(Topic ID: 9731)

Pinball popularity

By docscott

12 years ago


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  • 71 posts
  • 46 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 6 years ago by nwpinball
  • Topic is favorited by 1 Pinsider

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    There are 71 posts in this topic. You are on page 2 of 2.
    #50 12 years ago
    Quoted from docscott:

    Are us pinball fanatics in a dying buggy whip type hobby? Are we getting enough younger players entering the hobby to keep it alive, despite the competition of x-box?

    Except for those that own pinball or remember it on location, yes.

    I am in college and even though I am in New Media with the gamers, many have never seen one in person.

    Until they can find a way to make the machines less maintenance intensive they will continue to become more and more of a niche item. I have counted at least 20 posts about operators selling off their inventory in the last year. Most of that is those retiring, but I doubt there are any replacing them.

    #51 12 years ago

    I do think there will always be a pinball market, it will just be a collector market, even for new games. It'll be like owning a ferrari, only a few hundred might be made, and it'll be expensive, but there will be a couple companies that will make them. They might not be Stern or JJP in their current form, but I can see Stern and JJP and more being around for even very small runs, even if they were copies of their biggest hits.

    For instance, let's say that the guy that owns the Williams license decided to re-release MM as a limited run of 200 with all new electronics, but the same playing field. I bet he could charge $20K plus for these. That I can see as a future of pinball.

    Plus with that kind of boutique pricing will open up to smaller vendors that want to make their own and resell and be sought after. I see this very much as an enthusiast market like high end cars.

    #52 12 years ago

    All you need are hipsters. Then tell them it's ironic and quirky to play pinball. Boom! Pinball scene, It happened here.

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    #53 12 years ago
    Quoted from guymontag451:

    All you need are hipsters. Then tell them it's ironic and quirky to play pinball. Boom! Pinball scene ...

    You would think, but we've got a thriving hipster community here in Chicago, and yet pinball machines are surprisingly sparse.

    #54 12 years ago

    Heh, at my artwalks, hipsters crowd my machine!

    #55 12 years ago
    Quoted from gweempose:

    You would think, but we've got a thriving hipster community here in Chicago, and yet pinball machines are surprisingly sparse.

    It would only take one Ground Kontrol or Dorky's spinoff, or a bar with a dedicated well-maintained pin room like Shorty's in Seattle or Billy Ray's/My Father's Place/APEX here in Portland.

    The NW Formula :

    1. You hang up some crappy art students abstract artwork or out of focus photographs
    2. Serve PBR tall boys
    3. Get some young tattooed bartenders
    4. Fill a juke with 80s pop/wu-tang clan/obscure avante garde indie rock/and a pavement record. 5. Watch it explode.

    It seems like that is a huge untapped market there... build it and they will come

    #56 12 years ago
    Quoted from guymontag451:

    It seems like that is a huge untapped market there... build it and they will come

    You've convinced me. I'm opening up a huge pinball arcade in Wicker Park! Anybody want to be business partners?

    #57 12 years ago

    I was happy to see the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas was rocking. Of course with a full time tech there were still several machines down. In the right (rare) scenerio, maybe it would break even, after all, playing pinball can build up a killer thirst.

    #58 12 years ago

    Pinball for the most part is something most people cant experience at home. Pinball dominated coin op amusement for decades then their popularity declined thanks to video games. Video games were made obsolete by home gaming consoles and people left the arcades. Now pinball is still around and video games aren't except for a few select genres. I grew up on video games and didn't play pinball until I bought my first machine in Oct of last year, I'm 34. I go to my local arcade and play pinball as often as I can and am on the lookout for my 3rd machine. So pinball is poised for a come back imo.

    #59 12 years ago
    Quoted from guymontag451:

    All you need are hipsters. Then tell them it's ironic and quirky to play pinball. Boom! Pinball scene, It happened here.

    Nice man bag!

    #60 12 years ago

    I like to think I am doing my part to keep pinball alive.

    #61 12 years ago

    Then tell them it's ironic and quirky to play pinball.

    +1...
    But sorry Guy, those aren't hipsters at all.
    THIS is what a hipster looks like!

