I gotta remember that Covid played a role in all this.
Some of us burnt up some of our piggy bank money when work slowed down.
Some of us sell 2 or 3 of our older machines to buy the next big thing rather than using saved money.
There are still some good deals out there if you have cash and can get there first.
-Mike

Became hooked on this hobby in 1988 and bought many, many project machines.
I'd say about 10 years ago projects for realistic prices dried up so that was the end
of that. A few have trickled in since then the last being a Lost World 3 years ago.

Been here 6 yrs now, i think i always got one a yr until covid hit and people got bored at home jacking prices up( and parts shortages so no new stuff). Im out at current prices, and am considering liquidating. I cant pay 10k for a newer one and 4000 for a beater. I aint blaming people, if they can afford it, great more power to them. Theyre the ones who will have to carry the hobby for awhile until prices stabilize.

To give you an idea of how much has truly changed, my first two machines cost the same as today’s newest topper. Both beautiful examples(not mint but nice): Lethal Weapon 3 and Bally Party Zone.

Over the years, bought projects, fixed, kept then sold/traded. Only two times I’ve invested straight cash: my first two mentioned above, and my Rush Premium from earlier this year.

Other than Rush, nothing really jumped out and said it was worth that kind of money to me. There’s a lot of great games sure, just nothing I really had to have, especially at those prices. Too many other things I can do/have done with that money.

So to answer your initial question: I was priced out, as soon as I bought my first two machines, lol. Not because of affordability, more sensibility, needs to make sense on why I’d acquire something else.

As long as I can get my money back when I sell I don’t feel priced out. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to pay 10K for a game I once paid 2400 for.

Bought for seven years or so until covid hit. Was up to 14 or 15 games. I am down to four and could see myself selling down to two at these prices, especially with all the spots to play in Minneapolis.

I bought my first game in 1982 when I was 17. I bought the cheapest games I could find slowly increasing until I bought a show game NIB in 2015 when I was 50. I bought a Godzilla LE last year. So it took me 33 to 40 years to be able to "afford" this hobby.

My first game was 1969 that I bought, and my last 6 years ago!

When New Games were $4K to $5K, and then depreciated after a year or two, good buys on newer games were Averaging $3-$4K
Then you could afford, do a little work, play, and sell to the next person, often meaning you could "rent" a game for no more than $200 a year or less!

Nothing like that today, and as I age, its easier for me to drop $20 in the local arcades, than $10K, for it to sit in my home!

My other hobbies split, some getting more expensive, and others dropping, but less space, and money, for the same amount of "fun time"

Turn back the clock so Im 30 again, and I would have a different answer

Today, its an expensive hobby, for higher income and home space, when I felt it use to be a garage hobby, with cheap beer!

I only paid 5 figures twice and those were both HEP restores of top 90s pins. I'm not doing it for anything new. They're not worth it.

At $12k+ JJP can get lost. Stern isn't far behind with their $10k Premium models. I'm probably done with them as well.

I liked CGC better when their classics were $6k. Now they're $8k. That's pushing it.

Spooky pins cost too much now, especially considering the design flaws and reliability issues. That gets old real fast at $9k+.

I still like American Pinball. I bought a Hot Wheels Deluxe for $7k this year.

Pretty soon, if not already, I'll be buying resale only. These companies have all but lost my business.

Prices are too high, but there is some competition. American Pinball has my attention now. I've owned two of their games in the past and will mostly likely be buying both of them again. There is value there. I am not seeing it anywhere else right now. It's a shame - JJP was supposed to be the best. Toy Story is bare compared to other new releases.

Well 4 years ago i bought my first nib and now i have an 11 pin lineup thats always changing. Bond LE on order too. So i guess I havent gotten burned out just yet.

i will admit at 11 though Ive hit space limit. Its just trading or selling to replace now.

I have bought, sold and traded a little over 200 pinball machines. 20 years ago getting DMD games were quite easy at $200-$800. Titles like TAF and TZ were a little higher at $1200-$1800. Usually pin purchases were multi game deals so picking up 2-10 games at the same time was common. I have not done a multiple game deal since around 2010. When Stern released ACDC with the 3 different tiers is when prices I felt started to increased. The used pin market followed the same pricing trend when new games got more expensive.

I am right there with you, almost identical story for me. Started in 1999, and used to buy packages quite often.

My hard limit used to be 3500, and I broke it at 3600 to grab a really nice CV. Now my hard limit is 5K, and I will probably spend a little more than that if the right deal comes along.

