You say for the sake of the hobby... but most people here arn't accountants trying to be part of the hobby based upon cost and appreciation. They're here to play pinball.. not to worry about the price of pinball.

C'mon dude...."for the sake of the hobby"?

BBB is a great game that almost no one gets to play/own. Most of us will not pay insane prices for one....but many of us would buy one at a reasonable price. That's good for the hobby. More pinball out there, more BBB for the public to enjoy.

Simply put - I'd rather see pins like Kingpin made - which I think like 4 are in existence - than BBB which had a small run but at least a run. Wizardblocks is another. To your point - to play pinball.

There's a whole other thread on remakes versus nostalgia and hunting for the rare pins. Yes, we are all here to play pinball. But can't ostrich the fact that in every hobby the thrill of original condition & rarity does play a factor in enjoyment.

I laugh every time I see someone type this. I think much of this is bogus. Everyone hopes and wants their pins to increase in value. Why wouldn't you? They're big investments. Don't act like its a shameful act to treat your pins as investments... gimme a break!

Play them, enjoy them... and YES, its okay to hope they go through the roof!

Next time in Chicago you are welcome to enjoy this pin in my collection. Part of the fun of the hobby is sharing each others collections. If everyone had the same games, getting together would be a tad less enjoyable. Still enjoyable for those nit picking words.

I'd rather see Kingpin or Wizardblocks be made first as well but I think BBB has to happen first in order for these to follow. Reason being that Kingpin and Wizardblocks aren't a known commodity. I haven't played either of them and neither has most of the pinball community. PPS would have to drag a prototype machine to all the shows so that everyone could play one before making a decision to plop down $8K. BBB on the other hand is already a proven winner that many collectors have already had the chance to play. Demand is already there for a run of 1000, and they wouldn't have to do a dog and pony show to sell them. Even with close to 200 units out there, BBB still has a lot more demand currently than either Wizardblocks or Kingpin. Add a color DMD, an exclusive BBR mode, shaker motor, and some color changing LED zones and you've got a major hit on your hands!

I don't know... If I had an option for pricing and availability of games to go back to where they were 9 years ago when I first started this hobby I think I'd take it.. Even if that meant that my current machines were worth less than they are today. It's all relative.

I'd gladly have all 44 of the games in my collection be worth only $100 each, if all pinball machine titles were $100 each.

Well, I don't own a BBB (would love to, but not at current asked prices) but I have played 3 different games at regular intervals. And I still love it.
First occurrence was in the twin cities... thanks LTG for making yours available in SS Billiards !

Yeah, I've played it a ton....and look - I'm not losing sleep over not having one. I'm just saying that I'd like to have one at a "reasonable" price, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Only way I'd buy one is if it was ~$8k ...current owners would never take that amount, so re-make would be the only option. If it never happens - life goes on, there's other stuff to do.

Well, that isn't reality so instead you're gonna hope they go through the roof like the rest of us...

I'd rather they stay cheap.

Most of my games I bought new, routed, and then restored.

They paid for themselves decades ago.

LOL, I totally agree. Anytime you say anything about the market value of your game somebody always comes back with the old "I play my games rather than worry about the value".

I agree with this whole heartedly as well. I have always said there are tiers and groups of pins always in the same price point. Example: High Speed and Taxi are around the same amount of money give or take condition. I don't care if they go down to 600$ each, as long as I can trade my Taxi for another pin, I am fine with any price drop that happens.

Yes, and I'd gladly have all of the sports cars that I've owned be worth only $1000 each, if all sports cars were $1000 each.

It's fun to dream.

Rarity is important to collectors for investment or show-off privileges. To players, rarity is just a hindrance to playing.

I've been collecting for the better part of a decade and have yet to run across anyone with a BBB, so to me it's as rare as KK or WB. I agree with you, re-running a game with thousands in existence is a money grab while re-running a relatively non-existent game is akin to releasing a brand new game for the masses who have never seen or touched one. I'm all for doing that.

A money grab, or the free market at its finest?

Rick is not selling $200 sheets of plywood after a hurricane.

(def; Money Grab - An undignified or unprincipled acquisition of a large sum of money with little effort.)

