I'm not sure why so many say it is. I never stopped playing. Even in the lean years there were games to play.
(Topic ID: 224139)
Decatur, IL
For me, it kinda fell away. Once Mortal Kombat came out. The pins started thinning out in the arcades and dropped off my radar. Then the arcades started closing with the Nintendo age. Then came adulthood and working all the time, partying till the wee morning hrs and then going to work and doing it all over again. Then the magic, or addiction as some call it happened. And I ran across a space station, one i distinctly remember playing as a kid. I thought to myself man I could buy one of these. Well here we are now, A wife, 19 yr old kid out of the house and the hobby is really picking back up. So the wife says YOUR GOING TO SPEND 10 GRAND ON A TOY!!!!!! Yep, I sure am! 
Quoted from o-din:I'm not sure why so many say it is. I never stopped playing. Even in the lean years there were games to play.
Never stopped playing either, but am nostalgic about the old EM games I haven't played in years!
I never played pinball as a kid. I grew up on video games then found table top gaming as a physical alternative when I went to college (Warhammer, Warmachine). My wife and I would hit the casinos just to play the mechanical slots for fun, nickel at a time. We went to Pinballz arcade last November and we both just had to keep coming back almost daily to keep playing. Finally she went to the South Park machine and said "buy me this machine, I want it." Found a guy who delivered it and said "you have to be careful, these things multiply like rabbits". We now also have a Theatre of Magic and a Dialed In LE. 
And all these nostalgic themed games and the whole nostalgic environment of pinball as of late is not for me.
I refuse to watch that Stranger Things show. Fuck forced nostalgia. I have my own memories to rely on.
Agreed definitely nothing nostalgic about my collection. I remember playing a couple pinball machines as a kid and enjoying them, but nothing I had to have when I got into it. Video games on the other hand I did go with nostalgia. Mainly street fighter and mortal kombat. Always wanted an nba jam as well but thinking I don’t want or need a big 4 player cab now a days.
Quoted from o-din:I'm not sure why so many say it is.
Some people played pinball a lot as a kid, and rediscovered it as an adult. That's why they say it is nostalgic.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Some people played pinball a lot as a kid, and rediscovered it as an adult. That's why they say it is nostalgic.
Well, what made them stop playing then? Certainly wasn't a lack of location games.
This should about cover it for me.
Buh-bye any 90’s new pinball experiences.
(Pinball=Blanka depicted underneath.)
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Good thing I was able to soak up all the 1970’s through 1990 pinball I could before SFII hit.
That nostalgic bit of my early/teen life had enough mental staying power to sail me back into the Pinball fold a bit after POTC initially came out.
Sinking ship?!?!?!?
Holy hell what ELSE have I been missing since Whirlwind?!?
And the rest they say, is history.
Still happily chugging right along here in the pinball world now with a decade+ worth of NEW silver ball memories that harmoniously bookend my old youthful ones.
Here’s to the next chapter! Cheers!
Quoted from o-din:Well, what made them stop playing then? Certainly wasn't a lack of location games.
I can't speak for the thousands of people who consider pinball nostalgic, but I'll take a few wild guesses.
Why do people stop doing lots of the things they did when they were kids? They get jobs, start families, and generally change their priorities.
I don't remember exactly when or why I stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons, but it happened.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:I don't remember exactly when or why I stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons, but it happened.
I do. It's when all the great cartoons got replaced one at a time by that sucky Sid and Marty Kroft stuffed animal bullshit. They weren't happy with just one, they had to takeover most of the Saturday AM lineup.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:I can't speak for the thousands of people who consider pinball nostalgic, but I'll take a few wild guesses.
Why do people stop doing lots of the things they did when they were kids? They get jobs, start families, and generally change their priorities.
I don't remember exactly when or why I stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons, but it happened.
They stopped showing them. They no longer exist. That's probably why.
Quoted from tamoore:They stopped showing them. They no longer exist. That's probably why.
Didn't that happen like 4 years ago? My memory isn't what it used to be but I'd probably remember that!
Toronto, ON
I have no memory of pinball prior to 1997, when I was in my mid-20s. Not everyone is "nostalgic" for pinball - some of us just think it's cool and fun.
Quoted from o-din:Well, what made them stop playing then? Certainly wasn't a lack of location games.
I'll call BS on that. Maybe its not an issue in LA, but there is still a lack of location games in these parts, and everywhere I've lived since high school.
When the arcades closed in the 80's and they stopped putting them in laundromats and 7/11's, there just wasn't a lot of easily accessible games around.
Even today, they are tough to find if you aren't old enough to hang out at a bar.
Quoted from Black_Knight:I'll call BS on that. Maybe its not an issue in LA, but there is still a lack of location games in these parts, and everywhere I've lived since high school.
When the arcades closed in the 80's and they stopped putting them in laundromats and 7/11's, there just wasn't a lot of easily accessible games around.
During the 90s it was like the 70s all over again here, with pinball machines everywhere. The production numbers of a lot of those games support that. At least five solid locations a bike ride from here. Even at the end of the decade and beyond, I still was able to seek out games to play. South Park scratched the itch at a small pizza joint for a while and TSPP and the Nascar got played every time I took my daughter to Chucky Cheese. Disneyland also had games to play. When she stopped wanting to go to those places is when I started buying machines of my own.
