It seems like buying has slowed down this summer. Prices on older games appear to be dropping a bit compared to last year's peaks, such as Demo man and GOTG pro.

Part of that is probably just the usual summer sales slump, maybe a little due to inflation, but some of that could also be the huge release of games earlier this year that basically happened all at once.

Pinfest this past May seemed to be the biggest it has ever been, and I heard freeplay hit capacity and had to turn games away.

Long term? I think the outlook is probably fine for the next couple years, as long as there isn't a massive hit to the economy.

Not to be that guy, but I don’t think anyone knows, and it probably doesn’t matter.

All the companies could go out of business today and there would still be more games in existence than any of us could play and buy in a lifetime.

These games are expensive now, so the economics of the hobby play a big part in its popularity among casual players.

Oh great another one.

Levi's head is going to explode.

No idea on pricing, manufacturers, etc. Just the hobby.

I look at the Train Collectors Assoc., their average age is mid 60's. And still huge money in that hobby.

Pinball, with the influx of new people. I'd guess the average age to be 35 to 40.

So comparing to the train hobby. I figure the pinball hobby will stay strong for at least 20 more years, if not longer.

Long live pinball !

LTG : )

I would also add that the glut of simultaneously released games earlier this year has abnormally impacted they buying cycle for many.

Also what I'm thinking now. A good 10 years ago I would say the hobby would decline, with the only people then being interested in pinball being those who were in their 30ies and 40ies and remembering playing TZ and TAF on location when they were students.

The last years pinball became more wide spread and young people got introduced to the hobby.
They will remain interested and get more disposable income as they grow older.

The truth of the matter is that these weekly new "bubble" threads that have been posted for 10+ years will continue to popup until finally, one day in the undetermined future, an actual pinball price bubble burst occurs. At that point, the hundreds of bubble thread OP's will each start new "I told you so" bubble threads proclaiming how they knew it would happen all along.

20+ years, even when Williams was still in business.
Levi has “The Bubble” master list somewhere.

JJP has a more uncertain future than CGC, in my humble opinion.

I think Levi is retired. The job was just too much for one man.

Take an article about the current housing market, replace home with pinball, and it’s the exact same bubble vs not-bubble discussion.

mr_bubble_updated.jpg

Calling CrazyLevi

IMG_4614 (resized).png

I can't hold a candle to Levi on this subject, but for those of you that don't understand why people are tired of bubble topics (whether it be about price or manufacturers), just a quick search yielded this many in the last 10 years. I am sure there are plenty more without "Bubble" in the topic as Levi's list is longer if I recall correctly.

A canary in the price bubble mine ? Topic
Topic started 70 days ago by Mr68 – in Buying and selling advice – 100 posts ‐ Last reply 60 days ago

Pinball bubble burst imminent? Your thoughts Topic
Topic started 13 months ago by zermeno68 – in Buying and selling advice – 212 posts ‐ Last reply 13 months ag0

If the bubble bursts? Topic
Topic started 20 months ago by playtwowin – in Buying and selling advice – 66 posts ‐ Last reply 18 months ago

Are we in a price bubble? Topic
Topic started over 2 years ago by J-Freeze – in All Pinball – 16 posts ‐ Last reply over 2 years ago

Pinball pricing bubble due to Covid one nine? Topic
Topic started over 2 years ago by JohnTTwo – in Buying and selling advice – 43 posts ‐ Last reply 22 months ago

Prices too high! Bubble about to burst? No inovation! Dimples! QC?! Topic
Topic started over 3 years ago by ectobar – in All Pinball – 40 posts ‐ Last reply over 3 years ago

Are we in a Pinball Bubble? Topic
Topic started over 7 years ago by frankmac – in All Pinball – 47 posts ‐ Last reply 14 months ago

Is this the bubble? Topic
Topic started over 7 years ago by Russell – in All Pinball – 213 posts ‐ Last reply over 7 years ago

Ghostbusters LE Bubble?!! Who is the sucker? Topic
Topic started over 7 years ago by kklank – in All Pinball – 84 posts ‐ Last reply over 7 years ago

