Prime Arcade Sales and Repair delivers hint of nostalgia - Odessa American

2022-07-30 07:40:50 By : Mr. Peter WINDBELL

In a warehouse lined with old gaming cabinets, many of them in disrepair, Mason Profit has the knowledge, tools and parts to bring those machines back to life.

Profit, the 35-year-old owner of Prime Arcade Sales and Repair in Odessa, has spent nearly the last 20 years of his life working with, repairing and refurbishing retro games.

Though he started Prime Arcade Sales and Repair as a side business, Profit said it turned into his full time job organically. However, he fell in love with arcade games when he was 15.

“The machine that got me into arcades in the first place was Dance Dance Revolution,” he said. “I got addicted to that game when I was 15. The first arcade that I had, had one in the business, that’s what drew me there in the first place. I still own my own (DDR) machine.

“It takes up a lot of space,” Profit added with a smile.

Profit said his joy of repairing arcade machines is the ability to bring a dead classic back to life.

As an example, Profit told a story about fixing a Ms. Pac-Man machine.

“I’ll take (a machine) that has been dead and in storage for 15 years,” Profit said. “I’ll bring it here and go through all the components. Rebuild the monitor and make everything look and work like it’s brand new. Then I sell it to someone who remembers that game from their childhood, especially if they want to pass on those memories to their kids.”

Profit said the machines that line his warehouse, which was formerly the training facility for Old School Wrestling, include classic and modern cabinets. Profit considers classic cabinets to be late 70’s to early 80’s, while modern is anything from 2000 and newer.

In addition to the arcade games, Profit has multiple pinball machines that he is repairing. Profit said pinball machines came in three eras which are electro-mechanical, solid state and dot matrix. Profit said he works most with solid state, because he said that’s what he finds the most. He also explained that two of his easiest fixes and quickest sells for arcade games are Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga.

“I can work on pretty much anything from classic to modern,” Profit said. “I prefer classic, because that’s what I find the most of and that’s what I more or less specialize, but the jobs that I had previous to this business I worked most around modern stuff.”

Since he is a one-man operation, Profit said he tries to split his time between maintenance for clients, repairs for customers and working on his own projects. He said one of his clients is “Fair to Midland” where he performs maintenance on the arcade games out there once a week.

Profit said as far as his duration of his own projects can take anywhere from 20 minutes to a month depending on the severity of the repair.

“When it comes to arcade machines, it’s a total crap shoot,” Profit said about repairing and refurbishing. “I have to diagnose it and find out what’s wrong with it.

“If it’s something as simple as a power supply, I can replace that and it’s good to go. If it’s a TCV, I might have to dig a little deeper. If it’s beyond me, I might have to send it off to someone who knows more than I do to fix it. If it’s a modern, I have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out what’s wrong with it, because those are some complicated beasts.”

Prior to venturing on his own, Profit worked as a technician for Chuck E. Cheese for 13 years.

Profit, who is from Abilene, moved to Odessa in 2011 for the tech job at Chuck E. Cheese and started Prime Arcade Sales and Repair in 2013. He said one night he was crunching numbers and believed he could focus solely on Prime Arcade Sales and Repair. Profit needed to convince his wife and he managed to, but he said in the first couple of years there were peaks and valleys when there was consideration to return for a steady paycheck.

“It has been very cyclical,” Profit said. “I’ve had a lot of highs and lows. There were times where (my wife) thought I should go back to Chucky (Chuck E. Cheese), so I could have consistent income coming in. There would be a month where I would sell 12 games and then there would be a month where I sold one. It has gotten better since then, but in the first year or two, it was a little rough going.” Profit said he isn’t taking on additional clients for maintenance right now, but he did explain that he has a 200-mile radius. He said he will also deliver to Amarillo and Abilene.

Though he works by himself, Profit said he uses social media – mainly Facebook and TikTok – to give viewers an idea of a repair from start to finish. Prime Arcade has more than 2,200 followers on TikTok.

“I post video logs of going to pick machines up, doing deliveries or what repairs I’m doing,” Profit said. “… I’ve had a modicum of success doing that because people are curious of the process from start to finish and that’s the best way I know how to show them without them being here and looking over my shoulder.”