121 episodes tracked since 2023 about →
Episode 20 - Operator Spotlight: Electric Bat Arcade
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago49 min listen
Highlights
- Electric Bat Arcade opened in September 2018 (Rachel opened it; Kale joined later)
- Electric Bat has two locations: Tempe (flagship, ~5M metro population) and Flagstaff (~76K population, 2.5 hours north, 7,000 ft elevation)
- Rachel was a professional oil painter and initially consulted on the arcade before becoming operator
- Electric Bat expanded on New Year's Eve (one year prior to podcast) adding 60 pinball and ~20 video games
- Electric Bat and Wedgehead Pinball opened within 5 days of each other (Sept 11 vs Sept 16, 2018) and started podcasts on the same day without communicating
- Electric Bat operates 50-50 revenue splits with some machine owners at the venue, won't go below 75-25 for external route operations
- Portland route operators traditionally used 50-50 splits; now standard is 60-40; East Coast and Midwest operators report 75-25 or 80-20
- Sopranos pinball earns consistently high in Portland despite not being critically acclaimed
- Electric Bat Tuesday league night regularly draws 100+ players (113 last night mentioned)
- Electric Bat maintains machines with 24-hour repair standard; fixes are done promptly to keep games playable
Notable quotes
“I was asked multiple times until I caved and agreed to open an arcade inside of a dive bar.”
“I want to do a podcast that doesn't ever talk about rumors... I got shit to do.”
“When you run into a good operator, you know it. You can see it.”
“Sopranos will just earn buckets like it just earns like crazy here.”
“The community is going to play at the different locations. It's not their customers versus our customers: it's the same pool of customers.”
“There's really great players but they are the players that don't interact with anybody. They wear hoodies, headphones, don't talk to people.”
“This is so refreshing to see serious professional pinball players playing with casuals. There's no attitude. Everybody's trying to help each other.”
“The machines are so expensive and they require expertise to fix. It's just a lot of fucking work. To make them play right 100% of the time, you have to be motivated to fix them.”
“We're all snowflakes. There's no two arcades that are alike.”
“We're just trying to get people to play pinball at the end of the day... We're all into this weird, arcane hobby, playing pinball, which maybe shouldn't even exist anymore, but it still does.”
Entities
- Cobra Arcade· company
- Electric Bat Arcade· company
- Marco· company
- Starfighters Arcade· company
- Wedgehead Pinball Bar· company
- Yucca Taproom· company
- Electric Bat Podcast· content
- Wedgehead Pinball Podcast· content
- Howdy Partner· event
- Portland Retro· event
- ZapCon· event
- Galactic Arcade Tank Force· game
- Popeye· game
- Scooby-Doo· game
- Sopranos, The· game
- IFPA· organization
- WPPR· organization
- Alan· person
- Chewy· person
- Kale· person
- Mark· person
- Rachel· person
- Waterboy, the· person
