Downvoting and browbeating are pretty awesome ways to get people to come around to your point of view!

Fact is location pinball isn't likely to make a comeback in LA. We don't walk here, we drive. Barcades like 82 will hopefully keep thriving, but we're not Portland, and we're not going to ever become that. (Shout out to Molly!)

I'll say the same thing I said to the other location shaming zealot, if you think location pinball here is such a great idea come operate pins here. Otherwise just stay in your lane and let us do our thing.

I don't even like most Sterns, but TRS is underrated. Play on.

This Newsome guy is obviously an irked operator who hasn't realized times have changed. Pinball is mostly for the home now...just is. Arcades are mostly dead. I say that a little hesitantly as pinball on location is still biggish in Portland, OR. I will play out in the wild when I can but it's hard to find time to, especially with the family in tow. They don't want to wait for me to play. At home it's so much easier and nicer. You can hear them, they are dialed in, play perfect, beer is readily available, comfortable shitter is twenty feet away. Perfect.

This was a serious question. If I could pay off a 8K game....or 5k for that matter in a reasonable amount of time by putting it on location I would consider it. I am afraid it would take more than a year....a lot more.

you've got me figured out. Damn!
Yes pin is huge in PDX.
And unless it makes a comeback in other cities it will be done for.
Overpriced Stern pins going to home collectors will not sustain pin.

I'm a player from about '88 on.

I just operate because that's what pins are supposed to do.

That's cool if that's what you want to do. If fact, I think that's awesome. But not everyone can do the same. Personally I think pins are supposed to be played. In the home or on location, doesn't matter. Play them! I choose to mostly play at home or in friend's homes.

I just eat the bubble gum and throw out the cards, because thats what you are supposed to do.

We all have different motives.

Arcade coin-op in general is just not that much of a money maker...that's just the reality of the modern age. Stand alone arcades *purely* for gaming are obsolete. People have all the gaming entertainment they want on their consoles/phones...this is nothing new. Pins/vids are usually paired with some other business element because it's near impossible to make a living from a pure gaming arcade. Barcades, for instance. They're not relying on the pins 'n vids to make a living...no, that's just a cool thing to get you in the door- money's made from drinks/food. Chuck E. Cheese type places...again, making most of the money off drinks, pizza, and redemption games.

Again, say what you will about collectors...we might not be the "savior of pinball", but we do buy overpriced Stern pins and that helps pay the bills & put food on the table for all the guys working there. We're doing our part, in our own way, to keep pinball going. As do location players. As do tournaments. All these things are important. It's silly to single out one party and insult them.

What production games are 8k?

Normally I would agree with you Rare Hero, but statistically you can prove that Pinside is way bigger than 5%. See Tron LE and X-Men LE, pinsiders own 40% of all them made, and that's not even counting the lurkers and people who don't fill out their profile (which is a lot of people). So the real number is probably over 50% for some of the LE's. If you look at like AFM, pinside owns 14% of all the AFM's ever made. I think on RGP it was less than 5% for sure, but pinside has taken it to a whole other level.

I've put more than a few coins into newsom's pins (was that Whodunnit at black cat yours as well?) but I don't see why collectors and operators can't get along.

It seems to me like an op would be making a bad business decision investing in an $8k pin. Just like a cabbie would be crazy to ply his trade in a Maserati. Doesn't mean Maserati is doomed, though.

That rug really tied the room together...

Unless pins can make money on location they might as well hang it up.
Home buyers have pumped up the price of pins in the last few years.

If pins can't earn on location they will be a conversation piece in a few years.

I know that you stated that pins will hold their value over the next decade, but if someone drops something that makes todays DMDs look dated, prices will drop like an anchor.

JJP took a couple steps in the right direction.

And they pissed on it.

Donny please.gif

Not my W?D.
I had a. W?D @ TH for a while.
It was also at John's Place in Fairfax for years.

Agree. Despite this, location play is doing fine and and is actually thriving in some areas. Now can you please stop telling us the arcade is dead? We already know this.

You guys buying the premiums and LE's have actually helped keep pro prices down. Thanks.