I can't help but wonder what these would sell for if they were listed at 'no reserve.'
(assuming only ONE was listed---NIB)
Anyone care to guess?

I think 13-1K5 is about tops what people are willing to currently pay for rare pins with no reserve.

Hard to give a good average as it seems to be broken down by generation.

Boomers tend to have more disposable income and are usually the buyers for the high end restores/rares

Gen-Xers (my generation) start sweating when the tag goes above 6K

Gen-Yers seem to be snapping up the B-List titles, driving their prices up, much to my chagrin

Mellenials are going to be in school and on their parent's insurance until they are 26, so it'll be a few more years until we can see how they'll enter the market

At least $17,500-$18,500 easy… I am a buyer at $17,500 for sure and probably go to $18,000. I know at least one other guy that would also take one at these prices. NIB I would be in at $21k, possibly a little more.

The challenge for these super expensive pins is the buyer/sellers location. Usually you want to buy/sell these in person without shipping...

LOL! Good one! And its not even April 1st…

I meant, on average. Of course there will be serious collectors that will pay more. But people in that financial position are not the majority.

Is there a difference?

I don't think they will. Their idea of entertainment will be submersing themselves in VR ( Oculus Rift etc) and traversing the multi-verse. This disruptive technology will render most forms of entertainment obsolete very soon. I sadly think the hobby dries up almost completely in the next 10 to 15 years and these games will be considered paperweights.

I remember everyone thinking the same thing on the mid-90s. VR really didn't take off. And I still want my flying car, dammit! LOL. 3D TV really didn't take off either.

I think something the death stroke for pinball and modern gaming will come from left field. 3D/VR has failed in how many different decades now?

You must not have any idea what is possible today, if you think the VR of today is anything like the VR of the early 90's? I work on simulation equipment and some of the things I've been privy to are quite impressive and immersive. When you have multi-billion dollar companies backing VR (Facebook, Sony) the sky is the limit. The haptic controls, screen resolution and tracking systems they have now were only a pipe dream even 10 years ago. It's only a matter of time, it will happen and so will the eventual slide of most other forms of entertainment including pinball.

Notch hates Facebook. Well, at least he thinks it is creepy. No Minecraft for you!

You may be correct, I will keep an eye peeled for signs of the big game changer which will surely establish itself early on in the porn market segment. If and when, I'll try and pull myself away long enough to put up a FS post or two.

Forgive me for being skeptical about VR. I've heard the same thing in the 90s, 2000s and now this decade.

"The technology we have today is lightyears ahead of last decade............"

And the tech has flopped every time.

Don't take this as a personal attack on your viewpoint, Honch. Just what I gather from my experience. I also don't hear the younger generation talking about the tech much.

Hell, Minecraft is all the rage right now and thats about N64 level of tech, maybe, SNES, right?

Yes, a Money Grab involves no effort .

MMr is a huge, 2 year undertaking.

Back in college, I worked at a virtual reality arcade. We had four standup and two sitdown units. The software was run on Amigas. The standup game was called Dactyl Nightmare. It was incredibly fun. I spent so many hour in that helmet that I'm sure I'll develop brain cancer at some point.

Virtuality.jpg

Did you work at North Pier? That's where I remember playing those. Even back then, those kinda sucked with the blocky polygons and shit framerate. I'd play those once and go back to Mortal Kombat 2 lol

I worked at Randhurst. My brother worked at the North Pier location. I got him the job there. North Pier was really nice. Besides the VR stuff, they had a great laser tag arena, and a killer arcade. Yes, the graphics sucked on Dactyl Nightmare, but the game was pretty revolutionary at the time. Keep in mind, this was a VR 3D first person shooter in the pre-Doom era.

Funny, but so true.

No problem, I don't. If I wasn't tied into the industry, I might be skeptical too. I look forward to seeing what happens either way, it will be interesting.

