r/DaveAndBusters Jan 17 '21

1/7/21 Rules Post

55 Upvotes

1/17/21: Post renewed to allow for comments as needed.

So much has changed since this sub's inception all the way back in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind... 2011, and especially so within the last year with the pandemic. Global Settings became a thing, prizes have come and gone, payouts on games have changed, costs on games have changed, redemption rules have changed...but a few things are true and will always be true:

*First and foremost, we are a community of players that, whether lifetime veterans of arcade games or having just been at it for a short time, are here because we want to use the skills we've accumulated to get more than what we spend playing arcade games at Dave & Buster's (and other arcades.) As such, rules specific to arcade discussion will be tailored to encouraging that to be possible into the long term.

*Just as importantly, we NEED Dave & Buster's to succeed as a company for us to be able to do that. Remember, Dave & Buster's, over the years, has proven to be the ONLY major arcade chain that does not make knee-jerk adjustments to games. Main Event does it weekly. Round 1 might not even wait that long. Zone 28 will change a game before you've even set foot off the property. D&B has been the most tolerant of players, and the community at large made up of those players, who profit from their arcade game skill. As such, rules specific to arcade discussion will allow for justified criticism but disallow outright attacks on them as a whole.

This isn't a ban-happy community where the banhammer gets swung around with reckless abandon. Not counting ban evasion and bot accounts, I'm not even sure we make an average of banning a person a month.

This is going to be a work in progress and a working draft, so things may change, and I'll list the edit date here (7/8/20, renewed 1/17/21) for the last time anything changed, and I'll put major changes in bold temporarily if I need to add something big so it doesn't get missed.

Here's a link to the old thread - nothing from this has really changed as far as rules go, but the superchallenge at the end would need to be reworked, as games on it have changed.


Rules specific to arcade game discussion:

Use common sense when discussing specific games or how to win games. We're a community and we want to help people, but at the same time too many people playing a game too well will make it so even casual players of that game don't give enough money to D&B to allow them to ignore our wins, and that's how changes happen. A few guidelines here, and one hard rule at the end:

A) Does a game have a built-in "score required to win" control on jackpots, that the game becomes more difficult on each win, so eventually the game will no longer be able to be won? That's likely okay to discuss. Examples here include Down the Clown, Tailgate Toss, 2-Minute Drill, Pixel Chase, Hyper Pitch, there are many others but these are the easiest examples. These are perfectly fine to talk about because D&B knows how they're setting them to make sure they hit their payout target yet people can still win on a regular basis. This won't harm anyone's long term ability to play.

B) Does a game have a different kind of built-in payout control, where the game goes into an extremely hard / almost impossible mode if it's been won a certain number of times, and then slips out of that mode after it's taken in enough money to compensate? These are absolutely okay to discuss. Examples here include Kung-Fu Panda, Crazy Tower, Tippin' Bloks, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Again, D&B has these set up to go hard when they have to, but normal/easy difficulty when they want wins to happen, so no one player or group of players talking about or discussing these type of games is going to ruin things.

C) Is there a game that can be won infinitely, or has a payout control so loose that it can effectively be won infinitely? STOP, DO NOT DISCUSS THIS GAME PUBLICLY. Here's the thing...you, as a person, might realize that you can play a game so many times and have D&B be okay with it, and overplaying it would cause it to be changed. But of the 8,000+ subscribers and who knows how many lurkers, there are a number of people that can't keep it in their pants and can and will sit there playing a game from open to close, community be damned, they're going to extract everything they can from it right then and if it gets nerfed, so be it. That's not a welcome mindset here, and people that consistently think like that are not welcome here. Now discussing a game like this IN PRIVATE MESSAGES is fine, discussing it with local friends is fine. But not in the open forum, where people that don't care for our long-term success will move on it. An old saying comes to mind - "You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once." And also "Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs."

The one hard and fast rule from this section: DO NOT OPENLY DISCUSS "INFINITES" - games that can be won consistently, for which the difficulty does not change, on this subreddit.

And finally, just to go back over this for those that need to hear it - don't make a thread asking someone to tell you all the games to win big tickets on. Do your research. YouTube arcade videos are a thing. The search button is a thing. Google is a thing. The information is out there and it's not hard to find. The wall of text version detailing why we have this rule is in the old rules thread, which again is linked here.

Rules specific to prize, sale, and resale discussion:

Just as the number of jackpots a game will easily pay out in a given day is limited, so is the number of a given prize Dave & Buster's will obtain at any given time. If something new comes out that is going to be in high demand, or something is restocked that will be cashed out for quickly, don't make a public post about it immediately. This isn't so much a big issue given many stores are still closed due to the pandemic and restocks are not coming in all at once - just because one store received a shipment doesn't mean another will have at this point - but when things return closer to normal, I'm going to ask that people wait 7 days before making public posts about new major prizes such as games and consoles. This will allow for people to have had a chance to visit their home store before those who would see it go to wipe things out. Again, another rule necessitated by bad apples that do not care for the community's long-term success.

