By Todd Russell
In this article let’s look at several different ways you can pay to play pinball in 2025. The most common way to play is per game or $x for 3 games or 5 games, giving a small discount for purchasing more games at a single time.
One place nearby, Waterland Arcade, that we mentioned in an article on AIQ recently: Avengers: Infinity Quest Novice Strategies converted from coin drop per game vs. a free pass for the day. What I found particularly interesting, when I dug into their pricing more, is they also offer VIP passes for a month or three months where you can pay up to multiple months at a time.
I’m talking about Waterland Arcade and check this out:
$33/month to play six days a week as much as you want? Waterland is closed on Sundays to the public for private parties. They have 50 or so games including pinball and all are set free to play, yes, including the pinball:
Some places do buffet style all-you-can-play pricing, but exclude pinball. I’m not as big a fan of those deals. If you’re looking for a large number of games to play with all-you-can-play pricing it’s $22 at Next Level Pinball and this is an amazing place we’ve talked about multiple times at PGM, see: Next Level Pinball, Voted the Best Arcade In the World 3 Years in a Row, Expands with 7,000 Square Feet More Gaming. We even bought one of our new in box Sterns from them in 2024.
Back to Waterland Arcade in Des Moines, WA (a little south of Seattle, btw), if you’re willing to lock in for six months at a time in their VIP program, the price drops from $33/month over three months to $25/month.
For 24 days or so a week of as much free play as you want, that’s about $1 per day. Seriously, to play modern Stern pins the price of one game in some places versus the ability to travel in and out and play all day, all night? Wow.
If you just buy a month at a time for an individual, it costs $40. It’s $15 for one day or $40 for a month? You just have to visit there 3 times in a month and play 75 or so pinball games over those three trips to make it a pretty good deal.
Again, if you commit to six months at a time, then the cost drops down to $25/month vs. the $15 for a single day pass purchased at the door. Can you purchase these VIP plans on site or only online? I decided to research that by visiting the Waterland Arcade in person for this article. Didn’t really find out this answer in person when there, but despite charging me for the pass when I first got there they asked me if I paid like an hour later. They need to do wrist bands or something like Next Level does maybe.
What do you think about this buffet style pinball pricing?