You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider snaroff.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.
NEWSFLASH! Pinball machines are expensive.
Despite the truism, it remains one of the lowest cost pastimes/hobby's on the planet. I've owned 30-40 and I'm ahead of the game financially (and I don't often sell and never buy a pinball purely to flip).
If you want to get your head handed to you (financially), go buy a pool table!
snaroff
Quoted from zpinman370:I appreciate your comment and yes I believe we all know they are. Point is are we getting to the where (especially with NIB) the average person is going to say no i can't afford this. And I already have a pool table
-
Sure, then don't buy a NIB game!
Not only are NIB more expensive, they often need to be "dialed in" and if you purchase it from a savvy owner, chances are the game will play BETTER than NIB.
I just picked up a SWLE and DILE for considerably less than NIB (I'm the second owner). There are a surprising # of folks in this hobby that love getting a "new toy" and get bored after 20 games or so (and want to recoup most of their investment for other hobby's).
Quoted from Maken:Doesn't really work that way in Canada because there aren't as many new games around. You might save a few hundred, but nothing considerable. SWLE is 11k used, for example.
You could always move to California or Florida, but then healthcare will likely cost you more! Tradeoffs, tradeoffs, ...
Quoted from tonedef131:Pinball machines are not designed or priced for residential use. They are a commercial device designed to make money in a public venue.
Once upon a time this was true (>20 years ago). Since then, home use games have become commonplace. I would bet most machines built since 2000 aren't in a commercial environment (and don't earn money).
Quoted from poppapin:Then why is there a coinslot?
That's a question for the manufacturers. Stern, in particular, likes to build 3 models and doesn't offer any machine specific options (for example: shaker, blades, rubber color, etc.). I imagine the coinslot mechs are so cheap, that it doesn't pay for Stern to offer home users a choice.
Quoted from tonedef131:Nah, even if what you say is statistically true, the way machines are designed and priced hasn’t changed. They are still built to withstand a heavy amount of play and are priced accordingly.
I may have agreed with you about where most machines end up 5-10 years ago, but location pinball is absolutely exploding. This benefits you even if you only play at home because it’s necessary to keep the industry alive and will eventually reduce price through economy of scale.
This wasn’t really the point of my post anyway. He’s acting like if he can’t afford to buy a bunch of brand new pinballs he’s priced out of the hobby. The hobby is much bigger than that and some of the most enthusiastic players I know don’t own any machines. But they play in leagues and tournaments and will talk Pinball for hours. All you need for this hobby is a few quarters and a lot of passion.
Home usage has absolutely effected the design of pinball. In 99% of the public pinball venues, you can't hear what's coming from the pinball machine. If this were the design point, why waste all the effort on sound & shot choreography? The complex rules often depend on hearing what's going on. And then there are the Premium/Limited/Collector machines that are obviously dressed up for home/collector usage.
I agree that public pinball is on an upswing, however even if new pinball sales are a 50/50 split between home and commercial, it's significant. They both need each other to survive...
snaroff
You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider snaroff.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/is-this-hobby-still-affordable?tu=snaroff and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Jupiter, FL