I think pre-2000 pinball machines will always have a big collector market.

You don't need a lot of young pinball players to keep collector interest alive in the future.

Personal nostalgia is only a very small part of what makes stuff "collectable".

Just think about how many things have a huge collector following but have no buyers with a personal history of using the item.

When a 1925 Duesenberg automobile sells for $500,000 at auction, do you think it's because the buyer was driving a Duesenberg around town with his dad when he was 14?

How about when a 1917 Luger sells for $5,000? Is that because the buyer belonged to the Disney Trench Warfare Fan Club and went to trench warfare camp in the summer?

The thing that makes collectable stuff collectable is the imagination of the buyers.

That imagination doesn't require any prior use of the item.

Pinball machines are like jukeboxes, they are A.) very cool and impressive looking and B.) a prime example of 20th century "Americana".

Pinball, jukeboxes, coke machines are all cool enough to generate a collector market spontaneously.

The thing that's going to eventually drop in value is the 80s arcade games. If somebody wasn't gleefully plunking quarters into the machines in 1982, then they seem to just shrug their shoulders at them. Arcade games aren't impressive enough at face value to spark any interest.

That's my 2 cents on it, YMMV

The competition angle can get to be a bit much at times. We keep a few machines at a local pub but are going to bring in about 20 for a good sized competiion soon. We figured that since we were going to all of the trouble bringing them there we may as well give the public a crack at it too. So for a night we will have them all on free play. It will be really interesting to see how many people turn up and their ages. Also if we get an increase in people at the sited pins after that too becasue people want to keep playing. There is definitly more interest in pinball around here but not sure how far that will go.

@irobot... good luck with that...

that 1925 duesenberg doesn't have a huge collector following... it has a very small market...

the luger, while it may have a slightly larger collector following, is small... you could store and display a large collection in the room it takes for 1 pin...

the examples that you use don't the point you are trying to make... they work against it...

I disagree. If the Duesenberg was only valuable to a tiny market they wouldn't sell in the $1M range. The fact that there's probably no one left alive who could have bought one new doesn't seem to effect the prices.

I've noticed that even EM games are going up in price faster than inflation, and basically 10 years ago no one but a tiny, tiny group of collectors cared about them at all. You should read the Pinball Expo reports from the 80s that talk about how few EMs were there even back then.

The reason things like Duesenbergs, or guns, or even pinball machines are sought after collectables is because they are genuine historical artifacts that can still be *used* instead of just sitting on a shelf. You can drive that car, or fire that gun. It's certainly one of the reasons I like pinball - it's a work of art you can play.

I'm early 30s and didn't grow up playing pinball, even though I am probably around the age for it. I played home consoles and arcade games and am now a mobile games designer.

I recently got in to pinball from some overlapping influences. A friend makes mobile pinball games, an arcade nearby with a TAF and MM, visiting the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas. I don't how, but as a serial hobbyist, I jut sort of fell in to it.

For me, playing and making fully digital games leaves something lacking. There's a tangible, tactile nature to physical games like pinball and board games that is appealing. I guess it's also like vinyl for some - as we move toward a digital future we fetishise the physical.

you are allowed to disagree with me... i'm comfortable with what i had to say...

as far as "em history", check my collection page...

your last paragraph attempts to draw a parallel that doesn't exist... i doubt that duesenberg is a daily driver or that the luger is being taken to the range every week...

I feel that anyone can play pinball in tournaments, but enthusiasts like most of us here would enjoy it the most.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about earlier...

I'm different from many other people. Because of how my brain works I acknowledge details but sometimes fail to see the big picture. I focused primarily on myself in the last post I made and I'm sorry about that.

The longevity of pinball really depends on who is playing it. If it's a kid who's around 6 - 10 years old they may lose attention quickly and go play a video game. Older people aren't much different but they may be willing to give pinball a try. Adults are the most likely people to play because of how often they see pinball machines in bars and restauraunts.

While I enjoy pinball as much as everyone else here, kids and teenagers should feel free to have different opinions and try not to think too much about my post.

I think the volume of new machines being rerun and released will be remembered as the beginning of down ward spiral. The hobby will see a continued surge till everyone is up and going and then bottom falls out. Bottom falling out as in the strongest survive. Think about it all but gone are the preorder-prepay machines of the last few years. Honestly the manufacturers killed that business model whereas the community fully supported it for a while. I for one will not be prepaying anything in the future. Stern will stay in there the longest - will be interesting to see how many factories are around in 5 years and even fewer in 10. Take the ever increasing prices then add in say 2-3000 more new machines per year for sale=overstock - close outs- less profit which is a killer for upstarts. The hobby will be around well after I am gone but manufacturers will be very few.