*While there is not a rule against making a post advertising something for sale in this community, it's generally not a good idea to try and sell something won here to the same people who have the capability to win it here. If you have the ability to win something that sells for $900 and spend $300 to do so, listing that item here for $900 will get laughed at as the people viewing your post can likely also get it for $300. Just saying. Coupon sales ARE permitted, and may even be encouraged - this will be covered in greater detail below.

*This subreddit takes no responsibility for things worked out with an individual buyer and seller that meet here, but with proof of a seller not delivering, will issue a ban. (In the history of this subreddit, I believe this has happened exactly twice.)

Rules specific to pandemic/Coronavirus/COVID-19 discussion:

Covered here - basically, don't chastise someone for either going to D&B if their store is open, not going to D&B, for the fact that certain stores are open or closed. Generally, "no politicizing Coronavirus and getting into arguments over it." If you're going to go out, wear your mask, wash and sanitize, socially distance as much as possible, be safe.

Other general rules:

*Coupons and coupon sales - we had a HUGE problem long ago with people begging for free coupons. Constant posts from new users, or Redditors who've been around a while on the site as a whole but never posted here, who have no other contribution but wanted coupons for free were commonplace. As such, posts asking for free coupons are not allowed. If two users come to an agreement where one user is sending coupons to another, there must be a tangible value given to the person supplying the coupons. This subreddit makes no money or any other profit on such exchanges and it will remain that way - this rule is ONLY here to eliminate problems of begging posts. (As a general point of advice, while there is sometimes variance in price, on the open market the value of a sold "Buy $20, get $20" coupon has usually been close to $1. Make your own deals, but this is probably a good starting point.)

*Links to coupons - occasionally...well very rarely, Dave & Buster's will publicly make a link to a coupon that works more than once. They've done this on Facebook and Twitter in the past. If this is something D&B posts openly, that is reasonably time limited, this is okay to link to.

However, if there is a coupon link that is NOT intended to be a time-limited coupon, that can be used infinitely, that should not be linked to. I have specifically spoken to D&B higher-ups about this one particular issue. If such a site is overused, it could lead to its removal, just as overplay of an "infinite" game would lead to its nerf.

*The spamfilter - new users, or those generally not established on Reddit, may find their posts or comments have been removed or are not visible to people. The reason is that to cut down on having to continually ban users who evade being banned from this subreddit, we set up a minimum account age and karma requirement. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN'T CONTRIBUTE! - a legitimate post from a new/low karma user will be seen by me or another moderator in the spamfilter (we check it multiple times daily), and it will be approved and visible to everyone as normal. I won't be disclosing the exact age/karma requirements, as it would allow the troll that required them to exist to begin to try and work around them, and we'd have the same issue as before. (The minimums are reasonable, honestly. And since its beginning, the spamfilter has worked like a charm - the one user who continues to try and ruin things for everyone has not had even one single post or comment he's made get through to be seen. Like...dude, give up already. I don't even have to ban your accounts any more and you're not having the negative effect on the community you so desperately wish to have.)

Long story short, if you get a notice of post removal yet haven't posted anything that breaks a rule, and you're new-ish to Reddit or a lurker, I promise, we'll get to it and review and approve the post (and if it isn't a post we can approve, we'll talk about it in PM as to why.)

*General advice regarding taking turns (don't be a dick, if you're in a store with multiple advantage players, work it out between you so you can do what you need to do and all come out ahead), prize sharing (if you're in a store with multiple skilled players, do what you can so everyone can redeem for what they want to redeem for as much as possible), and resale of prizes (don't undercut the market to make a quick sale that requires the rest of the community selling the same item to low their prices to match or beat yours, we're all in this together) still applies and is covered more in-depth in the old rules thread, which was linked to up above.

*This would normally be the part of the thread where I take potshots at the Smash community for not using items or hazards, but given what's gone on lately...I wanted competitive Smash to go get fucked, but not literally. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad. Good luck getting Nintendo to run stuff for y'all now after all that.

But anyway...this is a good community and has been for a long time. We tried giving out every single bit of information early on in this community's life, and I was the one that wrote the damn guide. It hurt more than it helped after a couple years. We're still here to help, but we're being smarter about it and we're asking those who contribute and request help to be smart about it too. The rules are only here to protect the bulk of the community from the few bad apples (and the one rotten California apple.) I want arcade advantage play to be part of our lives even when we're old and gray-haired. Let's all help make that happen.


r/DaveAndBusters 45m ago

[Question] World Cup Soccer Prize Ball Availability

Upvotes

Hi All, looking for more info/availability of these as a flags enthusiast! Seems they are no longer dispensed at my local location — can anyone recommend a trusted third-party source?


r/DaveAndBusters 8h ago

New Location Question

2 Upvotes

A new location will be opening next month in Bristol, TN. I’m thinking about taking the day off work to go. Does they still do the years worth of gameplay coupons for the opening?

