(Topic ID: 100519)

Is there enough demand for 8K+ pinball machines? I don't think so.

By CraZ4Pin

9 years ago


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    -2
    #1 9 years ago

    Soo .... I'm just trying to extrapolate on a recent Pinside Poll I started regarding what folks could afford annually in regards to their annual "pinball budget". https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/poll-nib-games-what-can-you-afford

    After 200 votes, the results are:
    45%: Simply cannot afford a pin at 6k or higher
    20%: Can afford one pin at 6k or less
    11%: Can afford one pin at 8k or less
    7%: Can afford 1-2 pins (roughly a $15k budget annually)
    17%: Can afford as many games as they want as long as they love the game/theme

    I tend to think many people who are actively interested in pinball and will consider buying a new pinball machine in the next year (or in any given year) are on Pinside (albeit not necessarily as active as others on Pinside.) BUT ... in the spirit of being conservative ... let's say that just 1 in 50 people who "may" want to purchase a NIB pinball this year were on Pinside in the last few days and particiapted in this poll. So for every 1 person active on Pinside I'm suggesting there are 49 others either not on Pinside (or did not participate in the poll) or who simply aren't a pinhead and may just buy a game for their gameroom OR are an operator and make up some number of that 49. Seem like a somewhat reasonable approximation? So that would mean there are possibly 10,000 pinheads and/or people considering buying a NIB game for their home (or business or route) this year. That would work out to roughly ...
    4500 folks who simply cannot afford a 6K+ pinball game
    2000 folks who can afford only a 6K pinball game at most
    1100 folks who can buy at most 1 game at 8K
    700 folks who buy 1-2 games (or roughly a 15k pinball budget)
    1700 folks who could potentially buy more than 2 pins at 8K or more

    I don't think we've really ever had 2 new 8K titles come out at roughly the same time but I suppose it's possible this year with the release of Hobbit in December and (hopefully) the announcement/release of Stern's newest title (TWD?). I think it will be interesting because ..
    At best ... given these conservative numbers ... there are potentially only 3500 people who could afford an 8K game (and yes, of those 3500, maybe 500 people/games are OP's).

    JJP is obviously trying to sell 1500 Hobbit LE's whose price now stands at $8,000.
    Stern will likely announce an LE version on their next title and if it's like ST there could be around 800 of them at $8,000.
    Now then ... there are a half dozen other "boutique" shops taking pre-orders on 8K+ games in 2015.

    My thoughts/conclusions:
    - There simply aren't enough folks who can afford 8K+ games - and i don't think operators are too keen on buying too many games at 8K+ either
    - I think this explains a lot in regards to the limited sales of Hobbit to date (albeit yes, many more may order/buy when the game is released and shipping)
    - The sweet spot in pricing seems to be around $5500-$6000 for a game
    - Stern has an advantage in offering games (like Iron Man VE) at sub 5K prices. Nobody else is offering games in this price range. Stern still owns the market in this price range.

    Which company/boutique shop closes it's doors first? Which one changes their busines model to sell more affordable games? What else does this say about the future of pinball? Thoughts??

    #6 9 years ago
    Quoted from PanzerFreak:

    What information are you basing that on? That is simply not true. Did you see that over 170/1500 pre-orders are coming from Pinside alone?

    I don't know too many route OP's buying LE's to put on location. It's mostly us pinheads and I think a good percentage of pinheads are on Pinside (so 170 isn't overly impressive to me). That being said ... I only know from 2 distributors personally who said "there are plenty of Hobbits left" (no, no firm numbers for sure.) So their tone seemed to me like "you have plenty of time to buy one if you want one". THEN .. when I saw a distributor list a Hobbit pre-order for sale here on Pinside last month at the original price of $7500, and NOBODY jumped on it. Bump after bump. Last I saw it was on here for a month (and I'm still not sure if it ever actually sold?). That sure seemed to me like sales weren't overly strong.

    IF you have a Hobbit on pre-order I'm sure you have no worries and I'm sure the game will be awesome. I only worry about the long-term survival of ALL pinball companies relying on selling games at 8K+.

    OH .. and of those 170 ... how many have since cancelled their orders (like myself).

    #12 9 years ago
    Quoted from Rarehero:

    Why are you so obsessed by this? Jack's not going to lower prices for you. Stern's not going to lower prices for you. Don't buy NIB games if you don't like the price. Clearly there are people who will buy these games or else you'd stop seeing the high prices.
    Just don't buy them. That's all you can do.

    Rarehero ... this is not about Jack (or you and I for that matter). Jack will do whatever he wants. I tried stating above that my concern is for ALL of the pinball company startups (albeit, including JJP.) I don't understand where people seem to think all of these consumer spending dollars are coming from. My concern is directly with the impact to the future of pinball. I don't think these companies can all survive at these price levels much less thrive. I tried to be somewhat scientific about it by doing a poll. If the numbers tell you otherwise please feel free to discuss.

