Quoted from xTheBlackKnightx:Buying the game as a pure investment is a complete concept failure.
A person should only buy this game as piece of technical pinball history and entertainment.
This has nothing related to Mr. Mitchell. The seller reputation is not in question or care for the machine. This does not negate enthusiasm for a sale. This is not about price. It is not about the manufacture history or challenges of Dutch Pinball. It is about the game itself. I must restate that this game should be treated as a pure prototype, not a production game. I am not sure if I can qualify it as a sample game, but the first small run was certainly close. Not everybody seems to understand this concern. It is evident by responses. In comparison, anyone that has inspected an original Capcom BBB for example and compared it to an IPB remake knows that the IPB was superior it its design, as fixed many problems from the prototypes. However, the prototypes always command a higher price because they were the original creations of Capcom, not just rarity. If you were not around either when that specific game was made (1994-1996), or remade (2004-2007), you cannot have an objective opinion.
Only a handful of people truly understand TBL functionality, the parts, or the proprietary design. Lack of available parts of the original game, incompatibility of the new sample games with the electronics, breakability of the lower bowling assembly, and other factors such as the schematic layout makes this have the potential to be a 300lb doorstop. I know because I have inspected/played the game before it broke, saw the vulnerabilities, and witnessed the problems afterward to get it functioning again. Right now, it is not worth the time or effort to correct from my company's perspective. Essentially, the operations manager is waiting to see if a complete boardset could be swapped in design (and potential "restart" of production), than trying to rebuild the entire game. This does not consider some mechanical issues, that still have to be addressed unrelated to electronics. They don't want me spending dozens of hours trying to create a new solution. Other people asked me for advice regarding upgrades or parts, and there is no present source, and the future as already reported remains unknown.
This is not the same as any low run prototype/sample game made by a primary manufacturer in the past at least the electronics were acquirable such as BBB, Krull, Going Nuts, King Pin, or even PtC. You cannot compare this to any of these from the past This game has no reference point, and requires a person with significant time and pinball experience to work around potential pitfalls, using aftermarket components, electronics engineering, and mechanical tool and die, when, not if, the game fails. Few high end collectors today are pinball technicians adept at dealing with proprietary new designs, rather than existing established ones. Many have been in the hobby for less than a decade today.
I can offer a comparison. The level of complexity concern here is similar to what I am doing presently with Merit Mega Touches that had the medical monitors die after warranty, parts wise. They simply were not available (and prohibitively expensive for those that were left), which they required me to figure out how to integrate/disassemble a modern Dell LCD screen and merge it with the touch screen and controller board, recut the mounting panels, remount all new PCBs, tap power from the main chassis, and get everything to be able to function and calibrate, not short out anything, all in the constraints of the existing platform space and not look like an amateur hack job. I suspect this is not something general hobbyists would relish.
These are the concerns, I offer to potential buyer, looking at the game from a technical point of view presently, not as a pure collectible.
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