We're asking you to do more, like we are. You don't necessarily have to put your games out. Just go out of your way to support public games more often than you usually would. Play on location, compete in tournaments held in public locations and encourage your local league to play on location. If the games in your area are rough, drive a little farther and support good locations and ops.

Very much on topic is that the home market is nearing saturation. Game rooms are full and new home collectors aren't coming into the hobby nearly as fast as they were just two years ago. If you care about pinball and want to keep the hobby growing, the only place left for it to grow is amongst non-owners.

I've seen location play come back twice in my lifetime. Once in the 70's when The Who's Tommy album came out and again in the 90's. It can happen again, but we need your help. Playing in private locations 95% of the time doesn't help.

I'm secretly hoping for a huge collapse in prices. Games will get so cheap, operators will buy up HUO games cheap and put them out on location. Location play will coming screaming back and the circle will be complete. d

You know, this is a fascinating thread you started. The answer as I said before is I don't think we will really know for awhile. It got me thinking though. If you took apart a game and put the components out on a table, I wonder what the value would be. The electronics are not very expensive once you start cranking out the boards in quantity. You have a few dollars in coils. You add up the rest of it....the playfield parts and toys relevant to a particular game, cabinet (not expensive in quantity), raw wire, speakers and the playfield. If all this were in a pile....and anyone that has been around this stuff for awhile can at least visualize this in your head if you haven't actually torn a game down...I don't know...there just isn't that much in hard cost as far as materials go. I used to build video game cabinets back in the crazy video game era and they sure didn't cost much to build when you built in quantity.

So...I assume the vast majority of the cost is in the licensing, R&D, profit and labor. I don't know...I still don't see eight grand plus. In my opinion it used to cost far less to build a WMS game, which quite frankly were imo better made....they had to have been spending far more on the electronics, than it does to build a Stern game. So, the interesting element that I doubt any of us know is how many units does Stern sell of a "hit" title VS WMS games back in the day? Is Stern selling so few now that the ammorization costs are now disproportionately far higher than back in the 90's? I don't know the answer....I just find it an interesting question. If their success has to include $8500 games on most releases, I fear for their long term survival. I commend them for trying so hard to offer games for much less, along side their more expensive ootions. I didn't think that would work but so far it has. They have tried a lot of business models, including Costco (that must have been a total disaster...wish I were a fly on the wall during that time) and they keep on keeping on. I have a lot of respect for them and just hope they can find a way to continue without counting on $8500 games. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that Williams was selling far more games at $3200 than Stern is now and they still couldn't sell enough to make it worth their while to keep doing it. Depending on the home market seems far riskier to me. I applaud their efforts, but in the spirit of this thread I just have to reitterate that if I were forced to make a prediction today, Imo my answer would be no, the demand will not continue in any appreciable quantity for $8500 games. We'll see! Again, fun thread and lots of interesting opinions so far!

Home vs Location...

Playing on location makes sense assuming:
- games would be in pristine condition
- games would rotate and I could try new games
- sound volume would be turned "on" (last time I played ACDC on location, music was off... )
- I would meet friends there
- It would not only be an arcade, but have a bar, with other games (darts, etc)

Having games at home allows you:
- to play old games you would never find on location (EM, early SS... I love my spectrum, which was a turd on location)
- to play with the sound on
- to study the rules in depth
- to adjust the settings to your liking.
- to have parties and tourneys at home, invite friends - pinheads or not - some will enjoy it; some will ignore it.
- to make temporary exchanges with friends - this is why I have a TZ a home for now.

There was one arcade nearby. I used to go regularly but it closed. Now all we have left are a few bars with 1-2 pins, where we can organize small tourneys for our regional league, after adding a few of our own games with the help of the operator. That's cool, regular bar customers enjoy it.

No need to be so sensitive RH. I am not calling you out.

if nobody can produce a pin that the public wants to pay play, pin will die a slow death.

Home sales will not sustain pin.

Hopefully someone comes out with something that makes ST look like an EM.

We need some advancement in pin. Most players could not tell.you whether TAF or. ACDC were the newer game.