    #23 9 years ago
    Quoted from PopBumperPete:

    Interesting read
    But I think that there are a large number of pinball owners who do not post on the forums
    Also people who can afford to buy two or more $8000 games tend not to brag

    I agree ... but that's why I suggested what I thought was a conservative number of 1 to 50! Is that number not conservative enough?

    If that number is not conservative enough then what is? If any pinball manufacturer has actually paid for a market analysis ... what other criteria would they use? Who else would they conduct a survey against to better understand the market then a public forumn like Pinside where pinball enthusiasts flock to?

    #38 9 years ago
    Quoted from NJGecko:

    Can I make the car analogy here? I feel the compulsion to.
    So, if you extrapolate the same logic to cars, you would come to the conclusion that the market can't support million dollar supercars, right? And the only ones destined for any longevity are Chevrolets and Fords?

    It's a bad analogy for several reasons. You're comparing apples and oranges. You simply cannot compare the car market to the pinball market. They're not even remotely close. There are roughly 50-60 million cars manufactured in the world every year and sold in more than 100 countries. The number of car enthusiasts/collectors purchasing million dollar supercars is a tiny, tiny fraction of that. Sorry to say but the popularity of cars (and collecting them) is significantly larger than those collecting high-end pins (so this allows companies selling million dollar cars to survive despite it being a tiny fraction of the market). We're not talking about a million people out there interested in pinball machines and only needing 5,000 or so of them to have the money to buy as many 8K+ pins as they want. I think you're talking about a much smaller number and hence the reason it will be hard for companies relying solely on selling 8K+ pins to survive.

    #48 9 years ago
    Quoted from Purpledrilmonkey:

    It sounds like sour grapes to me because standing up and proclaiming "there's no market for $8k machines" is an unnecessary statement, unless you don't want there to be $8k machines;

    I never stated there wasn't a market for 8K+ machines. I stated I think companies relying solely on 8K+ machines could be in trouble. Standard WOZ is 8K right now. Do you think JJP has plans to sell any pins at 6K or less? How about Multipmorphic and the 9K P3? Do you think they plan to sell pins at 6K or less? Or Dutch Pinball and the $8500 TBL? Do you think they have plans to sell pins at 6K or less? Does JPop have plans to sell pins at 6K or less? Does Planetary Pinball plan to sell a remake for 6K or less?

    As noted, the only company selling any pin at all at 5K or less is Stern. They're still alone in that category. The next closest I suppose is Heighway Pinball and the 6K standard Full Throttle. I don't know where all these companies did their market research but I think they've missed the mark on pricing.

    -1
    #61 9 years ago
    Quoted from HighNoon:

    So if 170 Pinsiders pre-ordered The Hobbit (from the Hobbit pre-order thread) and for every 1 person active on Pinside there are 49 others (your statistic), are you suggesting that 170 * 50 = 8500 people have actually preordered The Hobbit?
    Your math seems a little off to me.
    --Luke

    You do math like our politicians do math. Pretty fuzzy. I don't think you read very closely where the "50" was coming from.

    And i would think if Hobbit was close to selling out that the number of Pinsiders with money down on one would be closer to 600 or 700 or something. Additionally, of those 170 ... how many have since requested a refund (like myself)?

    I think the word "close" is relative especially when you're talking to Jack or someone at JJP/Pinball Sales. For one, they're always going to exaggerate sales and how "close" to selling out they are. Second, sold out to them includes hundreds of games going to distributors but not necessarily sold by the distributor (which is fine and makes sense for JJP.) But it's very misleading as to how well they're actually selling.

    -2
    #67 9 years ago

    I guess I need 1500 people to buy Hobbit LE. I was one of the very first orders and was excited. But once the realization of how fast WOZ depreciated ... the excitement wore off fast. I will not pay 8k for Hobbit (or any pin.) I can afford that much money without a problem ... but the game is simply not worth that much in my mind and I can't afford to have a game depreciate that fast. I'll just wait for used Hobbits to get to 7k or less in 1-2 years. Because I think that's where it's heading for sure.

    -1
    #72 9 years ago
    Quoted from Purpledrilmonkey:

    Reading though your numbers, I'm curious where you did yours... and pinside isn't market research.

    Asking pinheads on Pinside what their realistic annual pinball budget is, is not market research? Where exactly would you go to better understand your target consumers? Maybe just phone dial random people and ask if they would our could spend 8k on a pinball machine? Stand around in a mall and ask the same question? Riiiight.

    #75 9 years ago

    Yes, I can come up with 8k no problem. But I can't afford for it to lose $1000-$1500 in just 6 months or so. I don't need a pin to go up in value ... but I do need it to somewhat maintain its value. I don't think I'm alone in that.

    #198 9 years ago
    Quoted from Purpledrilmonkey:

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

    I don't know why this is such a sore subject for you but the only point ever made was that there doesn't seem to be enough demand to support companies relying on 8K+ pins alone (not that it's the end of pinball). You clearly disagree. Great.

