24 Nov
2008
24 Nov
'08
1 p.m.
Just curious...
There's a shop in Coalville, I'm not sure what it sells (maybe it sells
games consoles; maybe it's an amusement arcade; maybe both).
In the window this weekend were two machines that caught my eye: an
original Space Invaders machine from 1978, priced at 895 pounds; and a
pinball machine from 1979 (branded "Gottlieb") for an
almost-as-unreasonable 495 pounds. (I think at current exchange rates
that's about $1300 and $700 US)
As I was walking home, failing to hum the Space Invaders song, I
wondered what sort of an active market is there for such machines? The
prices looked high enough that they must be aiming at serious
collectors, or possibly innkeepers who want to create a retro-seventies
atmosphere.
So do people here know about the classic arcade game market? Are my
neighbours of a couple of blocks away being overoptimistic with their
prices?
Philip.
PS What I remember from the period was the many, many attempts to write
Invaders-style games in BASIC on the PET and other home computers. And
my friend Matthew, after we'd borrowed a Sinclair ZX81 and experimented
for a week or two, shutting himself away and writing a quite good one
for that machine in machine code - I helped with the BASIC shell that
built the initial screen display. And wiring a phone earpiece to the
PET user port to hear the sound effects on the Commodore invaders
program. And so on...
PPS has anyone preserved the Space Invaders song? I sincerely hope not.
29 Nov
29 Nov
3:09 a.m.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Philip Belben <philip at axeside.co.uk> wrote:
There's a shop in Coalville...
In the window this weekend were two machines that caught my eye: an original
Space Invaders machine from 1978, priced at 895 pounds; and a pinball
machine from 1979 (branded "Gottlieb") for an almost-as-unreasonable 495
pounds. (I think at current exchange rates that's about $1300 and $700 US)
OK.
... what sort of an active market is there for such
machines? The prices looked
high enough that they must be aiming at serious collectors, or possibly
innkeepers who want to create a retro-seventies atmosphere.
So do people here know about the classic arcade game market? Are my
neighbours of a couple of blocks away being overoptimistic with their
prices?
My experience with classic arcade games is owning a couple (Gorf and
Xenophobe) and spending many hours at US Arcade Amusement game
auctions a mile from my house.
At auction (which is a very different environment for supply and demand than
a corner shop) in the US, I have seen variations of over 100% for the same
type of machine at different parts of the day (usually more expensive to less
expensive, but things like nearly missing one can make for odd fluctuations).
I've paid under $200 for uncommon items, and seen popular games got for
hundreds to thousands of dollars. Pinball almost always sells for more than
similar era video games. Vintage pins are expensive, as are modern pins.
There's a soft-spot in the middle for ones that are just old and not classic.
The two most common expensive machines I've seen are Ms PacMan
and Galaga. I routinely see them go for $600-$1000 US, auction after
auction. The folks buying those machines know that they will draw
many quarters, which is the goal of any amusement operator. Space
Invaders is in the same league as those machines, but is not as common
anymore (if it ever was). I did see a modern 2-in-1 replica game with
*both* PacMan and Galaga (licensed, etc., not a MAME box)... in a
smaller-than-normal cabinet (that will fit many places, especially
bars or the right kind of restaurant), it went for $2200.
I don't know anything about the UK game market, but I can't imagine
that the games would go for less than the US. There's shipping,
duty, etc., if nothing else, and perhaps scarcity for 220V models
vs 110V models.
I would personally not pay $1300 US for a real Space Invaders, but
consider how many paid games that turns into - in the US, it would
be $0.25/game (don't know about the UK.), so that's 5200 games.
