Jeff Piotter: We have two locations: one in Ann Arbor and one here, and then we rent machines and tables out and about. Every pool table in the bars around East Lansing are ours.

SN: Where does Pinball Pete’s get its machines?

JP: We buy them from various distributors. We deal with a distributor in Iowa, we deal with a distributor in Chicago. A lot of the stuff we’ve had for a very long time. The Pac-Man Jr.‘s, the Centipedes, they all go back to the 1980s.

SN: What’s more popular, the older games or the newer games?

JP: Dance Dance Revolution is still pretty hot, pretty popular. The newer fighting games? We’re seeing a decline in people wanting to play them. I don’t know if it’s the home gaming systems, I don’t know if it’s the anti-sociability of sitting at home or sitting in a dorm room with their buds as opposed to coming down to an arcade. But we still see a fair amount of play on video and a halfway decent amount on pinball.

SN: Are you always searching for new gaming systems to include?

JP: You know, they’re pretty standard. It’s been a pretty static industry. We’ve talked about making some changes down here toward more ticket-taking games with a prize counter and adding a few more lanes of Skee-Ball and basketball shooters.

SN: How is the East Lansing community different from the Ann Arbor community?

JP: They’re about the same. Our Ann Arbor location is almost on campus — you could spit and hit campus. Here we’re a block off. Our saving grace is that The Riv (The Riviera Cafe Restaurant and Lounge, 231 M.A.C. Ave.) is our neighbor. We do draw the sophomores that are of age and the upperclassmen, but our weakness is drawing the freshmen and incoming class this far north.

SN: Are there ever any problems with rowdiness on the nights and weekends?

JP: I run a pretty tight ship. My employees that work the Friday and Saturday night shifts have been trained very well on what to look for and when to cut it off before it becomes an issue. Every now and then it goes a little farther then what I’d like to see. The St. Patty days, the Halloweens, the high-alcohol consumption days … I’m around for those. Having an old guy keeping trumps will make them take a second look.

SN: How is the arcade different from past decades, and how does it separate itself from today’s attractions?

JP: Back in the day we had lines like the bars. In the ’80s and in the early ’90s we’d have five or six people working at night, we’d have people working the doors. But a lot of people misconstrue an arcade. It’s clean, it’s well lit, our games are 98 percent functional. We’re a hidden gem. We’re the only arcade, really, in the Mid-Michigan area. You can’t call the Namco place at the Meridian Mall an arcade, and the only other place that tried around here failed within a year of opening. So we must be doing something right.