of those titles.

[RayB]

I interpreted it as ALL the machines for up to $500 OBO.

"All these games (11) are working, and will sell for between $100.00 and $500.00 or the best offers."

But Ken's probably right. Probably meant "each"

[shardian]

Ya gotta remember that some people are convinced that their trash is worth ALOT more than it really is and they don't like it to be pointed out to them.

[SirPeale]

Ya gotta remember that some people are convinced that their trash is worth ALOT more than it really is and they don't like it to be pointed out to them.

Sounds like my boss.

[ChadTower]

Yet he pays through the nose for storage every month... like so many of them do.

[menace]

This begs the question..are operators clones?  Think about it.  middle age white guys with a slight paunch, graying hair, no belief in the word or practice of depreciation and its meaning, own 1 or several storage warehouses stacked with obsolete games paying too much for said storage but further convinced that the items they are storing are so precious that any storage fee would be acceptable....

boggles the mind 

[ChadTower]

Not if you've ever had first hand experience with the coin op business.

Maybe that JAMMA cab is worth $150 on the collector market.  If he can put it in a pizza parlor and make $100/month off of it, why would he sell it for $150?

[shardian]

Not if you've ever had first hand experience with the coin op business.

Maybe that JAMMA cab is worth $150 on the collector market.  If he can put it in a pizza parlor and make $100/month off of it, why would he sell it for $150?

Maybe in his dreams. In actuality, it will collect $3 before it is broken and put out of order. Then he is out replacement parts, and nothing to show for it.

[ChadTower]

Well, that's an op who clearly isn't going to make a decent living.  There are plenty who do, know their locations, and keep their games working properly.

Even in that case, he has more than nothing to show for it.  Some ops use that exact scenario for free storage at locations that want a game but don't pull any quarters in.

[shardian]

In my area, most of the arcade vendors also run several "coffee houses", better known as slot machine huts. Slot machines were legalized in WV a few years ago to fund a college scholarship, so vendors went crazy with them. They make pretty darn good money too.

Also, fully functioning games on routes has been the exception to the rule for over a decade around my area. Nothing pisses me off more than popping a quarter or two into a cruisin usa to find 4th gear doesn't work, or play a game of Street fighter and find that you can only move left. I feel like telling the person to give me the keys right then and there to fix it for them just so it worked. Vendors don't give a flying ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- anymore.

(No offense intended to you Peale, or any other operator on this board. You all rule)

[ChadTower]

MA is trying to legalize slots at racetracks (dog and horse).  The justification is that people are already gambling there.  They also rationalize that MA money is being lost in casinos in CT and RI, so why not let them lose it in MA.

I lived in NS when they legalized slots and video poker there.  Overnight there were slots and poker cabs in every store, restaurant, lobby, every corner of every place you could think of... it was ugly and people went nuts.  Seniors cashing their pension check and dropping it immediately into a slot.  Kids stealing from their parents so they could sneak down to the convenience store and play the slots... gambling addiction went through the roof with zero positive effect on the community.

I fully understand that those are user behaviours and people should be free to do those things if they want... but damn, the negative outweighed the positive by a factor of about a billion.

[shardian]

the rules are VERY specific on where and how slots can be put into service here. You can't just put one in a convenience store, hence the "coffee shop" label.  It is all government controlled. The machines have to be connected AT ALL TIMES remotely to a government office that regulates the machines - they even turn them on and off for you morning and night). You have to buy the machines from the government to do this of course. In total, the government gets the $14000 per machine up-front cost, and about 50% of all the money that comes in.
Advertising is also strictly controlled. Basically, they can say nothing about gambling, (you know, phrases like Gold mine, Slots here, etc...) and the machines cannot be seen by the general public. Have to be in a separated room with very obvious Noone under 21 allowed signs everywhere.

My brother-in-law operates one in a low income area in the southern part of the state. It really sucks to see people spending their entire paycheck on those machines when you know they have kids at home. I personally couldn't do that for a living. Good thing there are people like said brother-in-law that have no conscience and only care about themselves. I mean, what would the morally corrupt do in this world if it weren't for the much more morally corrupt that supply their habits??

[ChadTower]

You have to buy the machines from the government to do this of course. In total, the government gets the $14000 per machine up-front cost, and about 50% of all the money that comes in.

And with all of those millions in new gov't revenue... how did your gov't services increase?  Are there more?  Are the existing ones better?  Better roads?  Schools?  Higher salaries for teachers/police/firemen?  Bridge repairs?

[shardian]

It is supposed to all go to a college scholarship called the PROMISE scholarship. It is a big piece of crap. It sent a bunch of high schoolers WHO HAD NO BUSINESS being in college to said college.  When the governent dangles a free ride in front of your face, you take it right? Now, our college system is seeing the lowest graduation rate, and lowest freshmen to sophomore retention rate ever. They just can't figure out why. I was a teacher assisitant my last semester before graduation for a freshmen engineering orientation class. I'm sure alot of you took an orientation class in college. You show up, you get an A. Out of almost 200 freshmen in the ENGINEERING department of the school, which is supposed to be the cream of the crop, 60% failed the Orientation class! Not only that, but over 50% had a failing GPA for the whole semester!!!! In the end, the orientation teacher was ordered by the administration to go ahead and pass everyone in an attempt to prevent a dropout disaster. Thank you to the PROMISE scolarship for lowering already bottomed out higher education standards. 

[ChadTower]

Yeah, that's what I thought.  And I'd bet that only a fraction of those funds were used for that.  Figure a $10 mil revenue figure... that would put well over a thousand kids through a full year of in state tuition at a state school.  With housing and books.

It would be interesting to see the numbers as to how many did get to school.

