I think boutique pinball is likely to be around for a long time. Times have changed and it is within more people's capacity to design and/or program a pinball machine. In order to survive you need to have several things executed properly. Obviously you will need a good, cohesive game design (hard- and software). If you don't have that then there is no need to continue (although some are trying).

The biggest hurdle seems to get manufacturing going. Building your own factory is a beast on its own. Some do not realize that they like designing games, but that doesn't mean you will like running a factory. Spooky is handbuilding every game, which takes time. Due to that they can't do the volume (yet) a company like Stern or JJP need to do in order to keep going. They choose to work like that, which is fine. It works for them and they are the 3rd largest pinball manufacturer in the world.

What would really help boutique pinball in general is if more parties would collaborate. JJP has their own hardware system, Spooky does, Gerry does, JPop does, Heighway does. Why invent the wheel over and over again? It would be far more interesting if all these boutique companies would be using the same hardware and software to build their games. Or have a choice of 2 available platforms, so there is a little bit of competition going on. It will be easier to fix things, and for parts suppliers it will be easier to stock those parts. Plus you don't have to invent the wheel yourself, which saves a lot of time. P-Roc is a great platform. If Spooky would make Ben's hardware available in a similar way, then I'm very interested to see what will happen. Boutique company A could then simply get a quote from both hardware suppliers for X number of boards for the games they expect to build. Based on that the price of the game may vari. Other parties may get involved and design hardware extensions for improved functionality, which will then be available for everyone. And pinball can evolve.

The same goes for manufacturing. Why build a factory of your own if someone else already built a factory for the same purpose? Collaborate and get the ball rolling faster. It will save you the time of inventing that wheel again, which as we have seen with JJP and Heighway is no easy task. If boutique pinball companies can collaborate on things like this, I think they may actually become larger (and sell more games) than they can do on their own.