Good

Don't think of it as an investment... It's a game meant for enjoyment, not just for the wallet

Kudos to you, I really liked your post because your honest about the release / remake about to drop... Most existing MM owners and I say most not all, but most are very salty about the upcoming remake for obvious reasons. I'm personally looking to buy an MMRLE. I also thought about owning the original 97' Williams... knowing very well that a remake is about to drop, but I really weighed things out.

I'd rather a New in Box remake, more efficient with the LEDs outta the gate, with what should be a mint playfield, mint artwork, should be better sound, what should be a more reliable game being new instead of 17-18 year old parts. The fact that it would be NIB for what's considered to be one of the greatest pins of all time for half the cost of what they were about a year or two is very hard to pass up. I also like the fact that Stern and Chicago gaming are going to be involved in the production process. I'm probably leaving off a bunch of another 100 +other reasons why I want to add a MMRLE into my collection... Bottom line is hopefully it's gonna happen.

Damn good

Poll PLEASE!

I had an original BBB, and during that time I hoped everybody that wanted one could get one.

So I vote for remakes.

LTG : )™

I don't own a mm, nor can I afford a mmr. But your big mistake was approaching buying the game as an investment and not a hobby. Fwiw, all the people I know who have a mm don't plan on ever selling them, and could care less about the remake.

You shouldn't buy a product made for commercial use as an investment.

Someone will always want an original. Only issue I see is if a person paid $10K for a $4K one, they got kicked in the nuts.

LTG : )™

More pinball = Good

From my point of view, they have been talking about remaking MM long before it went past 8k (almost 6 or 7 years now at least). This is nothing new, so anyone that spent more than 8k on the game and is unhappy about the drop in value has only themselves to blame as it's not like this came out of the blue. You should be buying games for enjoyment, not investments, otherwise it leads to heartbreak in the end.

I totally agree with this. I'm all for the remakes that give people a chance to own one of these games. I would love to have a IMVE, and 5k is much more doable than 6.5k. plus the second hand market may be a little less even.

Not gonna lie ( NIB Excluded) It was nice to know that any machines I chose for my collection would either stay the same price I paid for them or go up slightly.

Thankfully I did not purchase any pinflated pins. So I am about 90% unaffected.

All it has done for me for future pin purchases is just be a bit more discerning.

If they did do a BBB remake, would they flesh out the game play a bit more?

i feel bad for the guys that make an art out of restoration work the most when it comes to remakes. these guys really do amazing, honest work for honest pay. flippers holding multiples of certain machines nib speculating on demand i don't give a shit what happens to them.

I think it is and will ruin the hobby. A true hobby should have hard to find items making certain items collectible.

The wow should happen when you play the game. If you only get the wow from acquiring the game, you're doing it wrong. Try stamp or coin collecting instead. Those hobbies are all about the acquisition.

Ruin the hobby? That doesn't make sense at all. Isn't a hobby all about having fun with your time doing whatever it is you like to do? If you buy games just to profit on them, then you've turned your so-called hobby into a business.

If you like pinball, it's good. If you're trying to invest in pinball, which is completely moronic, then it's bad. I love the idea of remakes, and reruns. More pinball is always good. It brings the prices down.

This hobby is definitely about the acquisition. It is also about the playing, the restoring, the modding.
If All I did was just play pinball, I would get bored pretty quick. I like all aspects of pinball, not just the playing.

Then collect speaker cutouts and key fobs. When things like parts and games become hard to find it drives prices up and makes the hobby to expensive for some folks. People spend too much time worrying about money and pinball.

Rob

If you purchased an MM and never plan to sell it how does my purchase of MMR effect you in the slightest? Sorry you're not a special snowflake anymore.

Lloyd, you sold your BBB?

Say it isn't so!

Why?

I've already had several calls about perfecting the MMr, and I'm sure HEP has too.

well i stand corrected then and gladly so. you have taught me about this, the woz gay factor, and famous asses all in a weekend...thanks

Good Good Good. Just good. I won't be buying MMr right now, but the remake makes the prospect of owning one in the future tenable. If anything, it makes the hobby more collectible, since it lowers the bar to entry. That being said, it doesn't lower the bar so much that they lose their value entirely, but still puts an upper bound on how much these sought-after machines will go for.

You do understand that for the first 70 or so years of this hobby everybody was just a player. No one but operators owned games. Yet the hobby still managed to survive generations that way. So don't tell me it's definitely about the acquisition. It may be for you, but it's not for me and plenty of my friends. When I buy a game, I want to play it. Not dwell on how good of deal I got or how I'm going to bling it out.

We all start this hobby as a player. Some feel the need to make it more complicated than that. That's fine, but don't assume we all need the thrill of a good buy to enjoy the hobby. That's simply not the case.

When there are more pins available, more people will be able to play and enjoy them. That's essentially what this hobby is all about.

Every day there are fewer and fewer classic pins out there. I've seen a handful of threads about parting out games simply because replacement parts are not available. That makes me sad.

Reproductions give both give better access to the games, and the possibility of replacement parts being made available.

Would the value of an original rare pin go down? Eh, maybe a little. The collectors who want to pay top dollar for an original pin can still pay top dollar for that rare original pin. I'm happy with paying a lower price for a reproduction that I can just play, and I'm sure a lot of other people would be too.

Far more upside than down.

The only people that seem to be against remakes in general are people who bought originals as investment vehicles and not as pinball machines.

If the PPS MMR is a success, there are a few classic B/W titles I'd love to buy new reproductions of if the prices are reasonable. Ditto (to a lesser degree) for potential Stern Vault titles.