If the operators want us to come out of our own gamerooms to play, they are going to have to provide a better experience. I actively look for location pins to play, but I rarely go back a second time. A dimly lit pin with the volume turned down is just not all that much fun to play. There is a Star Trek Pro at a pizza joint in town that I would like to play, but I can't get the op to turn the volume up enough to hear it. I had the same problem with a Metallica Pro at a casino. I couldn't hear it at all. I went back five times, each time asking for the volume to be turned up, and it never happened. Now I play a Metallica Premium in my gameroom.

I was in Portland last year, and it was great for location play. I had a great time for the three days I was there. There were a lot of really nice pins, and for the most part, they were really well maintained, and the volume was decent. I visited a pinsider's gameroom while I was in town also, and his gameroom was probably the most impressive thing I have ever seen. Every pin was lit up really nicely, and the volumes of all the machines were perfect. Even in a great location town like Portland, the home gameroom provided a better experience.

Back here in Reno, there are over 100 pins that I know of on location. I play them once in a while, but not a single one of them offers an experience that can match the games in my gameroom. It is getting better, but the ops are still not planning to put the premium machines on their routes. Until that happens, location games will continue to be a fun addition to my gameroom, but there is no way they will replace it.

I just played a few game of Metallica with the lights out, and the volume up, and I just can't get that level of fun on location. I hope that changes someday.

But...one thing is very different my friend. And like me, it sounds like you have been around this a long time. There is simply no way in the world anyone can buy pinballs at the prices they are currently at, operate them and make any real money. Virtually every operator I did business with in California in the 80's and 90's griped about how hard it was to make a profit on pinballs they were "only" paying $2695 for new in the box pins, after labor and depreciation costs were factored in. In the 90's the cost rose to $2995 to $3295 and we had to get very creative with no interest one year financing, etc, just to get guys to buy pins. I am good friends with a large operator based in Denver. He is good at what he does and buys right. He has negotiated low splits with location owners where he operates pins. Not only is it not worth it to operate used cheaper pins, but he's getting killed on new Stern pins. He does this only as a service to keep the test of the location for other games and jukeboxes he operates. The only way he can even remotely have a shot at breaking even (which sucks...he needs to make a decent profit, not break even) is selling the games later to the home market. My point is, unlike previous times when pinball made a comeback, the industry can no longer rely on what was the backbone of the pinball industry...the route operator. They cannot afford to contribute to pinball's comeback this time around! If you own your own location and buy your own games you have a shot, but this is going to be a very small segment and they will have to hold their games for a very long time before it would make sense to sell it off for a new title. Meaning they will have the same problem the home market is going to face....lack of space to continue buying.

To my point...it is not profitable for most operators to operate pins, so players are not getting a positive play experience which will just make the cycle more and more difficult. I wish, quite frankly, that guys who can't afford to properly maintain their games, for whatever reason, just sell them off and move on. They are not helping the situation. They are usually only buying new pins to operate the other games but they are just doing a disservice to pin players when they won't properly maintain them.

it would not surprise me that some pinsiders have 'enhanced' their collection

Pins don't make as much as they did in the 90's, but they also don't depreciate like they did in the 90's. I've had NIB games more than pay for themselves in earnings, then sold them for a nice profit. That didn't happen in the 70's or the 90's. I've never sold one of my location games for less than I paid for it. I maintain them meticulously and protect them wherever needed.

The numbers don't lie. Location numbers are steadily growing. Now is an excellent time to solicit new locations. My newest location took about a 10 minute conversation with the owner to secure a deal. I did my homework, made my pitch and got the location. 10 minutes tops.

I agree, but I'm afraid that is wishful thinking.

We have had games that came straight from operators, out of bars or various locations. There are operators who do decent repairs, but those are rare. Usually, the repairs are quick and dirty fixes. I can understand the money reasons behind these fixes, but it sure takes a lot of effort to repair those properly. I can understand that they don't bother with the looks of a pinball, but we have seen some scary hair raising electrical repairs!

On the other hand, people who have pinballs at home often don't have a clue to repair pinballs well, those are the ones who sell pinballs once they have a problem they can't fix, which happens rather fast after their purchase. We all had to learn to fix them, but not everyone is capable of doing a decent job. Should they not own pinballs? Sure, they sell them fast anyway. They lack skills, knowledge, learning capacity, or tenacity, or combination of these factors to ever become a decent repair person.

