I do wonder about the demographic changes, if any, of owners home use pinball machines. I got into the hobby over 20 years ago. It didn't seem like a high end hobby. Just lotsa people who liked to fix stuff up and play arcades. Now I don't know if it's that the technology has advanced where people can't easily fix stuff up themselves or another reason, but a lot of people (only based off of the posts I've seen), either don't know how to fix stuff and outsource repairs or only buy NIB. I dunno, if I was younger and saw this hobby and these prices I would have found another. I would leave auctions when they got to the dmd games because they were too rich for my blood in the late 90s early 2000s. I do wonder if the 80s and 90s pins will drop to almost EM prices did back in the day because there are newer more relevant licensed pins than Lost in Space or Apollo 13.
I agree the art is a huge draw for me. I don't get to play much, so at least something that is artistically appealing to look at is important. That's why Hard Bodies is probably going to be the next game to get promoted to an A tier game. But seriously, if I came into enough money to buy a NIB, it better check all the boxes, theme, gameplay and art. I get you can sell a game and not take too much of a hit, but to have 12k around at one time that you can park in a pinball machine is quite a fortunate and not common situation for a lot of people. So I would guess if 5 machines are being released in a year, your not gonna fine many people who are going to buy more than one that year. I don't think we're at saturation yet. We'll need a blockbuster theme that non-pinball people start talking about and your neighbors and buddies have it too. Then we'll be at saturation when they try to unload it at thier garage sale.