None of them are keepers, they are just toys, so I will spend a little more on a machine if it is a good deal and I only lose a couple hundred when I go to sell.

I'm almost you - lol
Started in 2011 and bought 2 a year. Sold a few. Got most of the games I liked and wanted. Bought a new Stern in 2019 - IMLE.
The 2020 brought about a job change for the better - but disposable income is going to other areas. And 2020 pins too expensive.

So I was out of the buying game since 2020. I'll just play the pins I have.

I know it’s mentioned every time a topic like this comes along. People truly are being priced out, pins are simply getting to expensive. When people mention TAF for 800-1200, that’s not priced out, not even at $6k or maybe even more. When NIB pins have become so expensive and it’s commonplace for a NIB to cost half as much as a new car or even a third of the cost of a new car, it has gotten to expensive. People can only sell so many “older” pins to justify the NIB purchases.

I’ve been saying this, but there will be a pinball desert again if the manufacturers keep on overpricing these toys. I personally don’t see the ultra rich even continuing to buy all the new stuff coming out.

One of the things that made this hobby what it is was the “affordability” one could have multiples. Didn’t mind loosing a percentage to trade for something else. Now its hard to loose that same percentage because it’s become so expensive. I collected pinballs because I couldn’t afford to collect cars in multiples.

New games I’m VERY close to priced out. I’ve been buying and selling since 2014 but luckily I’ll be out of room soon so then I’ll have to sell to buy and won’t have to shell out as much to get the next game.

Basically what im thinking. For the most part as prices go up many of our games go up with it. So if im selling to buy a nib its not a ton of money to shell out.

This is part of the scenario I described. What happens when you run out of games to swap out? How many two for one deals are you going to make before you are down to one machine.

These prices cannot sustain and this hobby grow. It’s not pinball doomsday and it’s not the old saying that people have been saying for the last 20 years.

Only new game I'll buy after selling a game at this point is the matrix or Harry Potter....

I've been priced out for a straight up purchase for a few years, just can't do it man.

The last six months or so I’ve been able to whittle down a little bit of the collection by selling older games to pick up newer games. Seems like I will be doing that for the foreseeable future

Never. None. Haha. Sell one buy one. Never do a two for one.

Started with old 70's EM games bought some SS 80's games never could bring myself to spend 10k on an AF or MM or any other games of that era played a lot of new games in arcades and get bored after 2 hours ,so can't see spending that kind of money ....my most expensive machine is a Vpin with the 90's and later games on it ....i usually play the 70's ems I grew up with in my teens so I guess you could say I have been out of the market for a while but I enjoy what I have
and really not looking to add to it

2014....first NIB....TWD PRO

2016-2018 last NIB, or whenever they broke $5,000

Bought used HUO after that.

Had 12 or 13 machines at purge time.

Sold everything off 2020-2021 as I realized how much money was sitting in the garage not being played.

Now I just spend $25/day couple times a year and visit arcades and frequent the shows.

A jump from $4,600 for a NIB PRO in 2014 to $7,000 for a NIB PRO in 2022, that's just nuts to me.

I already feel priced out
Doesn't seem like they will come down anytime soon, or ever.
No plans to stop buying! Mostly it's the room for more issue. Anyone have a solution for that?

I'm at the hoping my dog starts crapping gold stage.

It's heading to near impossible to earn on them or count on resale after to recoup enough.

LTG : )

Everyone is priced out until/unless "x" is released. Fortunately for manufacturers "x" is always someone's! It's like the new age anylitcs in sports. We can keep saying it's not a bitch thread to try and wish it into existence but I wish I was I'm sooner than 2015 to cash in more titles not the opposite the way others are implying!

I pretty much feel this way about retro video games. I got into collecting them back in 2008 when very few people were buying old games. I used to go to the flea market and fill two backpacks full of games and rarely ever broke $100 doing so. Thrift stores and garage sales were also a gold mine back then. Now, many of those games i picked up 10+ years ago for a few bucks now sell for $50+, some even well into the hundreds. I've been telling myself for the past 5 or 6 years that if i'd been interested in getting into the hobby currently, I'd have probably never even got myself off the ground with collecting.

Unfortunately I can't say I'm among people that got into buying pins back in the good ol' days when they were way cheaper. I'm only 35 and only recently did I acquire a house and the income to buy pins which is something I've wanted to do for a long time now. Sadly most of the pins I want are also the ones that many other people are after too, so they're all pretty much $8000+, save a few. i imagine that once I'm ready to start buying I may be getting them at a rate of one per year, two a year if I'm lucky. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if one every other year becomes the norm. I envy many of the posters above that have been doing this for nearly as log as I've been alive.