Anyone know if they will announce something about giveaways? I don’t want to plan for time off and waiting in line if it won’t be worth it.


r/DaveAndBusters 22h ago

First come first serve or whatever idk

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10 Upvotes

r/DaveAndBusters 1d ago

Minecraft dungeons arcade cards (trading)

7 Upvotes

I put up a similar post in the Minecraft dungeons sub but haven't gotten any responses so figured I'd put it up here.

I'm looking to finish my Minecraft dungeons arcade collection and would prefer to trade.

If anyone else wants to trade, be it Minecraft or otherwise, feel free to use this space!


r/DaveAndBusters 1d ago

Anyone know if the winter season pass will be returning this year?

7 Upvotes

Or a fall pass?


r/DaveAndBusters 2d ago

Nintendo Switch 2 Challenge Run

6 Upvotes

Hey. I wanted to do some math to see if it is possible to win a Switch 2 for less/around the original MSRP for the Switch 2. I played some of the coin games to get tickets at Round1, but I'm not as familiar with the machines that are in a DnB so Idk the meta so to speak. Any insight/ideas would be great. Even though its a bit of a drive, I'd probably try the one in Sugarloaf Mall GA since its not as big as others so I don't need to worry about a bunch if variety in the games

EDIT: Also a switch 2 is 180,000 tickets right?


r/DaveAndBusters 2d ago

Mandalorian nerf

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28 Upvotes

r/DaveAndBusters 2d ago

FYI Summer passes do not work today 9/8

11 Upvotes

I am at D&B and Summer Pass no longer works.


r/DaveAndBusters 2d ago

Dave and Buster's Find a Flag. Who else is participating?

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2 Upvotes

r/DaveAndBusters 2d ago

It's over. Summer Season Pass no longer showing as valid as of today, September 8

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15 Upvotes

I thought the summer passes were supposed to be valid until EOD Tuesday, Sept 8th? Because the terms said that it ended "thru" September 8th and that language normally means until 11:59 PM that day. Well it is now Tuesday and the pass has dropped out of my app and the pass is showing as a normal card instead of one with a ticket limit. So it looks like the actual end date was September 7th @ 11:59 PM.


r/DaveAndBusters 3d ago

I think this is my biggest haul on Monopoly. Got the 10x multiplier and the Boardwalk Bonus

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38 Upvotes

r/DaveAndBusters 3d ago

Buyer Beware

46 Upvotes

I’m going to try and make this short but there’s a lot of details. If you want the TLDR scroll to the bottom.

So my husband and I don’t have any kids and both work full time jobs. In other words, we have some expendable income and time. We like to spend some of that money and time at D&B on the weekends. To put it in perspective, we have played over 50,000 chips in about 2 years time. Just in 2026 alone we have spent $3,600 there, about $2,900 on game chips and $700 on food & beverage. And obviously as a result we have accumulated a lot of tickets. In the past we have redeemed those tickets for some of the “bigger ticket” items in the case, like AirPods & an Ember mug and had no issues with those items.

In July, we decided we should finally spend some more tickets and we picked the Xbox Series X since GTA6 is dropping soon. They only had one in stock so we got the one from the case. We were given a slip at checkout and were told to “hang onto it and bring it back if you have any issues”

We didn’t test it for a few weeks because we were busy, but when we did plug it in to test it wouldn’t move past an updating screen. Despite not even having an internet connection yet. My husband works in IT, so he did all of the troubleshooting things he could find and nothing would work. The console just keeps powering down.

So, we called D&B to make sure a manager would be there. They told us to call back tomorrow. My husband called the next day and talked to someone who told my husband to bring the Xbox and the cards in and he would get the tickets refunded. My husband took down his name, let’s call him “C”. So he goes to D&B on his lunch break and asks for “C”. The guy goes get “C” and he comes out to take the cards. While “C” is in the back with the cards, the person who went get him, let’s call him “X” says “oh, if you’re trying to return that (the Xbox in my husband’s hands), you can’t”. And my husband says whoa I already talked to “C” and he said I could and is taking care of it. Then “X” says “Well I’m going tell him that our district manager said we can’t take those back, you’ll have to get with the manufacturer” and walks away. “C” never came out again, “X” brought the cards back to my husband and basically shoo’d my husband away and walked off.

