Allyn, WA
Costs can vary so much depending on what route you take.
If pinball is your only focus, no pinball company should start until they've developed the first whitewood in their spare time (whether it's one person, or a team). So long as everyone is doing it as a passion project, there's effectively no labor cost, and no overhead (knowing there's a deal to make a percentage for every pinball built). Like they say, you have your whole life to design the first pinball, but only a year to design the 2nd one.
Not to say it's easy once you have your first design done, but it certainly takes away some of the pressure. Obviously there's tons of work to do once you have a solid design (get prototyped components redesigned to be made in mass), create drawings for all components (with tolerances) setup a manufacturing floor, quality plans, testing plans.