To pay that game off, electricity not included, would take approximately
two years at one quarter per hour over an 8-hour day. That's a long
time for a low-volume environment. There used to be a good FAQ
on arcade operators - how to buy games from them, how to talk to
them, how *not* to talk to them. There was an estimate, in 1980s
terms, of how profitable a game had to be to be worth buying or
keeping. Given that coin-op per-play inflation is limited to newer
and bigger games, not trying to double the cost of an older game so
much, unless you gear up with customer swipe cards (like Dave and
Busters) and can get people to pay 1.3 credits or whatever, a game
needs massive nostalgic popularity to suck down over 5000 US
quarters in a short enough time to make the space pay off. Remember,
that's just 5200 games to pay for the machine, not to make a dime of
profit.
Operators don't think like (most of) the folks on the list. It all gets
reduced down to dollars per hour/week/day. Sentimentality goes
out the window or they go out of business. Many, many games do
not pull in enough money to justify their existence in a commercial
environment. Some do. Those sell for lots of money.
There is also, as you suggest, the home collector/nostalgic angle.
In recent years, home arcades have gotten quite popular. There
are a few types buying for those - the hardy types will buy husks
and as-is games and beaters from auctions or operators and refurb
them on their own (like me - my Gorf came from 3 different sources
over a 10-year period before it was complete). Others just want
flashing lights and bleeping boxes and don't know how to change
out a fuse. They will pay and pay for someone to sell them a totally
tricked-out box. They will pay much more than an operator ever
would because of sentimentality or nostalgia.
I have a few games on my list I'd like to get. Space and opportunity
have limited me to just a couple. Unfortunately, some of the games
from my childhood are pre-microprocessor, so it's
not even possible
to play them on MAME. I need the real thing or to build/program
my
own replica. The time has somewhat passed to see games from the
B&W 8080 and earlier era at auction on a regular basis, and when
you do see them, they are not always in the best of shape, and if they
are, they don't often go cheap. These are all older than Space
Invaders.
To summarize, yes, I think those games sound expensive, but not
so far out as to be unbelievable. If they are targeting the nostalgia
angle, they might or might not be able to get that much for them.
If they are targeting the commercial buyer, they wouldn't likely get
that much for them in the US, but I can't be certain about the UK.
-ethan
30 Nov
30 Nov
1:35 a.m.
Ethan provided a long, informative reply to my post:
Ah. Yes. In the US, prices may well be depressed by there being no
coins in common circulation above a quarter dollar.
The slots on the front of the Space Invaders machine said "50p" on them
- that seems to be about 70 or 80 US cents at the moment. At your
calculation, 895 pounds would only take 1790 games to pay off the debt -
five games a day for a year - which is a much more attractive figure.
Many arcade games here now accept one pound coins, so if the owner did
that conversion, the game could pay for itself quicker still.
(FWIW our 50p coins got smaller in 1997, so there's a chance the coin
mechanism would need converting anyway.)
There's a
shop in Coalville...
In the window this weekend were two machines that caught my eye: an original
Space Invaders machine from 1978, priced at 895 pounds; and a pinball
machine from 1979 (branded "Gottlieb") for an almost-as-unreasonable 495
pounds. (I think at current exchange rates that's about $1300 and $700 US)
OK.
... what sort of an active market is there for
such machines? The prices looked
high enough that they must be aiming at serious collectors, or possibly
innkeepers who want to create a retro-seventies atmosphere.
So do people here know about the classic arcade game market? Are my
neighbours of a couple of blocks away being overoptimistic with their
prices?
I would personally not pay $1300 US for a real Space Invaders, but
consider how many paid games that turns into - in the US, it would
be $0.25/game (don't know about the UK.), so that's 5200 games. I have a few games on my list I'd like to get.
Space and opportunity
have limited me to just a couple. Unfortunately, some of the games
from my childhood are pre-microprocessor, so it's not even possible
to play them on MAME. I need the real thing or to build/program my
own replica. The time has somewhat passed to see games from the
B&W 8080 and earlier era at auction on a regular basis, and when
you do see them, they are not always in the best of shape, and if they
are, they don't often go cheap. These are all older than Space
Invaders.
