I’ve lost interest in owning pinball machines personally due to all the headaches, but playing pinball in kickass locations, YES PLEASE! For $20 I more than get my fill for the week

I only have one, but I get bored of working on it. I usually like the atmosphere of a bar better too, even if I'm not being social. I've definitely played myself out of certain games, but not pinball in general.

Not at all. I do sometimes get frustrated with them when something breaks but I always love to play a game. Not sure if it would help but I find playing with friends gets me as excited as they are to come over and try them. It renews the vigor a bit.

The frustration of nib games having problems right out of the box spoiled my fun in getting new games
My old stuff works like a charm every time !!

Older is better for sure

nope.

That usually just means it's time to refresh the lineup. Send some of those down the road to make room for the new hotness.

+1

this is soooooo true. but this is the most expensive hobby I have ever been involved in, and I'm just not good at selling things when I jump to a different hobby!

I buy less games than when I started since my room is full, so that dampens the excitement somewhat, but the one thing that keeps me in is the weekly league I play with. These are my friends and I enjoy hanging out with them.

My excitement typically goes with the seasons. When the weather gets cold and damp I spend more time inside playing pinball. Once the weather breaks I have kids sporting events, fishing, camp, and it's my busy time for work. I sometimes go a month without playing a game which helps me to not burnout on pinball. Then once the cold months roll back around I play more.

Getting in a new game is always exciting. Change up the lineup more often to keep things fresh. There are SO many games out there to enjoy!

Sure. You can take a break from pinball but you'll be back. They always come back.

All that sounds pretty normal. I go through periods where I have to shut down my hobbies because I have other stuff going on and I'm too exhausted, but they are always there for me when I am ready to play again.

I will never lose interest in pinball.

I would suggest going to play a TNA on location or at a friends house. If that does not rejuvenate your interest, nothing will

Good luck and if it is time to bow out then enjoy whatever new hobby you find after you sell everything off.

Taking a break from it every so often is good.

For Pinball specifically, I can tend to lose interest for a short time when I have more than 1 game down. I don’t have a large collection and that’s when it can start to feel like work. I just want to play a dang game, not look st parts I have to order or a problem to diagnose.. but eventually I get around to it and things are back up! My IJ is falling in and out of favor lately and it may be the next to go..

After 12 yrs I still play every day but I now play 2 or 3 games a day there was a time I played 1 or 2 hr a day

Lost interest when my mom passed last summer. Recently getting back into it. Friends have helped. Did think at one point about selling all of them though. Life can be fickle for many reasons.

I think it's normal for interest to ebb and flow.

I don't always have time to play a lot, but one of the main things I like about pinball is you can usually get a few games in quickly.

Just came out of a long break myself.
Just didn't have the interest I used to.
That said, back in the gameroom lately,
say two three nights a week.
Diagnosis: it comes and it goes, no big deal.

I have a bit different perspective than most on here. My answer is yes.
Having 14 in my basement at my peak, I now own just 2 and one of those I helped design.
5 years ago I made pinball repair and restoration my full time job and it has stolen my hobby from me.
I still enjoy fixing them for the most part, but my wanting to PLAY them has waned almost completely. I used to play in local pinball leagues and have ZERO interest in doing it anymore.
Moral to the story is don't make your hobby your job.

As an avid Iron Maiden collector, and an LE will be added to my collection and kicking around the idea of adding a TNA once production catches up. Maybe those will reignite my interest.

Low play drive is often a natural effect of aging.

they make a pill for that...

I'm tired of my games and haven't been playing lately. I think about selling a few to bring in something fresh, but I just can't bring myself to let them go.

I found myself suffering from this, but then I found some local stores that sold alcohol supplements in liquid form, available in cans and/or bottles in a multitude of flavors, that helped me regain my vim and vigor (yeah, both of them), and put a sloppy pep in my step. These easily drinkable supplements have increased my play drive tremendously.

Yup.

I don't really play mine at all (never really did). It was more about tinkering/fixing for me. But with the same fixes always popping up, it stopped being a learning experience for me a long time ago.

I know I should sell them and put the money into stuff I'm enjoying now. Trust me, I'm looking at the space they are taking up and thinking about a dual VR game room.

i go months without playing sometimes .... then will play every night on some weeks.

Totally agree. One of the top two phrases that are bull crap is “Do what you love and never have to work another day of your life”. It takes your love and makes it work, which takes the love away. That’s happened to me in certain areas of my life too.

The other bs phrase....”happy wife, happy life”....

It's funny, I was thinking of posting a topic like this myself. I never owned a machine before this summer. I got heavily into pinball while visiting Florida and going to silverball museum several times and being introduced to JJP.

I really wanted a Dialed In but decided to wait to see what JJPotc would be like, and got a TAF in the meantime. (My only machine) I was very enthusiastic at first, playing and learning how to do a flipper rebuild.

But now I find I don't play much at all. When I do it's super fun and it's great when guests come over. Pinstadium did help keep my interest a bit longer and sometimes I just turn it on for the lighting effect.

My plan was always to sell the TAF and get a JJP game, but now I'm wondering if the same thing will happen, and I'll just have $10,000 tied up in a box of lights sitting in my living room that I hardly play. Opinions?

