Quoted from CrazyLevi:The “this is a rich man’s hobby!!!” Outrage almost always comes from newbies who think the hobby is $7,000 games.
Not attacking you personally; I am going to provide clarity with my thoughts.
I remember when AFM on eBay was $3000 in 2009, BSD was $800, and Whitewater was sub-$2000. TS was not even $1800, Johnny Mnemonics could be had all day long for $1200, and Scared Stiff was $2500.
I am coming up on my sixth year in this hobby. I'm not brand spanking new, and I'm not a seasoned veteran in terms of ownership. I loved playing pinball since JP was a brand new game in 1993, and I played AFM when I was 15 back in 1996. I have always loved plunging the silver ball.
I say this because I did not need "Pinball Arcade" or some other device that got mainstream's attention to our hobby. I have loved playing pinball since I was 12. So for me, it's frustrating to have waited until I was a commissioned officer in the USAF, finally able to afford these machines, only to watch prices take off like a rabid rocket in 2012. I put some decent time into the DE/Sega games, enjoying those games, before stepping up to the "oooooooo, ahhhhhh" games of the 90s B/W era.
So, what I have done to help offset the "ouch" factor is I buy one or maybe two games a year. I am bringing home CFTBL late Dec/early January, and that will be my first new addition to my collection since 01 January 2017. I was used to buying a game every 3-4 months, but I realized I either had to slow my purchasing or buy cheaper games. I know what I want: TZ, CFTBL, maybe SS, MBr and Alien/Houdini. In order to afford those games at the prices all of those are at, I made the realization to slow my spending on pinball way down. It's just the way it is for me, subjectively, and I am very happy with that.
Hope that did not come off as preachy. That was not my intention. I would rather buy my games a bit more slowly and enjoy each new addition than spend $20k-$25k in a single year.