I love pinball. The game. Playing. The "scene" these days, not as much.

I used to hunt down, buy, shop out and restore games non-stop. That's over due to burn-out (not to mention local deals never pop up anymore).

Went thru my NIB phase, but that's over as I haven't liked anything Stern has made post-Metallica. That'd be fine, I don't have to like everything, but they've actively made me detest them as a company with their rising prices, poor QC, weird/unfinished code, and arrogance.

Then there's the money-sucking boutique failures of Jpop, Skit, and DP.

I like Spooky, but not their games.

I like JJP, but not their prices.

The new side of pinball has some serious rot...and the hobby side has too many "NIB sycophants" who are still cool with the way these companies operate & happy to throw crazy $$$ at them.

All of this makes me kinda loathe "the scene". I still like my games (although I want to whittle down), I still like my pin friends. It's all good in that respect. I just don't have mad passion anymore, and am spending most of my gaming time playing Nintendo Switch (Splatoon 2 Splatfest starts tonite! Wooomy!!!!).