Networking and remote credit loading

[nortski]

Hi guys, first time post here.
Brief background: I'm putting together a business plan to open a small retro gaming arcade that houses origianal (restored) retro arcade cabs such as Street Fighter, Outrun 2 etc.

I'm wondering if you guys know of a solution where I can give the option for my customers to either pay per play (via the coin mech) or to purchase a daily pass that allows them to play on everything freeplay.

My idea was to somehow hook up a frontend menu, something like:

Pay per play
Enter purchased code
Free play (admin only)

Selecting pay per play activates the standard coin mech. Enter code asks them to enter a code issued to the customer by a member of staff after purchasing a daily pass. After entering the code it asks them how many credits do they want to load (or an option to continue playing after they have lost the game).

And free play would allow me to set the machine to free play for promotions etc.

This system would obviously have to be all connected to a LAN with the backoffice behind the counter so that the gaming cabs have access to the code database.

Is this even feasible? Am I other thinking it, is there an easier way?

I'm thinking raspberry pi may be the way forward?

I would very much appreciate your thoughts.

 

[t-m]

If it were me i'd pick either the pay per play or freeplay model rather than try and do both.

But as we're being theoretical, you could fix up each machine with an RFID reader so daily pass people can coin up with a fob you'd issue them, they're so cheap it wouldn't matter if they didn't get returned.

 

[nortski]

Wow I was just this second reading up on RFID, found this company: http://idealamusementsoftware.com/

Doesn't really explain how it works though. Do you know where I can do more reading up on this?

 

[t-m]

I don't unfortunately but I know it's possible to use readers like this and get it to pulse which you could connect up fairly simply to a coin input on a pcb and that fobs are cheap. We use them at work to call lifts, etc. Then back end behind this is a whole different matter I expect.

 

[nortski]

Thanks for this, it seems to be the way forward!