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    #63 12 years ago

    As someone who has run a lot of local and a couple big tournaments, runs a pinball map with 250 locations/450 games, and a pinball blog, here's my 2 cents.

    A lot of people talk about what will make pinball popular again. The world has changed. The arcade is dead. If you want to get people to come out, give them an experience. Give them something they can't get on facebook or on the internet.

    I ran the tournament at Pin a Go Go last year, probably my best tournament in terms of overall quality. One of the players was super-enthusiastic and kept asking me tons of questions about how to run a league. He hooked up with one of the organizers afterward and they started a pinball league. The Capitol Corridor league is now in its second or third season.

    I recently started running local tournaments at a neighborhood bar. One of the attendees started a "meet-up" in Marin County for pinball enthusiasts. My kind of event was just what she'd been looking for and she wanted to do her own. I said, "Why don't you be in charge of the next tournament and get some experience?" She agreed and we did it. Just bought her first game, too.

    That's all it takes, just getting people playing, having fun and meeting cool people. If you have a positive attitude and are willing to do a bit of work, the rest will follow.

    If anyone has questions about running a local league or starting a pinball map in their area, drop me a line.

    "If you build it they will come." When you get the word out there it happens. You can be the Ric Flair of your local pin community.

    #64 12 years ago

    As I looked through the thread of pics of Pinside members, I see plenty of people that are young enough to keep this hobby going for many years to come. I'm probably in the minority here, but why is everyone so concerned about the future of pinball. There are more than enough titles already in existence to keep me occupied for the rest of my life. My collection will be "my collection" regardless of the so called future of pinball. I'm not saying I don't want to see pinball continue, I just don't see how it ultimately affects a casual player/collector like myself. Either way, it seems to me I will always be able to have the pins I want and the parts to keep them going.

    6 years later
    #66 6 years ago

    Sometimes I go back and read what the prevailing pinball wisdom was, say, 6 years agao. Wow, a lot has changed.

    Would you say pinball’s future is more, less or equally optimistic today as these opinions were from 6 years ago?

    #67 6 years ago

    While the resurgence has lasted longer than I anticipated, my opinion is still more or less the same.

    #68 6 years ago

    Ha! I didn't even realize this was an old thread until I got to the end. Looks like folks took the advice and catered to the hipsters with barcades on trend now.

    #69 6 years ago

    Yeah, tons of "younger" (ie. late 20s, early 30s) people in our local scene now, even a lot of women. Plus there's a ton of games on location whereas 10 years ago there was zero.

    It's a lot more healthy now but I can't see it expanding much.

    #70 6 years ago
    Quoted from DefDumBlindKid:

    Sometimes I go back and read what the prevailing pinball wisdom was, say, 6 years agao. Wow, a lot has changed.
    Would you say pinball’s future is more, less or equally optimistic today as these opinions were from 6 years ago?

    I didn’t read the entire original thread but it didn’t seem all that optimistic. Sounded like people felt collectors and hardcore old timers would be the last pinball fans.

    I’ve gotten my ass beat by kids who were barely walking when this message was first posted. I think the future of pinball is alive and well. Parents are passing it on to their sons and daughters and they are running with it!

    The hobby may never reach the cultural peaks it once has but I don’t see it dieing with baby-boomers and gen x either.

    #71 6 years ago

    The women's pinball scene has exploded here in the past 6 years since this thread was started. Also the barcade scene... in the Seattle area Flip Flip Ding Ding, Coindexter's, Vidiot and the Jupiter all opened, each with 20+ games, and one new all ages arcade opened with 30+ games. Our local Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show has about doubled in attendance size, we had around 4,000 people attend the last one. And the local pinball bar tournament league grew huge, causing dozens of bars to add enough games to get in on it. Here in the Pacific Northwest there's definitely a growing pinball scene for women, teens, and especially people in their 20s and 30s, there's practically a pinball tournament going on every night of the week and the surrounding smaller towns all have barcades and pinball leagues popping up.

    There are 71 posts in this topic. You are on page 2 of 2.

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