Interesting. IIRC Space Invaders spanned the BW/colour divide. Later
games had colour displays, but earlier ones had monochrome displays with
strips of colour filter over the screen. I don't know when the change
came, or which version this one is.
Thanks, Ethan, for an interesting window onto a world I hardly know at all.
Philip.
3 Dec
3 Dec
3:57 a.m.
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 10:35 PM, Philip Belben <philip at axeside.co.uk> wrote:
Yes. Several of these games I'm interested in are the B&W tube with colored
gels or half-silvered mirrors and painted artwork to spruce up the blocky
mono graphics. In 1978, B&W was still common. By 1979 or 1981 at the
latest, I'd think, color was more common. There are plenty of arcade machine
sites on the web with timelines and dates, so it shouldn't be hard to find the
transition using real-world examples.
Ethan provided a long, informative reply to my post:
>> There's a shop in Coalville...
>> In the window this weekend were two machines that caught my eye: an
>> original Space Invaders... from 1978... 895 pounds; and a pinball
>> machine from 1979... 495
Ah. Yes. In the US, prices may well be depressed by
there being no coins
in common circulation above a quarter dollar.
Indeed, though plenty of games (Space Invaders included, ISTR) can be
set to require multiple quarters per credit. The "problem" is that so
many games were one-coin-per-credit for so long that it's rather
etched into the expectations of paying customers, no matter the
purchase power difference between $0.25 in 1978 and 2008. Some games
were $0.50 per play from day one; "Dragon's Lair" comes to mind. I
know that one can be set for 3 credits for 5 coins or similar odd
payment schemes meant to maximize revenue, but these days, the effect
monetary inflation has had is to encourage large operators ("Dave and
Busters" and other adult arcades) to go with swipe cards - that way
they can have certain hours cost certain amounts or make it easy to
play $20 because you don't feel the quarters going into the machine
(taking the sting out of paying $0.75 for a game of pinball).
The slots on the front of the Space Invaders machine
said "50p" on them -
that seems to be about 70 or 80 US cents at the moment. At your
calculation, 895 pounds would only take 1790 games to pay off the debt -
five games a day for a year - which is a much more attractive figure. Many
arcade games here now accept one pound coins, so if the owner did that
conversion, the game could pay for itself quicker still.
Indeed. I did notice on my first trip to Europe (in 1985) that
everywhere I went, video games cost substantially more to play than
they did in the US.
I would say that 5 games a day for a year wouldn't be attractive for
an operator. Entirely coincidentally, since this thread started, I've
started staying with a friend in NZ who happens to repair arcade games
in Christchurch. His boss is the classic stingy operator ("it's all
about the money, not the love"). I asked him about older games - he
said they don't pay for the floor space. His clientele is mostly
teenagers, not "aging hipsters", and largely Asian, given where in
town the arcades are. A completely different demographic than a Dave
and Busters in the States. He didn't have exact numbers to share with
me, but my impression is that if a game isn't playing a lot more than
5 paid games an hour, it's pulled and something else is dropped in its
place.
(FWIW our 50p coins got smaller in 1997, so
there's a chance the coin
mechanism would need converting anyway.)
Ah... good point. That hasn't happened in the US. At auction,
machines with coin mechs sell more than ones without, but that's
because the acceptance mech is a module that drops in - you can get
mechs for US quarters, presumably Canadian quarters (high steel
content, so the magnetic diverter has to be different), and several
styles of tokens - popular at one point, but now supplanted largely by
swipe cards. FWIW, my Gorf and Xenophobe cabinets have US quarter
mechs. You can also buy these on the aftermarket for your MAME
cabinet or for "real" games for your basement for that authentic feel
- they are not cheap.
I have a few
games on my list I'd like to get... The time has somewhat
passed to see games from the
B&W 8080 and earlier era at auction on a regular basis...
These are all older than Space Invaders.