If anytime I played less than others, it was the mid 80s, but still threw a quarter down wherever there was a machine. I think even with a ten year break from playing, I wouldn't be in this for the nostalgia factor. I just like to play, and always have.
If nostalgia played any part of this at all it was buying games I used to play, but that didn't last very long, as I found I'd rather be owning and playing games I'd never played.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:They get jobs, start families, and generally change their priorities.
For me I had just graduated from College and stopped working (fired) from the arcade and had to get on with life for a bit. Of course that also coincided with W/B going out so it wasn't looking good for the future anyway; I thought the fork was in it around late 98/99.
Still, location pinball is almost dead to me, unless you count a club with is shakey as a location.
Quoted from TheLaw:For me I had just graduated from College and stopped working (fired) from the arcade and had to get on with life for a bit. Of course that also coincided with W/B going out so it wasn't looking good for the future anyway; I thought the fork was in it around late 98/99.
Still, location pinball is almost dead to me, unless you count a club with is shakey as a location.
Man, how do you get fired from an Arcade beyond rampant theft?
Quoted from TheLaw:Still, location pinball is almost dead to me, unless you count a club with is shakey as a location.
I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member. 
Quoted from CrazyLevi:Man, how do you get fired from an Arcade beyond rampant theft?
Ha...cops came in and caught us playing cards on the pool table for quarters; shut the store down & never reopened; College town raid!
Luckily I already had a career lined up and wasn't that happy. Whole thing had gone away from smoking all day and kicking hood rats out to redemption shit by then...uff awfull.
I almost missed the $5 an hour though
Quoted from TheLaw:Ha...cops came in and caught us playing cards on the pool table for quarters; shut the store down & never reopened; College town raid
I hate it when that happens!
Quoted from o-din:Well, what made them stop playing then? Certainly wasn't a lack of location games.
I was given one of these and started to spend less time in the arcade.
9394D5AD-6204-4425-9F63-7991837F27F5 (resized).jpegI bought the coke machine for nostalgia. I love the sound of the coin going thru, hearing it click, and pulling out the soda. My granddaughter loves it. I didnt play much pinball at all as a kid, never went into an arcade. So pinball isn't nostalgic to me. However, I bought my wife a Sorcerer which was nostalgic for her. I have an issue with it presently. Do you work on these Odin?
20180818_100535 (resized).jpgFor me pinball is both nostalgic and also completely not... What I mean is, I never, ever played pinball at the arcades when I was a kid. I loved arcades and when I was about 12-15 is when the arcades starting to die out and vanish. I was born 1984 and I was lucky enough to have an atari, nes, sega genesis, ps1, ps2, I think then I bought an xbox, and xbox2... Then I bought a ps4 for myself. That is my console history... Only reason why I mention that is to let you know that I loved video games and played them my whole life.
At the arcades I'd play a few fighting games, but since I sucked , I'd mostly focus on beat em ups, and light gun shooters. I always liked the concept of pinball, but it was always too expensive and I always thought that too risky to play.
As I sucked at pinball and didn't get the rules(didn't know what they were at the time), and so I never dared to play pinball.
My father loves pinball.
And he would time to time put a few bucks into a machine and have me and my brothers all play against him. Of course I always lost. But, I enjoyed watching him play. And he always enjoyed it.
So part of me when I take my father to play pinball, it is a bit nostalgic, and also part of me remembers when I was just too poor to play it, but wishing I could.
So that is why its a mixture for me.
Now, when I see a pinball machine I want to play I play it. Good fun.
I gave up on pinball for Space Invaders and Asteroids. Flash was the last game I remember playing until decades later when I ran across a pinball and thought it would be fun. Just one, I told myself. That plan didn't last long.
Quoted from megalo17:What does your shrink say this means about you?
The school shrink? I'm not nostalgic about him either. In third grade he told my parents by the time I hit high school I would be smoking weed and sleeping with girls. As if that was a bad thing.
But that opened the door for me getting shipped off to military school for a year and a half, a place where there were no pinball machines, but a Licorice Pizza record store down the street where we could sneak out and get free licorice ropes. Still not a very nostalgic time for me.
Most of my memories of the past are intact, and there are plenty of great ones, but I have no desire to dwell in it or relive it as that is a pointless venture. In fact I'd rather dwell on how much fun I'm having now with what's available to do so.
I played Fireball when I was a kid. Sure I wanted to own one when I started collecting, not so much about nostalgia, but more because it was an ass kicker that took every dime I would give it. And there were none available to play anymore. Three Fireballs later and I'm over it.
I can also remember quite a few turds I played that I never had the desire to play again, let alone buy.
Pinball is not nostalgic for me because it's always been around.
Nostalgia for me is the sense of something I enjoyed from my past that I can never fully experience the same way again, yet I am reminded of it by something and it's a good feeling.
Quoted from o-din:It's when all the great cartoons got replaced one at a time by that sucky Sid and Marty Kroft stuffed animal bullshit.
What's this crap, a half hour McDonalds commercial or what? And what happened to Hot Wheels and Fantastic Four?
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