When Will The Stern Bubble Burst? Topic
Topic started over 8 years ago by thundergod76 – in Stern Pinball – 468 posts ‐ Last reply over 6 years ago

Looks like the Stern Ve bubble just burst.... Topic
Topic started over 8 years ago by stretch2 – in All Pinball – 156 posts ‐ Last reply over 8 years ago

here is one guy who does'nt think the bubble has burst Topic
Topic started over 9 years ago by cosmokramer – in All Pinball – 4 posts ‐ Last reply over 9 years ago

The Bubble Has Burst? Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by galagamaster – in All Pinball – 31 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

The bubble in Pinball.. Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by huo – in Buying and selling advice – 2 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

MM Remake = 'pin' that popped the bubble? Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by Don1 – in Buying and selling advice – 20 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

Trying to make some sense of pricing during this bubble Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by Heretic_9 – in Buying and selling advice – 1 post ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

Pinball Bubble Won't Pop! - One year later and still going strong! Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by pinnyheadhead – in All Pinball – 165 posts ‐ Last reply 7 months ago

This is not a "rebirth" of pinball... its a bubble. Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by lowepg – in All Pinball – 203 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

Pinball Manufacturers creating price bubble? Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by flashinstinct – in All Pinball – 18 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

Price Bubble? Who cares. It is rather irrelevant if you think about it. Sort of Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by inhomearcades – in All Pinball – 64 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

When Will The Bubble Pop? Topic
Topic started over 10 years ago by Three60in – in Buying and selling advice – 74 posts ‐ Last reply over 10 years ago

Pinball Price Bubble will pop Topic
Topic started over 11 years ago by criss – in Buying and selling advice – 106 posts ‐ Last reply over 11 years ago

Bubble Busting! Medieval Madness Remake!! Topic
Topic started over 11 years ago by VisitorQ – in All Pinball – 27 posts ‐ Last reply over 11 years ago

Pinball "Price Bubble"....notice some strange things here in the North East..... Topic
Topic started over 11 years ago by Chicoman – in Buying and selling advice – 40 posts ‐ Last reply over 11 years ago

The price bubble keeps growing...now BOP hops on! Topic
Topic started over 11 years ago by NJGecko – in All Pinball – 37 posts ‐ Last reply over 11 years ago

Pinball price bubble -- MM as an example Topic
Topic started over 11 years ago by HeyYouSir – in Buying and selling advice – 270 posts ‐ Last reply over 6 years ago

Pinball price BUBBLE ... think it can't happen? THINK AGAIN! Topic
Topic started over 12 years ago by Hyperion – in Buying and selling advice – 861 posts ‐ Last reply 16 days ago

The market is slowing

…from an unsustainable rage.

But this one is different because the OP asked us to actually talk about it and in all the other threads no one talks about it.

WOO-HOO !!!
I'm at the top of the list, baby!

clapping-applaud.gif

learn-it-know-it-live-it.gif

I like smoking pot!!

My bad, I am a bit slow.

I’ll update my “master list” once a year (usually in January) when the first idiot makes a new bubble thread.

The intention was never to catalogue EVERY bubble thread; that’s frankly impossible, and even attempting to would drive someone insane. The goal was to just show every noob who thinks they are the first one to come up with this discussion that it’s been happening every year forever and will never end because pinball isn’t cars or houses or beanie babies it’s pinball and it’s awesome and it’s not going away and prices are never going back to where they were years before you decided to join the hobby so tough shit.

It's as if there was no search feature on Pinside.

BTW, cant believe the CrazyLevi Signal from Mrsiyufy actually worked.

It’s midnight in Krakow and I decided I’d wind down with a little Pinside.

BIG MISTAKE!

You’ve been around long enough to know that Pinside is more of a wind up.

Gr8t news for buyers on the secondary Market. Just sit back and wait abit longer. I cant even sell a nib maiden prem for 8900 bucks. Yes, the end is near!. Nib pins are no longer an " investment ", flippers wont be flipping, and distributors will have to get " creative" to convince seasoned pinballers to commit to such high priced games.