Interesting. IIRC Space Invaders spanned the BW/colour divide. Later games
had colour displays, but earlier ones had monochrome displays with strips of
colour filter over the screen. I don't know when the change came, or which
version this one is. Thanks, Ethan, for an interesting window onto a world
I hardly know at all.
You bet. There are plenty of others here who know lots more, so they are
free to amend or supplant anything I've said from their own experiences, but
I think what I've said covers a number of aspects of this genre.
-ethan
6:41 a.m.
Going with a coin credits on a card approach is a far more effective
revenue generator as I've personally found. On the cruise lines,
they have some very well stocked arcades and they use a crediting system
where you purchase credit that is placed onto your sea-pass card
(actually ALL services on cruise lines, with the exception of the
casino's is strictly credited to the sea-pass cards, no cash is
exchanged throughout the cruise for onboard purchases of goods, drinks,
tours, etc...)
Well, what I've noticed is you burn through those card credits playing
video games in no time flat... when you don't physically have cash in
hand to part with, its much easier to spend it. When you're down to
that last dollar bill or handful of quarters in the arcades, your much
more choosy about what games you'll play and when.
I remember when I was a kid, we'd go to Time Out in the Staten Island
Mall, it would be open till around 11pm or Midnight as it was right at
the outside entrance to one section of the mall, and they'd gate off the
rest of the way so you could only go into Time Out or across to
Farrell's Ice Cream Palor next to it.
Well, I remember getting down to the last .50cents in my pocket one
weekend night, my friends and I went to the movies outside the Mall -
the good old days when you had these small movie theatre's with only 1
or 2 screens, now the 12-16 screen places they have today. Then we'd
go to either Time Out at the Mall or behind the Mall was the Twilight
Zone arcade and pool hall... either way, down to that last .50 cents...
Well, you'd need it to take the bus home, but damn, I just wanted to
play some more video games, so I'd use those last two quarters, then
borrow a dime to call home and ask my mom to come and pick us up "Mom, I
accidentally used my bus money up and we have no way to get home..."
Well, that worked once or twice, I remember my final "ooops" attempt
ending in my mother telling me "tough, then walk home, maybe that'll
help you remember not to spend your bus money next time" The Mall was
like 10 miles away from home, took all night to get home, but that was
the last time I tried pulling that stunt!!!
Curt
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 10:35 PM, Philip Belben
<philip at axeside.co.uk> wrote:
Yes. Several of these games I'm interested in are the B&W tube with colored
gels or half-silvered mirrors and painted artwork to spruce up the blocky
mono graphics. In 1978, B&W was still common. By 1979 or 1981 at the
latest, I'd think, color was more common. There are plenty of arcade machine
sites on the web with timelines and dates, so it shouldn't be hard to find the
transition using real-world examples.
Ethan provided a long, informative reply to my
post:
>> There's a shop in Coalville...
>> In the window this weekend were two machines that caught my eye: an
>> original Space Invaders... from 1978... 895 pounds; and a pinball
>> machine from 1979... 495
>>
Ah. Yes. In the US, prices may well be
depressed by there being no coins
in common circulation above a quarter dollar.
Indeed, though plenty of games (Space Invaders included, ISTR) can be
set to require multiple quarters per credit. The "problem" is that so
many games were one-coin-per-credit for so long that it's rather
etched into the expectations of paying customers, no matter the
purchase power difference between $0.25 in 1978 and 2008. Some games
were $0.50 per play from day one; "Dragon's Lair" comes to mind. I
know that one can be set for 3 credits for 5 coins or similar odd
payment schemes meant to maximize revenue, but these days, the effect
monetary inflation has had is to encourage large operators ("Dave and
Busters" and other adult arcades) to go with swipe cards - that way
they can have certain hours cost certain amounts or make it easy to
play $20 because you don't feel the quarters going into the machine
(taking the sting out of paying $0.75 for a game of pinball).
