Quoted from westofrome:Can you believe the price of a new Maserati?
Soon no one will be able to afford to drive a car.
I was gonna offer the NFL argument or the day of golf argument instead of the car argument...
The NFL - which I largely ignore - has crazy-high ticket prices along with silly concession prices. The NFL is tipping because folks would rather watch it on their fancy TV than waste an entire day and a huge wad of money on a game played by uninspiring individuals. The local team to westofrome and me has actually removed about 10K seats from the stadium to try to create the perception of demand and/or exclusivity (or maybe just to reduce ticket sales to visiting team fans in this area!). Probably a million viewpoints of the NFL, but I think they are closer to the tipping point than luxury cars. Relevance? In pinball we have some the cheap seats being removed (games parted out, etc.) and the food-fights for the rest are pushing prices beyond the "worth it" number for some folks; we have a growing supply of the perceived premium seats (NIB with the super-duper LE moniker). But unlike the NFL, pretty much all the pinball games are good in some way (i.e., not just the playoff games)!
Golf here in big-city-land (DC area) has price/timed me out. 5 hour rounds, get there an hour early, 45+ minute drive to the course each way (so it's an all-day event), $100 green fees, and a marshal to hurry you along. But, tee times can still be hard to get around here so the local courses surely aren't missing me. I've played a total of 9 holes this year but my clubs are still in the trunk of the car. I think this is relevant because golf isn't seeing a tipping point in the local industry (there still plenty of demand) but average Joe players are sidelined... not necessarily disenfranchised with it but for sure on the sidelines. I would spend a rare Saturday golfing but not at an NFL game.
In my view pinball as a hobby better resembles the DC golf scene I've described than the DC NFL scene, so I'm not convinced we've found the tipping point yet (or that one even exists).
-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC Pinball resets, the Pinball Pyramid, or my Pinball 2000 H+V video sync combiner kit