This is the last thing I'll post regarding VR. If you're interested, this website is one of my favorite for what's happening now.

http://www.roadtovr.com/

I suppose if you make a boat load of money with dignity then there would be. I hope to someday test this out

VR is not the issue. Phones and iPads are. Kids move father away from Pinball style of playing to connectivity and games that are at their fingertips at all times.
Hope to be wrong but I see big changes.
Music is the big sign. Every generation was tied to music and while pop is still around music is no longer a core bond of the youth.
Again, no need to meet at shows or be bonded by artists now that they have FB. Social play and connections are morphing every day.
The big pin craze of the last few years was a demographic looking for its past. There are not many more groups with that past to search for.

I played the one at north pier, as well as battletech (which also ran on amiga, I believe an A3000). I don't remember which podcast (perhaps brokentoken), but some anime show down in atlanta brings like 4 of those pods to the show, which are really big and heavy. I also played a demo of some parachute demo on the VR at some college demo, I believe the guy said that system cost something like $70k (which was a lot back then, still a lot today).

VR today is not the VR of the 90's. VR back then had horrible graphics, horrible object detection, had mono display, horrible interface (the dacytl nightmare didn't do a good job of head tracking so ducking was hit or miss), plus you were tethered in the back which made moving around very difficult. From the demos I've watched of oculus rift, and reviews I've read, it's the most amazing experience. From the offset displays to create a truly 3d effect, to the HD display, to the lag correction to reduce headaches. Also Oculus rift is under $300 which is incredible for what you get (home VR helmets typically cost $800, and they were horrible).

I envision one day every pinball table being recreated in 3d, and stepping up to any machine you want in VR with an immersive experience. You'll be able to nudge, tilt, look as closely as you want to any detail on the machine, heck even open the backbox for old times sake. The physics will be 95% close to the real thing.

I won't say pinball will totally go away, but it will still stick around for those that want to experience the real thing. I'd compare it to driving any car in a simulation (PC with a hydraulic chair that spins and tilts back and side-to-side, and simulates bumps in the road, and vibration, and a 3-tier wrap around LCD display) and drive any car I want, where every car is setup just like the real thing. Will it be the same? Nope, but it'll be 95% close, and 20 times more affordable.

You're right, free market is a better term in this case. PPS recognized an unmet demand, have made an effort to fulfill it at less than the going market rate for MM, and despite skipping the entire game design process, they did make an effort to modernize the hardware. MM is an exception to most other games so I am curious to see how future efforts go.

No, not yet, but they will be one and the same eventually. Mobile phone technology is driving the VR train.

Toyotaboy pretty much summed it up.

One showed up on Mr. Pinball last night. This makes four for sale now.

Three on ebay (Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia) and one on Mr. Pinball (Connecticut).

If I owned a BBB (I don't), and then saw some clodhopper list HIS for $29,000 on EBAY, I might be tempted to undercut him and list mine for a little cheaper. Maybe that is all that is happening here.
I'll get a chance to play it at the Ann Arbor Pinball Museum on the 17th. Will it be the "best pinball ever made"?
I doubt it.

report back, when youve played it.

There would be five if i owned one, that's crazy cash for a pinball machine.

I played one at TPF in 2013. It was a fun playing game but I couldn't here the sound in the gameroom. I thought it was a fun game. The art was fantastic as well. I had more fun playing some of the A-list Bally/Williams titles, though.

Same here. Played it last year at CalEx and thought it was a blast, although I wish I could have heard it. I remember it was next to Kingpin so I kept going back and forth.

I'm surprised there is any speculation at all as to why there are three for sale on eBay right now when they rarely came up for sale in the past. All expensive machines run at least some risk of a remake.

The fact that PPS was seen as having a BBB may or may not mean they're going to remake it, for all we know they did it simply to poke the BBB bubble because they want to buy them all up Maybe they are announcing the BBBr after they ship their first MMr and to top it off have already had a dream team of programmers redo all of the software to make it the best ruleset ever including a full color LCD HD animated display and internet connectivity (ok, back to reality).

Just surprised there is any shock, I think we would all be more shocked if BBB's were NOT experiencing a firesale. Previously there was no risk perceived and now there is. That's all.

Fire sale? LOL, I haven't seen any posted for less than $20k and there are buyers in the $18k range. Fire sale!

sshhhhh don't post facts when I'm trying to spread a firesale rumor

How else will I ever pick up a BBB

At least you're the first one to admit what's really going on here...