The slots on the front of the Space Invaders
machine said "50p" on them -
that seems to be about 70 or 80 US cents at the moment. At your
calculation, 895 pounds would only take 1790 games to pay off the debt -
five games a day for a year - which is a much more attractive figure. Many
arcade games here now accept one pound coins, so if the owner did that
conversion, the game could pay for itself quicker still.
Indeed. I did notice on my first trip to Europe (in 1985) that
everywhere I went, video games cost substantially more to play than
they did in the US.
I would say that 5 games a day for a year wouldn't be attractive for
an operator. Entirely coincidentally, since this thread started, I've
started staying with a friend in NZ who happens to repair arcade games
in Christchurch. His boss is the classic stingy operator ("it's all
about the money, not the love"). I asked him about older games - he
said they don't pay for the floor space. His clientele is mostly
teenagers, not "aging hipsters", and largely Asian, given where in
town the arcades are. A completely different demographic than a Dave
and Busters in the States. He didn't have exact numbers to share with
me, but my impression is that if a game isn't playing a lot more than
5 paid games an hour, it's pulled and something else is dropped in its
place.
(FWIW our 50p coins got smaller in 1997, so
there's a chance the coin
mechanism would need converting anyway.)
Ah... good point. That hasn't happened in the US. At auction,
machines with coin mechs sell more than ones without, but that's
because the acceptance mech is a module that drops in - you can get
mechs for US quarters, presumably Canadian quarters (high steel
content, so the magnetic diverter has to be different), and several
styles of tokens - popular at one point, but now supplanted largely by
swipe cards. FWIW, my Gorf and Xenophobe cabinets have US quarter
mechs. You can also buy these on the aftermarket for your MAME
cabinet or for "real" games for your basement for that authentic feel
- they are not cheap.
I have a
few games on my list I'd like to get... The time has somewhat
passed to see games from the
B&W 8080 and earlier era at auction on a regular basis...
These are all older than Space Invaders.
Interesting. IIRC Space Invaders spanned the BW/colour divide. Later
games
had colour displays, but earlier ones had monochrome displays with strips of
colour filter over the screen. I don't know when the change came, or which
version this one is.
Thanks, Ethan, for an interesting window onto a
world I hardly know at all.
You bet. There are plenty of others here who know lots more, so they are
free to amend or supplant anything I've said from their own experiences, but
I think what I've said covers a number of aspects of this genre.
-ethan
7 Dec
7 Dec
6:42 a.m.
Well, that worked once or twice, I remember my final
"ooops" attempt
ending in my mother telling me "tough, then walk home, maybe that'll
help you remember not to spend your bus money next time" The Mall was
like 10 miles away from home, took all night to get home, but that was
the last time I tried pulling that stunt!!!
I'll reply again when I stop laughthing :oD
Alexandre :o)
30 Nov
30 Nov
4:29 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
The two most common expensive machines I've seen
are Ms PacMan
and Galaga. I routinely see them go for $600-$1000 US, auction after
auction.
Hmm, I stumbled across an unplugged Ms PacMan cabinet the other day in a
nearby hotel and had a half-thought to go and ask them if they actually wanted
the thing any more (more for the chance to poke around the insides than
actually play the thing). Maybe I will go back there...
Space Invaders is in the same league as those
machines, but is not as common
anymore (if it ever was).
Think I said it on here the other day (it was certainly to someone!) that I
passed up a free cocktail cab space invaders many years ago - I think that's
one of my biggest classic computing 'regrets' :-(
cheers
Jules
29 Nov
29 Nov
9:14 a.m.
Philip Belben wrote:
Just curious...
There's a shop in Coalville, I'm not sure what it sells (maybe it sells
games consoles; maybe it's an amusement arcade; maybe both).
In the window this weekend were two machines that caught my eye: an
original Space Invaders machine from 1978, priced at 895 pounds; and a
pinball machine from 1979 (branded "Gottlieb") for an
almost-as-unreasonable 495 pounds. (I think at current exchange rates
that's about $1300 and $700 US)
...