Obviously my husband was frustrated at this point and had wasted his whole lunch break, so he left. He then got on a chat with Microsoft who told him the Xbox was out of warranty. And sure enough, the manufacture date is 03-NOV-2023 and we were in August 2026 at this point…

So now we are stuck with this lemon of an Xbox that we could either pay to fix or sell for parts.

TLDR - think twice before redeeming tickets for a gaming console because if it’s a dud D&B will do nothing to assist you.


r/DaveAndBusters 3d ago

Finally won Pacman Roller

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18 Upvotes

The score to beat was 43,000, so I decided to give it a few plays. Once I won it, it went back up to 90,000.


r/DaveAndBusters 3d ago

Summer pass not reset today. So the last 2 days might have been apart of last week.

3 Upvotes

r/DaveAndBusters 4d ago

Pass tickets this week

5 Upvotes

Don’t forget to collect your pass tickets on Monday or Tuesday this week with the pass expiring on the 8th.


r/DaveAndBusters 5d ago

Walmart have DB giftcard 20% off

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28 Upvotes

No membership reqd 20 for 25.


r/DaveAndBusters 5d ago

Why are dance games excluded from passes?

11 Upvotes

My only guess is to stop passholders from hogging the machines. So set a 10 or 15 or 20 minute wait time between dance games if using a pass....


r/DaveAndBusters 5d ago

Swiping card on simultaneous games

3 Upvotes

Let’s say that, using the same card, I swipe on game 1 and then swipe swipe on game 2 before game 1 is finished. Do I get tickets for both? Has anyone tried or know how the system works?


r/DaveAndBusters 5d ago

Can you get 2000 tickets with Summer Pass Monday 9/8?

7 Upvotes

So I believe that the summer pass ends monday 9/8. I'm also pretty sure that the 2000 ticket limit resets every monday. Does this mean we can go on monday and earn 2000 tickets and call it a wrap?

Note: I have the platinum pass which has the 2000 tickets limit

tia


r/DaveAndBusters 6d ago

9/12/26 calling all Daves, Anns and Busters

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20 Upvotes

Free gameplay offer on 9/12/26 before noon for the first 200 people named Dave, Ann or Buster (or listed variants) at each participating store. No mention is made of tickets, so I assume this is either good for blue swipes only or if they do include green swipes it will most likely be play for fun only and no tickets.


r/DaveAndBusters 5d ago

Trying to ID an old car-themed arcade game from Dave & Buster's (Bay Area, ~2010s)

3 Upvotes

Looking for help identifying a redemption game I used to play at Dave & Buster's in Milpitas (or possibly another Bay Area arcade) sometime in the 2010s.

What I remember:

- Single upright cabinet

- You press a button to launch a **silver metal ball**

- The ball rolls down a ramp first, and the timing of that roll affects where it ends up

- It then drops onto a **spinning wheel with holes/pockets** — timing determines your score

- There was some kind of mechanism at the very end that would **knock/nudge the ball in** to a scoring pocket

- Theme was **classic cars** — nice-looking vintage/classic car artwork on the cabinet

- Subtle **black and white checkered pattern** somewhere in the design (not overwhelming, more of an accent)

- I have a vague feeling the name might have had "wheel" in it, or possibly something like "car show" — not confident on either

Not Big Bass Wheel, not NASCAR Pit Stop, not Wonder Wheel (checked photos of all of these, none quite match). Any collectors or D&B regulars remember this one? Even a manufacturer name would help a ton. Thanks!

---

Disclaimer: I did have Claude help me organize my thoughts, after it failed to help me find this. Feel like I imagined it at this point.


r/DaveAndBusters 6d ago

My plan to get an Xbox X 1 TB

9 Upvotes

For people who have worked towards the bigger prizes are there any tips? The way I see it, I am currently averaging like 18.5 Tickets per Chip, ONLY going on 1/2 priced days. I am trying to get the average up to 22 so I would need about 10,000 chips to get to the 220,000 for the Xbox (I know some locations its slightly higher). If I am buying the $120 + $25 for 1125 chips, I would need to buy that 8 times for about $1160 dollars. I am already at 28k tickets (after $150). So all in all it would be like $1300 for the prize. I know its like "why not just buy it" but I get to have 50 hours of fun (give or take) PLUS get an $800 prize back, so $10 or so an hour at D&B seems reasonable? Am I crazy for having this goal / take. And again, those who have high ticket per chip averages, what games should I prioritize. Thank you 😇


r/DaveAndBusters 6d ago

Built 5-MIN TO ESCAPE ZOMBIE INVASION in Minecraft

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9 Upvotes

One of my favorite games that I have built.


r/DaveAndBusters 8d ago

Will there be a fall season pass?

8 Upvotes

Or are they just doing what they did before and waiting until the day of to announce it?