    I think Taylor raised a great point though that the number of Pinsiders owning significant percentages of some of the more pricier games implies that my original 1 in 50 estimate may be very reasonable (and thus, some of these companies are in real trouble long term if they don't change their strategy).

    #209 9 years ago
    Quoted from RobT:

    The economy was still very much in the toilet when pinball saw the biggest increase in prices ever.

    Some would argue we're still in the toilet. But I think the largest increase in prices happened between 2010-2013 when the economy was definitely heading back up (not down.)

    #214 9 years ago
    Quoted from PEN:

    It depends on your definition of “tanks”. The economy was bad when JJP announced WOZ, and its not exactly the baby boom right now.

    We're told it's not exactly great right now but for the average middle class person life is good. I think it has been the lowest income levels that have suffered the most (and continue to suffer in some places.) But buying pinball machines is probably not a priority for low income families (not now or ever) and I'm pretty sure that's why JJP has been less impacted by the sluggish economy.

    However, that does not change what I believe is inevitable. Hobbit may ultimately sell out the LE's (but far fewer 'standards' IMO.) It's when you get to game #3 and beyond that I think the sh.t will hit the fan. People will see a new 'must have' ... and want to sell their Hobbit or WOZ or whatever to pay for it. I think the shock of depreciation on their 8K games will lead to even less enthusiasm about buying another 8K pin. Combine this with the fact that Dutch Pinball, Multimorphic, and Heighway Pinball all look very promising to have 8K+ games actually delivering in 2015 and something has to give.

    #222 9 years ago
    Quoted from GravitaR:

    You are forgetting quite a few. Skit-B, Dutch Pinball, JPop, Spooky Pinball (Others that I even forgot)

    Yes, but (so far) Spooky and Skit-B are not in the 8K+ games category (although yes, they still possibly impact sales of the others).

    I also have a hard time believing Skit-B is a guarantee for shipping games in 2015. It's no slam dunk there but I hope the best for them. The others mentioned all seem well positioned to be delivering games in 2015. Timing on game announcements and actual shipping will be a major factor all. If Stern announces TWD by the end of the year (when Hobbit starts shipping) I have to think that will directly impact Hobbit sales.

    #229 9 years ago
    Quoted from Purpledrilmonkey:

    Let's say you are correct and the market boldly indicates there isn't enough money for $8k games, why is this immediately 'the stuff hits the fan'?

    Why do we (as players - not 'investors') care?

    When I say the poop hits the fan I mean some of these companies will be in serious financial trouble. You can't just instantly change your business plan and turn out a game that you can sell for 6k and still make a profit. There is quite a bit of lead time and unless you've been in the business for some time the chances of having the money to weather that are slim to none. At least a company like Heighway is realistic and is selling a game in the 6500 range (in addition to their slightly higher LE version). But JJP, Dutch Pinball, and Multimorphic (for example) do not appear to be planning for such eventualities. I'm pretty confident JJP is well in the red at this point due to several of their business decisions (as well as things beyond their control) and they probably need to sell at least a few thousand games at 8K for the next couple years to get back (or even close) to break even.

    I'm not just a "player". I care because I care about the future of pinball. I think Stern has remained fairly conservative and they could very well be the sole pinball company again in 3 or 4 years. Good for them ... bad for the hobby.

    #231 9 years ago
    Quoted from tracelifter:

    There are only so many dollars so the question is how many companies can these dollars sustain?

    Hopefully at least 2 to drive competition!!

    #246 9 years ago
    Quoted from Jeff_PHX_AZ:

    After abit of customizing by pinball refinery, the total for my Metallica premium was 8k with white glove delivery. I had the money at the time to do it. I bought a game that I'am not ever wanting to sell (unless of emergency) one that we will keep forever as we a fans of Metallica and pinball so it just a keeper. Wife said get the best, well the L.E.'s were gone, so premium and customizing got it the best I could. I probably wont ever be able to afford 8k to spend ever on a pin again. I'am ok with it. I ordered Sparky's mini displays for Metallica, such a cool mod, cant wait to install it.

    It's always nice getting your dream pin and not having to worry about selling it! Pinball Refinery does some great work and I'm sure you'll enjoy the extra 'bling'! Congrats.

    #266 9 years ago
    Quoted from DCfoodfreak:

    And another pin co announced. My God! There is no way this is not just going to blow up in the next two years.
    Forget 8k even at 6 there is not room for umteen pin makers.

    Which latest company announcement are you referring to?

    #268 9 years ago

    Thanks for the link, I had not seen that one. But oi ... I've lost count of the number of new pinball companies.

    #272 9 years ago
    Quoted from RobT:

    Some of these new "companies" should not be taken as seriously as others.

    So you're saying JJP shouldn't be taken very seriously? I kid, I kid ...

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