Philip,
I have four arcade games in the basement for many of the same reasons
why I have vintage computers - Dropping a quarter into an original Atari
Asteroids in the year 2008 is like stepping back close to 30 years in time.
The technology is the same as on the vintage computers, and the
schematics usually come with the games. These are computers - just with
a slightly different purpose. They were also pretty well built given
the sometimes hostile environments they lived in.
Mike
1:32 p.m.
As I was walking home, failing to hum the Space
Invaders song, I
wondered what sort of an active market is there for such machines? The
prices looked high enough that they must be aiming at serious
collectors, or possibly innkeepers who want to create a retro-seventies
atmosphere.
I'll resume it: They were cheap. I'd not sell a space invaders in
pristine condiition for less than $2000 :o)
So do people here know about the classic arcade game
market? Are my
neighbours of a couple of blocks away being overoptimistic with their
prices?
take a look at ebay! :D
4 Dec
4 Dec
12:53 p.m.
Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:
Philip - that's a little high for the current
market. Maybe five
years ago that'd be correct, but now Space Invaders is around
US$500-700.
Alexandre Souza presented the opposite opinion:
I'll resume it: They were cheap. I'd not
sell a space invaders in
pristine condiition for less than $2000 :o)
Well it wasn't pristine, but it was in good condition for 30 years old!
take a look at ebay! :D
Considering the silly prices seen there for some of the classic
computers we collect, I didn't think it would give me a very balanced
view :-)
I had another look in the window on Monday night, and I noticed that the
machine was called "The Invaders" rather than "Space Invaders".
Oh, and the Gottlieb pinball table was a game called "Totem", with a
Native American theme. I don't know if that has any significance.
Philip.
7 Dec
7 Dec
7 a.m.
Oh, and the Gottlieb pinball table was a game called
"Totem", with a
Native American theme. I don't know if that has any significance.
I had one of these, and the brazilian version "Sherokee" made by Rovamet
in Sao Paulo. You can take a look at that in my page:
http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br
Look for pinball-taito and you'll find a sub-site with too much pinball
info - all brazilian pinballs :)
29 Nov
29 Nov
4:43 p.m.
I hope someone preserved the Space Invaders song, because I haven't heard it, and the
awful "Only Amiga" song is preserved on YouTube :)
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
--- On Mon, 24/11/08, Philip Belben <philip at axeside.co.uk> wrote:
From: Philip Belben <philip at axeside.co.uk>
Subject: Arcade games
To: cctech at classiccmp.org
Date: Monday, 24 November, 2008, 9:00 PM
*>> snip <<*
PPS has anyone preserved the Space Invaders song? I sincerely hope not.
6 p.m.
I wouldn't know, having never heard it before. I didn't even know there was a
Space Invaders song until today.
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
--- On Sun, 30/11/08, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote:
From: Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com>
Subject: Re: Arcade games
To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Date: Sunday, 30 November, 2008, 1:46 AM
Andrew Burton wrote:
> I hope someone preserved the Space Invaders song
The one by Uncle Vic? It's not hard to find.
"He's hooked, he's hooked, his brain is cooked!"
4 Dec
4 Dec
12:47 p.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Andrew Burton wrote:
That doesn't sound right. Those words don't fit what I remember of the
tune's rhythm, so I must be thinking of a different song.
The song I remember was a background music staple in the early 1980s. I
always assumed it had been written to promote the game, since the
impression I got was of something warning of the coming menace, and
urging you to go and fight it off. But my memory is very fuzzy here - I
may be way out.
(FWIW some years ago I attended a seminar at the Huddersfield Festival
on writing music for steel bands. It was mentioned that one of the
popular layouts for steel pan drums is known as "Invaders" after the
band that introduced it. But I'm definitely not thinking of that!)
Philip.
I hope someone preserved the Space Invaders song
The one by Uncle Vic? It's not hard to find. "He's hooked, he's
hooked, his brain is cooked!"
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alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com -
philip＠axeside.co.uk