Music based video games have become iconic over the last few years and Andrian Grow’s personal game room serves as mecca for lovers of thumping bass, dazzling light shows, and fleet-footed dance steps. Made up of two uniquely shaped rooms inside a barn, Adrian’s game room is appropriately named The Game Barn and features one of the largest private collections of music based coin-op games in the country.
I started talking with the director of the Student Activities Center about acquiring a license so I could place a DDR machine at the school. I showed them the statistics of what DDR machines earned, who played on them, and how regularly. After some negotiations, they agreed to let me try. I formed what was probably the first and only non-profit organization for coin operated arcade machines. I actually had the state tax dept call me and talk with me for over an hour while I explained to them how things would work! Basically, we formed a school club that ran the DDR machine and met once a week for free play and other activities. I made the risky move of placing the entire cost of the DDR machine on a credit card, knowing that the machine would pay for itself given enough time. The school cut me a break for the first year (75/25 profit sharing) so that I could pay for the machine.It didn’t even take six months before it was paid for.
Adrian’s day job is related to providing flooring services and he has found that to be an effective avenue for building his collection.
One day we started trading flooring services with an operator for arcades and our collection grew. Not all of my cabinets came from trades but a great deal of them did come from trades with arcade operators, friends and the like.
I have an Atomiswave and Neo Geo Candy that are currently on loan to my wife’s elementary school for the summer. They have a program where they take care of the underprivileged children during the summer. Every summer, I loan them a few different cabinets of age appropriate games for them to play on.
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