I never able to afford any NIB and I got priced out during the covid, I mean those A graded pins. Anyway I am working extra hours since 2019 so I can buy a pin that I like as well as I can offer. This is limited to system 11 and older Stern.

Not so much being priced out just disgusted by the hobby and manufacturer greed

I pretty much stopped 7ish years ago when everyone and their mother started hounding all the marketplaces and bidding up games unseen and trying to steal games from other people.

The hobby used to be fun to find games you like in a reasonable condition and bring them back to glory. Then people got flat out ugly and obsessive buying anything out there fueled by the idea of flipping anything and everything. It totally made it unfun to find new games as it became a race and so cut throat while people blatantly abused everyone around them in the chase of a dollar.

New games? That's why we have locations. You'd wait for the 'gotta have it' buzz wears off and buy the proven winners. But then in the last 5 years everyone thinks pinball is an investment asset and no one wants to sell for less than they bought it anymore.

All of this is fueled by the influx of people. I'm just holding out hoping the tide eventually turns.

Not priced out, but rather I already have the games I was looking for as keepers and also the fact that the new games that have been coming out since WoZ just don't do anything for me. The themes just are not my taste.

John

I bought 10 NIB Sterns between 2005 and 2010, all priced between 4000-4400 shipped, except Avatar LE which was around 5200 shipped. Those were the glory days!

Between 2011 and 2022 I bought 6 NIB, so pinflation has taken it's toll.

And to all you new guys happy to pay 10k now, can't wait to hear you bitching in ten years when the MSRP for Premiums is 22K.

I have five 90's Bally/Williams machines that I bought between 1999 and 2005. I paid $3500 for AFM and felt really guilty thinking I was spending recklessly for a game. It didn't help that my neighbor's wife told my wife, "I would never let my husband spend that much on a game".

Funny part, she spends $3000 all the time on a new purse. Not kidding.

Anyways, that was the last machine I ever bought. My house is paid off, I'm retired since 53 yrs old and my wife still works as a registered nurse. I can easily afford (not bragging, just putting it in perspective) pinball machine prices today, but there's no way I would pay todays' prices. It could be a psychological thing for me, since I bought all my machines for $3500 and under. AFM, T2, TZ, MB and IJ.

stupid poors, just buy more money

This is my greatest fear. If pinball machines aren’t on location anymore or it costs $5 per game this hobby is in trouble. Its already to a point where fewer and fewer locations exist due to not being able to earn money on the investment. Unless you have a bar to support the cost.

Personally, Im priced out and have been. At least for new games. Good thing there are plenty of older games I want.

The newest game I own is GOTG, and I bought that when newer second-hand games were selling below NIB prices. The minute that things reversed and second-hand premiums and pros were selling above NIB prices on the secondary market was basically when I felt priced out of the market.

That was probably my last significant game purchase, though I've bought a few lower value projects since then.

Most of the classic games that were high on my wish list are in my possession. I have plenty of projects to keep me busy for several years, so I'm in no rush to buy anything.

I had Met premium, LOTR, TSPP, and WOZ on my list, but I thought were a little pricey back then, and now it's crazy what they're selling for. I'm not touching those titles at current prices. There are a few newer titles I'd like to own too (AIQ prem, Rush prem, TBL), but I have no interest at current prices.

Anything I've been selling lately are games that I don't expect to ever see again in my collection since I'm not interested in re-buying them at current prices. And pinball pricing trends rarely go down, so...adios to those titles.

Since pricing has been so crazy in pinball, I kind of have spent more time with the film props & costumes hobby the last few years. But that hobby also had an explosion of interest, driving prices way up. So, it's not just pinball that's gone nuts.

I got in pretty late - about 6 years ago. First machine was a TAF for $4500. Had some planking and mansion magnet burn but it was a solid machine. Stupidly sold it to fund something else…. A Twilight Zone maybe (which I still have )

I’ve bought and sold about 30 games in the past 6 years - many of them projects. Those are all gone, none to be found. Bought my last NIB (HWN) last year. No theme, no mech (do new games have cool mechs anymore?!) is $12K interesting to me.

I’ve got only 6 games right now - HWN, GZ, TZ, DW, MB (original), and EHOH. Thinking of selling half the collection

Recency Bias is a thing.

The world is constantly changing so it’s best to adapt and change your metric also. If your metric is - any pin you buy will not only hold value ok but go up, well that is a pretty darn high metric. Those days are probably gone. Best to Adapt. You had a good run though so be grateful.

