Love and respect ya Lloyd, but that's not the case anymore. There are now way more buyers than supply for all the recent good Stern and CGC titles. Because of this, buyers are happy to find a Jurassic Park or Deadpoo or AFMr for sale, routed or not.

Most people are now coming to the realization that condition is king. And as long as the condition is good, then you will find a full-priced buyer for your routed game no problem. And plays are plays, whether at home or on location.

Agree on the resale thing. But honesty, I think its been a long time since most operators held onto a game long enough for it to pay for itself.

Also, I'm a hobbyst OP myself, so I have some skin in this game.

These days, homeowners are a huge pinball buying market. And so are hobbyist operators. Home buyers and hobbyists aren't suddenly gonna disappear in 10 years, that doesn't make sense. I'm 35, and I foresee still being into pinball when I'm 45. As location/route buying declines, homeowner/hobbyist buying increases. Just look at the pandemic sales. It certainly wasn't locations that were buying the majority of pins in 2020 and 2021.

Yes, it's sadly true that the traditional routers/locations may not make it doing pinball anymore. But bar arcades, pinball collectives, and unique places like Ayce Gogi will still be there to fill the public's pinball playing needs. In Sioux Falls, our local bar arcade is doing gangbusters and has consistently added to it's pinball lineup the last 3 years, and our local pinball collective (The Pinball Room) is doing great too. But in all of these cases, pinball is either not the primary money earner, or not the primary source of the owner's income.

Right, and I listed 3 different types of public pinball locations that aren't necessarily in decline.

Also, my dad is/was a route technician, so my introduction to pinball is different than most people's I'd guess. My reintroduction to pinball came from The Pinball Arcade PC software. Playing digital pinball gave me the itch to play the real thing, and a visit to the Seattle Pinball Museum cemented my love. And the Seattle Pinball Museum is, as it happens, a pay-at-the-door type of place, to bring the discussion back around to pricing.

I have no idea of the actual age-demographics of the pinball hobby these days. Most of the guys who play in our leagues and tourneys around here are under 50, if not 40, and when I watch the big tournaments on Twitch, there's a good split of ages. The youtubers and streamers I watch also tend to be in the 25 to 45 age range too. But I fully admit that my pinball bubble may be skewed young, and so maybe I'm not getting the full picture.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. I don't necessarily think pinball and model railroading are comparable hobbies though. Model railroading is a more contemplative hobby, where most of the joy is in the building, painting, modeling, ect., whereas pinball is a more active hobby, where the playing is the main part of it. Although certainly repair and restoration would crossover. I think modern-day miniatures/model-based war games such as Warhammer, fill much of the same role as railroading did. Where painting and modeling go hand-in-hand with actually playing the game. The "play" part is an important distinction, as there's not much longterm play after you finish your railroad setup.

Ha, very true. I do that with my pins, but that's because I get my fill of most of them pretty quickly, so I need to constantly rotate to keep things fresh. Since my space and budget don't allow me to keep that many pins at once. I don't have the ability to have a complete System 11 collection like some people! (I envy you!)