Ok that being said I look forward to MMr - this year and Game of Thrones. Next year Pinball Circus and maybe Hobbit will hit in 2016 lol who knows. 2018 PL machine might be interesting...great time to be a pinhead.

And at my gatherings, the people who play pinball are typically well under 40 - like me.

The fact that young people aren't playing your games is a non sequitur argument against the longevity of pinball.

I hope there's "no interest" till I snag the titles I want, in the condition I want. Then let the hobby soar. Demand w/limited supply = higher prices. I'm cheap. Hey - anyone think this hobby is stupid and wanna part with a MM, TAF, or LOTR for like 1k?

You missed my point completely.

The general theme of this thread is that only current pinball players will want to collect pinball machines in the future.

My point is this: That's not how most collector markets work.

People don't buy collectables (for the most part) out of personal nostalgia.

The luger and duesenberg are just EXAMPLES from two gigantic collector markets, collector cars and historic firearms.

Most collector items have an appeal that's broader than just personal nostalgia.

You could say the same thing about all of the super expensive BBB games still sitting in their boxes. They aren't being used at all, which in some ways can make it even more valuable. The whole idea is that it has the potential to be used (in some cases like it was new). It's unique, rare, americana, and flippin' awesome. Things like that just don't disappear off the collector market. They usually get more and more collectable as time goes on.

Well, to be fair, some things do disappear off the collector market.

Like when Disney pumps out figurines year after year.

You can buy that crap on ebay for 10 cents on the dollar.

dupe

Only the strong will survive . No question Stern, likely JJP, as they already have factories and
qualified staff. Anyone else with a pin design would be nuts to try and build a new company
from the ground up. Taking a new idea to either of the above , utilizing their facilities , and receiving
a slice of the profit would be the only way to go.

Some more exposure on TV would help. Maybe a tournament on ESPN 2 or 3 or 4 or something.

We started a regional league 18 months ago and most of the players don't take the events too seriously or give a damn about their rankings... We have 15 regular players, and 60+ who would participate to 1-3 events/year.

Some of them are good players, other caught the virus, and many come because we made these monthly gatherings a social event.

Casual players will appreciate:
- qualification rounds lasting no more than 3 hours (which is doable if you have a sufficient number of pins)
- side tourneys or challenges with small rewards
- discovering new games
- a quiet room nearby to chat and relax between games.

Add some drinks and snacks, organize a small BBQ once in while and your perception of tourneys will change.

Dang I wish I had a place to play somewhere within a 2hr drive like this

I would like to remind everyone that we are at an anomalous point in the pinball market. There are several million dollars of demand money tied up in preorders that are years behind schedule. With the death of the preorder market, within a few years, that demand will once again achieve the velocity required to make the market more vibrant and active.

The market is strong. There are plenty of basements in McMansions that can hold a half a dozen pins without feeling cramped. As has been said in this very thread, the emerging popularity of virtual pinball on phones, pads and consoles is driving a resurgent demand in the real thing. As long as the fundamental repair parts are available, people will want to play pinball. Since there are limited opportunities to actually play a decent pinball machine in public, people will want to own them.

I believe the question asked is in error. When asking about the longevity of pinball, the answer is infinite. A better question is what will the pinball market do because it really is a reflection in the macro interest in the entire owning/collecting/playing/hoarding aspects of the industry. I always refer back to the '57 chevy market when I want to model other collectible markets. The prices were through the roof when the young men who wanted them in their teens and 20's came of the age and affluence to buy them. Now that demand has been replaced by desire for the 60's muscle car. The result of this transition is a lowering of prices on all cars from the 50's. Does this mean they are cheap? No way. It just means they are cheaper than they were. The market for 50's collector cars will NEVER die.. it just keeps getting weaker. And as the ageing owners of these cars die off, their collections enter the market place and further decrease prices.

It really all boils down to demographic shifts. The kids who are playing pinball on devices will need to have disposable income in order to buy actual machines... and they will when they can afford them. Like all things, pinball demand is cyclical.

Im going to try to keep it going im 35 as are all my friends so hopefully there are alot more people my age to keep it going for 30 more years only time will tell I guess

I sold my 1978 Bandit Trans Am for pinball. Miss my Trans Am but I have to have my pins.

I am actually opening an Arcade Bar in my hometown. We are set to open in the next few weeks. We are putting a line up of 16 pins in. I would love to be able to introduce pinball again to a new generation of people. It is going to be hard to put my collection on route, but I think it will defiantly be worth it. I don't think pinball is going anywhere.

Very cool. Good Luck!!! It sure seems to me pinball is going strong in Texas. Alot of pinsiders seem to be from Texas.

awesome! the number of pins on route is definitely growing in our area. I hope it works out.

