Hey Nino - interested to know what you think was the lifespan of such a machine onsite and how long it took to make the USD$800 investment back for the operator - it kmust have been hugely profitable or these guys back then.?. How long these machines stayed onsite etc..
Paragon was operated until 1995. IIRC - Star Trek, 2 X KISS, Paragon were four machines still on route when Dad pulled the pin. There was already over 200 machines in two seperate storage buildings that were retired and eventually sold into the private market, given away and thrown away. Kinda makes me laugh when Dealers make comments like "We started the idea of putting pinballs machines into every home" - When my old man was doing it in the late eighties.
Earning capacity of Paragon or Space Invaders - impossible to tell. Those figures were never recorded over the entire lifespan of a game. I'd say it would have taken less than 6 months to pay off a game. At a complete guess - they would have made an easy $1000 a year for the first 3 years until the videos came along. That would be their earning capacity, not the figure taken home by the operator.
A machine was left onsite for at least 6 months (60's - 80's).
i guess allot of the mo0ney would be made on resale of a machine? so you might have earned say $500 on the machine that cost $800 but sold the machine for $600 secondhand? just random figures, but is that sort of what happened on some games?
It all depends. In the case of the Space Invaders machine we had, the game was sold privately. I have no idea what it was sold for, however, in the late 80's games such as Bally Eight Ball, Star Trek, Evel Knievel, Mata Hari, 6 Million Dollar Man etc would have been sold for $250 to $350 each.
Space Invaders would have been purchased for US$800, been on route from 1980 - 1992ish and paid for itself 20 times over (conservative), before being sold for $350 - $500.
I recall the NIB KISS machines were only US$600 - $650 - which was expensive in 1979. I have a "Flash amusements" flyer dated in the late 80's selling them for AUS$600 second hand. Best of luck finding one for $6500 today ! KISS was another title that needed the cashbox emptied twice a week in its first year of operation. The Ballys of this era (1979 - 1982) were massive earners.
