>>11807145
I worked in an arcade one summer in the mid 90s. Pic related was the entire reason for the buisness to stay afloat, this and my nightly audits at cashout. We absolutely were paying attention to what games drew crowds and had high turnover. The difficulty was tuned to be high enough so as to visibly deter repeat players a bit or of they got too good, and then Roll it back a notch and see what the logbooks show over the next week or so.
Pinball was the same, we had one older machine set at a generous angle and low tilt sensitivity to draw in beginners and give them confidence, easy extra balls and then on the newer flashier machines absolutely we raped people with steeper pitch, agressive anti-tilt and stingy free ball settings.
Also worth noting is that only some machinese were owned by the arcade and the others were leased by a regional amusument companany. The machines on loan had a higher profit expectation and they turned over fast. Modern casino slot machines work the same way with the high profile games on loan to the casino, mixed in with older machines the casino owns and paid off long ago.