As prices keep going up, operators are going to be asking themselves “How do I make any money on this again ?” Some crappy redemption games for sure can go in the $10K range, but I’ll let Dave and Busters play in that realm. Most arcade games for anything retro are well below $5K, usually below $1K. Same for used redemption games (if not turned into firewood). And the demand is higher for arcade than pins for your generic arcade going customer. A lot of arcades you will see maybe 2 pins. As these prices go up it may well turn into no pins. I mean this is all fine and good, Stern is clearly leaning more into the heavy monied home market, and that’s their call. But I still gotta ask, how long does that last for ? If you can’t cater to garnering a new era of pin playing kids due to lack of public availability of these newer machines you are long term shooting yourself in the foot. The nostalgia in 10 years will end up being for *cough* Cyclone and not the good kinda Cyclone. It’s all good short term, but a terrible long term approach.

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All businesses are encouraged to put a dollar today ahead of a possible future dollar tomorrow, next week, or next year. Don’t blame them at all. It’s a sound business choice bringing supply demand curve back into balance. They are for sure leaving money on the table if they don’t do this. The only issue is Blockbuster did that too. As a business in it for the long haul (and Gary definitely meets that criteria) he has to be looking at what his next act here is for Stern. If it is something other than pinball, more power to him, fill the coffers and figure out how to spend it on what is next. If it supposed to be pinball, where are the customers in 10 years coming from ? I just don’t see as many with this strategy.