Thank you all very much. I will keep you all posted.

Like most things, it is hard to see the future, it will be up to the future generations ultimately whether pinball survives. Like Abe Lincoln said, "The best way to predict your future is to create it".

A tournament can be fun for newbies depending on the format. They key is league and tourney formats that encourage direct head to head play vs ones that revolve around single player qualifying.

A tournament that you have to qualify for is not going to be fun for newbies because newbies generally won't qualify.

At the same time, newbies probably aren't going to want to commit to three days of match play either. The key for newbies is smaller scale match play tournaments.

The cost factor is going to cause pinball to erode over the next several years I think. The price of entry is too steep relative to what you get now. Used to be the new games (5 or 6 years ago) cost $3k to $4k, old games were mainly at that same point for the best ones (except MM, CC, MB). It's now almost double for all games. Spending $3.5k on a new game is a lot different than spending $8k, you can literally buy a classic car for $8k. Also, relatively, an Xbox One or PS4 is $400, the amount of hours of entertainment you can get for those vs a basic $2k pinball machine isn't close. It's only a matter of time before we see a drop in buying, and when that happens resale values will start eroding and the market will start to collapse...you can't keep increasing prices every year at a high rate without eventually going over the edge.

If/when the market collapses, won't that just make it easier for new people to get into?

EMs are an acquired taste. I used to find them too random and uncomplex, I was a big fan of ruleset heavy WMS DMD games. It wasn't until having a couple tournaments where I ended up playing on them, and watching some PAPA classics videos that I developed an appreciation for the skill in them.

I feel this aspect will correct itself. People are sitting on overpriced machines. Nobody wants to pay two time more than a game is worth, despite whether you may have done that yourself. And with more machines being made, that is only going to further lower the value of older games.

On another note, I can't believe I'm getting involved in a pricing thread. I need to do this to myself:

You know, I appreciate this thread because we all want this hobby to not only grow, but thrive for generations to come.

I think pinball is really catching up to the times. I mean, the machines, technology and features that are being put out by today's manufacturers is nothing short of amazing!

Now, if you want the hobby to grow, you have to ask yourself, what do kids like? Well, they don't just like, they LOVE video games. I think our beloved manufacturers can help it to grow even more by adding more video modes into their machines. Give pinball a true video game type fail through an LCD and they're gonna really get hooked. Make it so you can go into the menu and change the video mode settings to tons of easy to reach modes or hard to attain modes so you don't have them come up much. I'm thinking Caveman and Baby Pac-Man here only 21st century style.

I believe the biggest thing holding the hobby back right now is ignorance. People just don't know that pinball still exists. As one of the promoters of Pintastic New England, I've personally talked to hundreds of locals who have absolutely NO idea that pinball machines are still being made. They're stunned!

Each and every one of us can remedy this by getting the word about pinball out there to people. Tell family, friends, co-workers and neighbors to check out some of the new pinball machines that have been produced over on YouTube. Check out the videos of WOZLE, STLE, TRON LE, AC/DC BIBLE, Hobbit, AMH, TWDLE, WWE, MOPLE etc. They'll be amazed! Additionally, tell them about your local pinball shows. When you go to a store, ask if you can display some cards on the counter for people to take or if you can hang an event poster to promote the show. Get people to come out to the show and see these tremendously fun machines! We do that and THAT what will make this hobby grow and thrive.

At Pintastic, we have put a major emphasis on kids. Why? Because we know that that will bring the whole family out to the show! If dad brings mom and the kids, they're going to get excited about pinball and want to buy into the hobby. That's why we are having tons of entertainment for the kids. We're having everything from a Clown doing balloon animals and tricks, to a face painter, magician and a bouncy house. These are things the kids will go nuts for. This will get the families out and then get them playing pinball.

Here's a site link to our kids page. http://www.pintasticnewengland.com/for-the-kids.html
What do you guys think?

I could not disagree more. Pinball video modes will never in a million years compete with dedicated video game systems, be they consoles or smart phones. Pinball's uniqueness and appeal in the future more than ever will stem from its tactile physicality. the future of Pinball lies in finding what it can do that our consoles and mobile devices CAN'T. steel balls flying up ramps, clockwork mechanisms, impressive light shows, and the subtleties of real-world physics.

The worst possible path would be Pinball trying to become a second-rate immitation of what our phones are already fantastic at.

all this is awesome, though, and I totally agree you here!

Another thought: I think in general, the days are over of just putting games out there to sit and attract quarters on their own. but if you organize events and give people a reason to come and a reason to play, there is significant room for growth.