My plans are shot, didn’t win the Mega Millions!

Op, I'm sorry for your downvotes.

I'll be honest, I feel that some companies will fizzle out. This hobby has no desire for new people to become interested in it, as as we die, it too shall die. The prices have become just too damn stupid, which can only hurt it further; operators won't be able to afford putting them on location and only the rich are going to afford them. That leaves young little Billy out of the equation to become interested in them at all.

It's a business model that is unsustainable, to be sure.

Hey! That’s MY retirement you’re spending a buck on. Nice…

This Billy is not happy with the prices.

DoC4K2wU4AAi_Fu (resized).jpg

No need to speculate, I got the data. PinballPrices.com just updated. Take a look at prices on modern used games:

aug 9 chart trends (resized).png

The economy sucks right now. Has nothing to do with summer slumps or price increases, or rich people, or whatever else, the economy is inflated, people are holding cash. SIMPLE.

Yes bad economy now. Summer does have an affect on prices though...

1000% agree about the hobby size growing exponentially. Capitalism = supply and demand
LTG you've been around long enough to remember people used to say, "Pinball machines shouldn't be considered as an investment". Now the damn things appreciate in value more than having money in a savings account. I truly don't understand this world anymore

So no more $4k stern pros? Bummer.

Pinball prices are very bad….I’m going to wish them to the cornfield….

The prices would probably fall a little more if guys like Levi would release actual sales and purchase prices…
Just saying

I sit in an interesting spot. I sold out my nice stuff because frankly the games aren't worth what they bring at least to me. I have been having fun fixing/flipping solid state games for the past 6 months.

Stuff sells, just not as well as last year. It still sells for silly money. Sometimes it is collectors. Sometimes to homeowners just wanting something for their mancave.

I won't speak to any of the newer smd stuff, but the through hole is in a precarious position. Parts have become harder to find and more expensive. There are aftermarket options for some parts like certain 5v regulators. Occasionally the cost in parts to rebuild say a power supply does not make sense now. The good news is currently there are a lot of aftermarket options for board replacement. Not for all boards and all games, but many.

The bad news is not all of those boards will be easily repairable in 10 years, because the community knowledge to fix them does not exist like the originals. Clays guides were a big boon to the hobby. Now we have pinwiki and the like, but they do not cover aftermarket boards. Manufacturers come and go seemingly at random so no telling how long these solutions will have support.

This isn't a short term issue. In the long term how viable it will be to own through hole games is unknown. Maybe there will be more stuff like lisy35 where we someone designs boards and you can have them built yourself. It does require that the designer or at least someone with knowledge maintains the current part list or it becomes unusable to the community. Troubleshooting them is also a fair bit more difficult. While I love Lisy boards and use them regularly, there can be some weird stuff that is not easily diagnosed.

Maybe we will continue to see a new breed of aftermarket manufacturers, but that isn't a certainty. Assuming I have another 30+ years left of collecting there is a real possibility that some of the games I have owned will not be maintainable at some point. Might be a few years between options, might be one day that there just isn't a replacement option and that is how it is.

Incorrect. No idea where you got this from. There was a late 70's early 80's arcade surge mostly causing the pinball "crash". Mid to 80's were better.. not amazing. Early 90's was a large peak and that trailed off SLOWLY to the ultra low point in 1999-2000. Then there was a steady climb to insanity during Covid. Those are ALL DIFFERENT AND ALL happened for VERY different reasons. You can't predict them nor should you try, wasted effort.

Owning pinball is a VERY niche market. Much more than you probably want it to be. The answer is obvious though, it will be exactly how many are needed for the market at that point in time.

There, that's all you need to know. The rest of the Pinside filler is: "rhetorical theories", "what ifs", or utter nonsense.

The actual reason why so many seem to be annoyed by these types of threads is because the crazies, old men, and newbies all ague in harmony together until the thread is whipped up into a frothy cup of manure.