Totally normal. I have a few hobbies that go through cycles. I've even had breaks in these hobbies that lasted a few years. Perfectly normal. I think its a sign of a healthy mind. Go take up another hobby or revisit an old one. Examine your priorities in life. It is mentally invigorating!

Keep the pins tough as I'm sure you'll come back with a fresh and renewed interest in the hobby. You'll rediscover the joy in pinball.

Do you play in a league? Don’t have to be into competitive play to enjoy sociallising with other pinheads on a monthly basis. If that’s not your thing try playing on location to see if it’s really just your games that aren’t exciting or if you have just lost interest for now.

I wouldn’t rush to change up your home lineup as others have suggested. The new and shinny high doesn’t last long and the you will be back at square one. If there are games down in your collection get them fixed even if it means having to call in a tech. There’s no bigger buzz kill then broken games taking up space.

If you do decide that you need a change up my advice looking at your collection would be.
Keep the medieval/mettalica/whirlwind/earthshaker sell the rest and add two early solid states either Bally or Stern Flash Gordan/meteor/8 ball delux/Stars etc.. Dropping a couple of games is not going to hurt and you will feel better for being able to let some go. Adding a couple of early solid states is the best for home environments. Short quick intense play is often all you want after a day at work.

Honestly it seems like you are more into shiny lights and collecting stuff than Pinball. If you are already burned out, I’m sure the same thing will happen with your pirates game.

That being said, who cares? Pirates will look cool in your apartment and will dazzle guests for like 10 minutes. No need to give up on the hobby now.

Pinball doesn’t need to be a lifestyle. It can just be a hobby, a diversion.

Very normal for me. I absolutely go in spurts. One of the important things has always been to just roll with it, not play and engage in other hobbies and work. When I’m ready to come back, the machines will always be there.

You’ve been in the hobby for over double the time I have been, so you probably know better than I, but it sounds like you need to change up your lineup if you’ve had the same games for quite some time. You have plenty of games you should be able to do an even swap for something else in a comparable price range or maybe a 2-4-1 if you want something more desirable or modern.

There’s always an ebb and flow with interest and how much you play, but if you get some new pins and still aren’t interested...that may be an indicator you’re either growing out of it or need a new hobby to supplement it.

Good luck with wherever the hobby takes you

It's called TNA

works for me.

"You gave me chub with the whitewood"

I got out for a few years. Sold them all. Then I found a local bar with 5 games and I started going once a month. Then three times a month. At $1 a play I would drop $25 plus beer. So I am looking to start buying again .

I guess the key is to have games you love, not games other people think you should love.

Sure, if I only had games that took an hour to play, that would get tiring fast.

In no order

1. Beer
2. Weed
3. Leagues
4. Beer
5. Tournies
6. Weed
7. Beer

I only play my TNA right now. Working on Alien kinda soured me on pinball in general honestly, but TNA is the antidote I needed.

I really enjoy the games, themselves, and playing them for fun. So many folks are wrapped up in themes and recent releases or figuring out how to exploit a game so they can pop off scores in a league or a tournament. Honestly, don’t give a crap about that.

My collection sits and waits for those man vs machine moments... Sometimes that happens frequently, sometimes not.

Pinball isn’t an overriding priority for me, though. I’d sell them all without blinking if the need arose. For me, it’s a fun distraction from life.

My father was an operator, we had about 40-50 Bally/Williams machines from the DMD era. While we owned them, I had almost no intrest in playing them at all. I was too young, wasn't very good either, and got bored of it. Much rather take them apart, do time consuming maintenance that our repair guys would not want to, tinker with them, ect. When we started selling them, I slowly started to feel bad about not being able to play when I want. Now that we have exactly 0 machines left, I miss them like crazy, and wish we kept every single one of them. Now I take every chance I get to play as long as my legs can hold me.

I've been collecting pins for a bloody long time I'm 53 got my first one at 15 years old.

I've been on Pinside for ages, and I have been through stretches when I have 'gone off' the hobby, in fact in 2006 I ended selling my collection just keeping 2, boy what a mistake that was, as I had a wonderful collection.

I got back into pins a few years later, and my collecting is back up to 20.

I do still have times when I don't play but I have learned that I should never sell up again.

Like with anything I find I have times when I love pinballs then I don't play for a while.

C'est la vie I guess

Agreed.

My remedy to growing weary with
my games and the limited space
I have to work with, is to designate one
space/machine as a revolver. It is established in advance that I will keep
"that" machine for 6-9
months, no more than a year
It really helps to have at least one "new" machine and it doen't hurt as much to let it go.

You can get burnt out in any hobby. Take a break, trade a pin or go play on location. Playing the same pins over and over can get repetitive, maybe it’s time for something new

Even thought I've got 15 games, I need to take a break from the hobby.

I focus on other hobbies in the time period: Collecting vinyl, MtG, board games etc...

Also, refreshing the line up brings welcome change, but I can't really bring myself to sell games.

When the weather gets nice I won't play as much.

Once, the temperature is over 50F consistently, it's time to drive the cars and drop the 25lbs of fat I put on from October through February.