Hey Pez. I couldn't agree with you more here bro. I in no way think that pinball video modes will even remotely compete with dedicated video games. I don't want them to try to replace video games, I just think manufacturers can enhance the modes more and make video modes in pinball machines more exciting. Kind of like 3D video pinball has done. Is it going to replace pinball? No. BUT, they've done a great job making it pretty damn realistic to the point that virtual pinball machines are really growing in popularity. Even the kids like them.

Also, (as I wrote in my original post) they can put options into the menu's that the owners can adjust for how hard they want a machine to go into video mode. If kids really like the video modes and it's gets them more "into" it, they can be accessed easily. If adults don't want to disrupt the games flow with a bunch of video modes, they can set them to be difficult to activate. You get my point.

Honestly, and I think we're all on the same page here, it's all about making pinball more fun and more exciting to the younger generation in the hopes of drawing them into the hobby to help it grow. At the end of the day, that's what matters most.

Video modes in pinball have been tried in the 80's and the 90's, none of them stuck. I think the maker community could be the key to technological advancements, people are experimenting with all kinds of amazing new technologies that will continue to evolve the game. Regardless of the video game immersion we are seeing, the fact is there are more people playing arcade style games than they are playing multiplayer console games. That short but sweet game mentality is exactly what pinball attracts, and we are actually seeing a rise in competitive video gaming along with the rise in competitive pinball.

Pinball is not nostalgic for me either. As far as I was concerned pinball was dead in the 80's when it was all about video games. Yet it was after that when many of the most amazing and popular pinball machines were created. I'm leaning toward the case where pinball actually attracts adults more than kids, so we need not be as concerned about kids joining the hobby, as long as they know pinball exists they have a good chance of growing into it. That being said there are plenty of pre-teen and teenage world class players to feel confident it will last.

Yes and no, prices will fall but there may not be anyone to buy the games (nobody wants to catch a falling knife). I just think that the current business model for pinball is unsustainable and that it's going to hit a rough spot sooner rather than later here, and that many collectors will exit the market as the games depreciate.

You can kind of see it happening this way...at some point, either Stern or JJP is going to raise prices to a point where nobody can afford them or the market is out of money. Either they're going to have to lower prices, cut down on their operations considerably, or go out of business. Lower NIB prices drives used market prices lower, hence you get into this situation where everything is falling.

I'm really surprised it hasn't happened already with all the missed deadlines, poor code, vaporware, etc with a lot of the NIB games. I feel like it's close though, MM remake was the first domino, just a matter of time before they all start falling.

No problem the future is in good hands. My 2 yr old grandson showed my daughter how to switch on this machine and press the freeplay button!!

halensurfchamp.jpg

pinball will chug along, having things like Pin Map will help a ton!

I disagree. As both an art object *and* and something you can play, they will always be worth something because they will always have some appeal.

Someone mentioned a '57 Chevy lowering in value, but the key is that the price on those have *plateaued* now that the nostalgia factor has been removed (due to the aging out of the boomers) and it's become a pure collectable that you can drive on Sundays. It has essentially reached the bottom of its pricing profile.

Pinball will do the same thing. EMs, it can be argued, have reached this point. It seems like prices are going up on them but that's mostly inflation and some reflection on the current heat of WPC/Stern prices.

So, at worst, WPC/Stern pricing will cool off and reach that plateau value, but they'll never be worthless like cigarette machines.

A Texan that doesn't say "y'all?"

She looks like she has no fear.

I'm not saying that they'll go to zero or even close to that, but I would expect that if you drew a trend line of NIB pricing over the past 30 years, the NIB pricing is going to have to get back closer to that (and will take used games down with it) to be sustainable.

Pinball has been around since the 18th century.

It's not going anywhere.

I'd love to know what "pinball" looked like in the 18th century!

Few people can afford a classic car but they are still very popular. A classic muscle car is out of reach of most young guys but that doesn't mean they lose interest. Pins are no different. You may not be able to afford a TZ but maybe a Pinbot or something older. When you can finally afford a dream pin, it becomes more special.

Circa 1750-1770. Germany.

Early_Pinball.jpg

19th century. Even has "Multi-Ball".

pinball1.jpg

Interesting, I always thought those tables were from the 19th century. Cool stuff!

First one is from 18th century. Notice it has a spring plunger, 100 years before Redgrave "patented" it.

I'm a newb here, but I'd feel comfortable saying that the internet must be the biggest factor in supporting the collector market and the resurgence in the hobby. Craigslist, Ebay, and forums have made the buying and selling market have relatively good liquidity and beyond that, it has probably never been easier for "Average Joe" to find parts and information to keep a pin running.

I don't pretend to know the economics of the operators market using new machines, but clearly at $8k-$9k the reliability would have to be excellent for operators to turn a profit.