Keep yourself grounded with the thought of these things are amusement toys. They don’t save lives. If you have one in your house you are probably doing fine. Fine is great!

Pinabll has been around 100 years. If you don’t buy or do buy it will likely be around for many decades longer. It’s bigger than your views and opinions and emotions and feelings.

So Keep your feelings and emotions in check and adapt to look at what has been logically going on “I never lost a dime owning these games for “blank” number of years” and if that really made sense?? If you don’t you will likely dig in with bias and prejudice and even anger and bitterness and the worst “name calling”. Ugh.

Folks who call other pinabll owners, “the marketplace”, companies etc bad names are the worst. They never get it. Why? Because why would they? Anyone sitting back behind their “lines in the sand” from a year ago, 2,3,4……and still name-calling? Doesn’t sound fun to me. Line in the sand Ok. Name calling - hard Pass!

Just buy the toy of your choice if you want or don’t. Pinaball will just go on and do what it does and probably outlive all of us anyway.

All IMHO.

This right here. When the operators are feeling priced out (I have similar feelings) the manufacturers are in real trouble. I’d still spring for a Stern pro but nothing else at this point. I know the home market is larger market share than location but locations are what hook new customers.

I got my first game in 2003, DE star wars and quickly followed with a DE JP. I didn’t buy another game until 2008. For my 30th birthday I got my first NIB.

I bought a game or two a year after that. About 2018 is the magic year for me. The games just seemed like they got so expensive. Since I am into family fun center/barcade I just moved to Vids.

Got to be honest even with Vids I feel I am being priced out and I do pretty decently financially.

My kids are in private school and playing every sport know to man. So maybe if that was not the case I would be still buying but I don’t see any NIBs in my future.

Also almost every game I have is a keeper. So I am not willing to move something proven for something shiny.

I think Stern is aware of this, and it is largely why the Pros exist in the first place. Hopefully they stay at a good margin from the Premiums

We operate as well.. and in that case the high prices aren't that big of a deal because the high prices are matched with high residual value. It's more about having the capital available to hold up in the piece of equipment and the opportunity cost. If you are comparing against a piece of equipment that earns a ton better (say.. a popular driver).. the high pinball price stinks. But if you are comparing against another pin... like a $6k recent stern vs a $9k 'latest and greatest'.. the 9k isn't as ugly. It will earn well generally as a new game, it will be a location draw, and when you goto sell it its still going to be a 7k or better residual (these days..).

Unless the game is a turd which means no earnings and a quick drop in residual... the high costs are largely offset by the high residual. Which is why I complain more about Stern's parts and their support of operators than I do about MSRP.

Good topic. For me it was godzilla timeframe on new games. I bought a Jurassic park premium for $7400 and then when Godzilla came out and the price increased to $8900 8 months later I was basically over paying those prices.

Similar to the OP I started buying a ton of games around 2014. Slowed way down recently now that premiums are in the $9000 range and games that I used to pick up around 2-3 are 4-5.

I have been in this hobby since 1999/2000...bought my first pin which was a T2 for $1K. Then my next was a TZ for $1400.....a Indy Jones for $1400 etc, etc....I think it's all perspective...I could afford to buy machines back then because they were "reasonably" priced. I really wanted a MM back in those days and one sold for $3K at an auction and I was FLOORED! NO WAY would I pay $3K for a pinball machine!! Fast forward 10 years and I paid $7,200 for my MM...haha! Difference is, that even though machines have gotten more expensive, I wasn't in a position to buy NIB games when they were 4, 5, or 6K NIB. I wish I was, but I wasn't. I had all the A list DMD's I wanted back in the early 2000's...then when machines started to get more expensive, I switched to 80's SS machines and EM's since they were still fairly priced....fast forward to now and I just sold 5 machines to help pay for my Alien LV that I put a deposit on....I am down to 3 machines from 8 and at the peak, I owned 11 machines.....I decided now that I am using the money from the 5 I sold to help pay for the Alien and then a GZ and then over the next few years, I will be focused on newer 2010 and up machines......BUT I won't ever have as many as I used to anymore. To finally answer the question, I don't think I have ever felt priced out, but my priorities weren't on buying pinball machines for about the last 10 years....now I am starting to buy again, but it will take a LOT longer to save up the money because the prices are so high now. I used to sell machines to buy others, but now I am out of machines to sell....so I will just have to save for a while.

I was a Stern Premium buyer for many years until recently. The last Stern game I bought this year was a PRO. I could not justify the price difference between the pro and Premium models any longer.