[shardian]

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006607300310

Here is an article explaining how much of the gambling funds go to the PROMISE scholarship, for which said gambling was legalized. And the governor who instituted this wondered why people were against legalized gambling....

BTW, those increased requirements for the PROMISE pretty much disqualify ever single rural area student (the students the scholarship was originally targeting), except for the handful that actually care about their grades.

[ChadTower]

Why should a student that doesn't care about grades get a scholarship?

And weren't you just complaining that the program was lowering higher education standards?

EDIT:

Hold up... that article says that it took in $663 million and only funded 250 students. 

[shardian]

Why should a student that doesn't care about grades get a scholarship?

Exactly. That was the problem. Abunch of idiots showing up to college because the government is footing the bill for a year of partying.

In rural areas of WV, GPA's are not exactly stellar. There are a handful of backwoods students who actually do good. They are the ones who will get the scholarship. That is what I was implying.

The 22 ACT requirement is news to me, which is why I made the comment about rural kids not getting the scholarship anymore. When the scholarship was formed, the requirment was a 2.5 gpa and a 19 on the act.

The time I spoke of being a TA was in the Fall of 2004.
Personally, I feel the requirement raises have been in response to the previous comments I made about a bunch of retards going to college just because the government was willing to foot the bill. Of course, the government doesn't want to outright say they filled our colleges with a bunch of idiots.

[shardian]

Hold up... that article says that it took in $663 million and only funded 250 students. 

Yep, I wanted you to see that for yourself. Out of almost 700 million dollars, only 39 million is set aside for the promise scholarship fund, which I am sure is raided on a farily regular schedule for other projects.

[ChadTower]

In rural areas of WV, GPA's are not exactly stellar. There are a handful of backwoods students who actually do good. They are the ones who will get the scholarship. That is what I was implying.

I still don't see the problem with it.  Limited amount of scholarships, best grades win.  Or am I just misreading that as a complaint?

The article also implies in some way that there is only a certain portion of some definition of "overage" that was ever meant to find Promise.  It doesn't define it, though.  Sounds more like "Give us $660 mil a year and we'll give you $3mil in scholarships."

[shardian]

When the idea was proposed, the governor was very vague as to the fundage/ conditions. He was also very vague on what the tax rate was on the machines. It was not decided until after the fact that they were going to totally rape the operators of the machines by requiring them to buy their equipment from them, and then also take 50% of everything.

Ahh, but the best grades thing doesn't apply.it is really the best grades of poor peoples kids win. I, along with several other fellow classmates were denied after being told we would get the scholarship. Here is the key they never mentioned in the beginning: You have to qualify for a federal pell grant in order to get the promise. Translation: Your parents have to be on welfare, or you can get married AND be totally broke. The real kicker: a Federal Pell Grant already pays for full tuition! In WV, 80% of West Virginia families make less than 50,000 a year. My parents were making about 55,000 a year. Apparently, being 1 dollar over the mean income disqualified me from any government financial aid other than loans. So, you can see why I would be slightly bitter over the promise scholarship: It was "advertised" as being a scholarship for ALL WV students, but in reality, it was not. And like the rest of the kids in the same boat as me, parents don't have any spare money to help pay for college. I was on my own on both fronts.

[ChadTower]

Hrm.  I had Federal Pell Grants going to college, as I had no parental support of any kind.  Pell Grants did not pay 100%.  Not even close.

Now, I could see if a school was only a couple grand per semester, a Pell Grant would get you a large chunk of that.  But I remember the Pell Grant being somewhere in the range of $1500/semester and even then the standards were way lower than $50,000.  It was something like $20,000.

I also remember the Pell Grant being heavily based on recommendations and SAT scores.  We didn't have an ACT in the early 90s.  I have no idea what the SAT cutoff was but 1020 (as mentioned in that article) isn't very much to ask on the SATs, not when you're talking about giving the kid thousands of dollars for education.

[shardian]

After getting married last year, my wife got 2 semesters of Pell Grant Fundage. Tuition at Marshall University (yeah my team sucks this year...) was running about $2200 for in-state tuition at the time. I believe the Pell Grant paid up to 4500 or 5000. WVU has tuition about 150 to 200 higher than Marshall, so yes, a Pell Grant is full tuition here (at least for now).

[ChadTower]

Wow, much higher than it used to be, then.  Of course, I was at Northeastern at the time, which meant that nothing short of a lottery win was going to cover 100%.   

[CheffoJeffo]

Not if you've ever had first hand experience with the coin op business.

Maybe that JAMMA cab is worth $150 on the collector market.  If he can put it in a pizza parlor and make $100/month off of it, why would he sell it for $150?

Not if it is sitting in storage  ... and so many are (partcularly, I hear, with the Op I think menace is speaking about)

Cheers

[ChadTower]

Right, but as far as that Op is concerned, it's just waiting on a location to open up for placement.

Or the Op is just not an efficient businessman.

Either way, that Op has only two things:  games and locations.   Why would you expect him to sell off either one cheaply?

[CheffoJeffo]

Right, but as far as that Op is concerned, it's just waiting on a location to open up for placement.

Or the Op is just not an efficient businessman.

Either way, that Op has only two things:  games and locations.   Why would you expect him to sell off either one cheaply?

I don't think anybody said cheaply ... but when you pay more to store a cabinet than it can earn on location and do so for years, as a number of Ops do, the business sense of not selling to hold out for less than you'll pay in storage is lost on me (and others).

That Centipede shell is costing money to store, hasnt been on location in a decade and isn't going back on location anytime soon. Holding out for $500 ain't making a lot of sense.

Cheers.

[Ken Layton]

So did anyone actually go to this guy's place and see what games were what prices? Anyone buy anything?