Some people even think they do great repairs, but deserve a kick in the groin for making such a mess. They keep on adding to the mess without ever realizing what they are doing. Those are the worst pinballs to buy, unless you don't mind a challenge. As long as the price is right, it's OK for us.

Oh yeah!
Location pin making a big comeback!

Well, we can hope.

I dont know what kind of jobs peoples at this forum have, but i am a single guy from The Netherlands. And i have bought a NIB Transformers last year. But i dont understand how people can buy a NIB everytime a new one arrives.

I have a respectable job with above average salary but still dont have to much money to spare at the end of the month. I simply cannot buy a new game every few months or every year for that matter.

And keep in mind the crazy import prizes and taxes in the Netherlands. a $8000 game is back here €8000 wich is $10.600 at the current exchange rate......

i simply cannot save up to 10K every few months

RH can I get a thumbs down?

It looks like you missed a couple posts.

Thanks

Did you operate in the 90's?

This is a question better asked a few posts back.

I would never give up my home collect but love finding a on location game I found a csi at bob's sub and cone eastham ma they have a different game every year. Most collectors are between 35 - 60 yr old for several reasons they have the money to buy game but also they grew up playing on location in the 80s and 90s. No games on location means far fewer collectors in the future. You can't be nostalgic for something you have never done.

Another problem is you get spoiled by owning games/friends with games so when you DO find one on location, it appears even dirtier and more broken than it actually is.

35-60 year olds don't goto bars and pizza parlors. But they do buy nice things for the home.

@benheck

maybe it is because i am 33 but i still often go to bars and clubs

not many bars with pinball machines in The Netherlands though....

Not many in France either...
(but I am above 35... so I do not go to bars anyway )

That's silly. Maybe one or two weirdos would do that but not enough to make a difference. Pinside represents a large percentage of the upscale home pin market. Maybe not 50%, but definitely more than 30%. There were 500 Metallica Premiums made. 306 Pinsiders have it listed in their collection. I really don't think there are like ... 250 people lying about owning it.

Agreed. And probably far less than people who do not disclose their collection, or own more than one copy of a game (as far as I know, you can't specify if you own more than one). The latter case is not uncommon: ops, hoarders, flippers...

Well, right now, unless some manufacturer really comes out with a machine that blows my socks off, I will be a one and done with a NIB almost $8000 machine. I have a Hobbit on order. Just because of the theme.
I am right now in my collection over capacity. I have zero room for any more machines yet I have two more on order.

That makes two of us...

There has to be at least a few thousand Premiums out there by now. Pinside lists the Premium and LE together, but only the LE was limited to 500.

I love playing Chris' pins. Chris, any plans to shake up the lineup for fall at Town Hall?

I do have a couple games at home, but I wish I could play on location more. It does usually take league or some other event to get me in the city for pins, but if there was anything on location in my immediate neighborhoods (Alexandria/Arlington) I'd be out there all the time. Pins wake up the family after a certain hour (small house ). I can be as loud as I want at a bar, and play a much bigger variety of games.

Ah, ok. That is a good point.

I'd add
- to clear ball traps yourself
- to clean the playfield when it turns black
- to play drunk in your underpants

.

Don't be a hypocrite. You were thumbs-downing all of mine. If you don't like it, remove the thumbs downs from my posts and I will gladly do the same.

This turned into a operators vs collectors debate? How disappointing.

Darn, I thought we were really onto something with the "$8k pins are gonna cause pinball armageddon" discussion.

Well, as of right now, JJP is the only "full fledged" company (in the sense that they have a game on the market) that is in the "$8k only" game. I don't think their problems are lack of demand, their problems were technical problems (which seem to be solved but cost $$$), being behind schedule and not being able to build the games fast enough. Despite those issues, they're still around. If they can build their product portfolio (by getting Hobbit & Lawlor's game done), do some advertising beyond the pin-faithful & still hang in there, it will be proven that a "luxury pinball company" has enough demand to stay in business.

MM @ $8k was a special circumstance. Not sure if PPS will try that price w/ the next remake. I think they could run with that price if it's BBB or KP...but anything else from the B/W catalog would probably have to be a bit lower - which could be done now that the major R&D is out of the way. Will be interesting.

Most of us left junior high school, successfully.