More copies of popular machines probably means more people eventually in the hobby, so that is good long term. It also means fewer true flippers and a reduction in distributors hoarding NIB games and/or trying to sell them for a premium over MSRP, which is good for people that actually want to buy them.

I am sure they will remake the speaker cutouts and key fobs for those collectors as well

I guess every hobby I have had always has certain items that are harder to find and making that next score that much better! Just saying imo there needs to be something strive for or hope for.

Another point is I enjoy going to expo's, parties, etc to play games I haven't owned and look forward to those events. I know a lot of people play games at my house they might not get to out and about however IM will soon be everywhere as well as MM. Feels like the fun of it is fading away

Nice to see you've switched your position on an MJ pin!

So someone who sends NIB pin to a quality restorer is a "famous ass".. Good to know.

The thing you have to remember is that in the case of MMr it really is not a remake, it is more of a re-imagined machine. When Gene did BBB that was a remake, pretty much another run of the same BOM. Same for Wayne's MMr project, even though he never made it to production and there were a few artwork changes his intention was just to create more copies of the original device.

When MMr starts hitting the streets it will tell the tale on how this new build will work out. There are going to be a lot of aspects of the new game that will be declared better for sure (sound quality, all the parts are brand new, native LCD support instead of all the crap that goes with supporting a high voltage DMD, etc). But as it always seems to go in pinballdom, there will be negatives or differences that will be bitched about.

It's all guesses on how the new games will do in the aftermarket, but I have to believe that if Rick doesn't come out with the promised colored dots software upgrade right away folks will be simmering over that. And anyone that is stocking up on MM add on toys now is in for a surprise on any of those that require an electrical hookup as all of that is different on the new game. Will modern collectors that seem to *really* like to change out their LED bulbs be satisfied with the static ones they supply in the new game?

In the end there will be a large group of folks that prefer the new design, and another group that will always prefer the original. I just think it's best to consider them separate titles. But to your point, I'm guessing there will always be a buyer for your machine at a good price when you decide to sell it. Just don't try to sell it right now...

That was then. This is now.
20-40 years ago we played. Because that is what we did.

Now we have more options. I openly embrace the more options.
You don't have to though.

it's great if it gets all the "pins as investments" type guys out of the hobby.

The problem I have with remakes, is it takes away new titles from us. Just like hollywood, video gaming, etc, companies opt to make safe bets. So now we've entered that phase with pinball.

Never quite got the rare aspect of B/W games as there are 1000's of all their games.

If you want rare, go for late 70's Gottlieb em's...........now they are rare, high priced and hard to find!!

Just like cars, mustang, camero, etc. old cars are new again and with some extras! I'm all for new releases. A new MM might sell for less than the old MM. ?? How about SS ?? Thats one I would like along with the NEW STERN KISS !

Poll please

Reminds me of the discussion on real vs clone Shelby Cobras. Real Shelby owners don't like the fakes, but most people can't afford the real and there are now more fakes than originals. Owners of the originals are more caretakers than drivers, which sounds similar. If you own a real MM, it's become less of a pinball machine and more something to be taken care of and not modified/damaged.

Interesting article that has similar elements:
http://classicmotorsports.net/articles/replica-vs-real/

I could never own a real Cobra and likely will never try to obtain a real MM. But I've firted with owning a clone Cobra from FFR, and an MMr is not out of the question.

no, you completely misunderstood my post...

I don't think they are going to make remakes for every pin out there...only the super popular ones that are going to generate money for the manufacturer the "second time around".

I think this will increase the collectibility of the below top 10 games. I don't see them getting a remake.

....so HANG ON to your SST, NGG, WCS, etc...maybe they get a fresh look in the coming years.

I really can't see anyone being against a remake/reimagining/whatever you want to call it, except someone who has an original MM which is now (or will be) worth less. Having said that, pins weren't manufactured to be collector's items. And not all collector's items were made with the intention of them going up in value. It's not like Williams said "we're going to make 500 limited edition MM pins and no more ever" and then once they gained in value and people paid a small fortune for them, Williams decided "you know what, let's run another few hundred since so many people want one". That would piss a lot of people off, and rightly so.

I still don't get how everyone says this...How is it that an original MM would actually be worth less? Why in the world would that piss anyone off? In any collectable hobby, the items more sought after are the originals. I can own a reproduction of a Claude Money painting that sold for millions for just a few hundred dollars. I can get a repro of the $2.1 million dollar Honus Wagner baseball card for a few dollars on Ebay. Reprinted books sell for way less than the original first printing. The buyer of an original doesn't care to buy a reproduction. He doesn't ever care that they exist. Collectors seek out the original versions, and tend to pay what an original is worth.

People that buy pinball machines as an investiment is not healthy to the overall hobby....

More pinball machines the better... flood the market.... make them more affordable for me.

It's worth less because most people are buying them for entertainment, not for collection purposes. If you have a game 17 years old and the same game NIB for $8k, why would you pay any more than $8k for an original if you were simply going to play it? The majority of people own machines to play first and foremost.

The 'original' stuff doesn't hold water in pinball really because of how people treated restoration values the past 10 years. In cars, the most valuable ones were the ones that were all original, low miles, etc. In pinball though, the games that are worth the most are ones with new playfields, new plastics and ramps, new cabinet decals or the whole cabinet, new mechs, etc...what is original about that, the boards, lol? Pinball has never put any sort of premium on originality at all, so I don't see how that's going to change really.

I could see an original HUO MM with no mods being worth something to collectors, but past that I can't see how an original restored with all new parts is going to be worth than a new one with all new parts. That's just my opinion though.

It's still at SS Billiards...