I’ve been in the industry for 20+ years. 20 years ago, you could get a theater of magic for $600… twilight zone for $1,800… the list goes on and on.

Here are the variables I think are at play with the rising prices, and it’s more than just 1 or 2:

- Stern has 1000s of units in its backlog
- Less supply of pinball machines overall, growing demand and popularity, and more disposable income for the average consumer. I know people who used to make minimum wage but had enough money to buy a stern pro because they were unemployed during covid. The barrier to own a machine has never been lower and people have never had more money.
- Stern increased the price floor on all new stern pros being created after Godzilla
- older machines are being restored; come with new and expensive mods; and are becoming less available (scarcity/FOMO). These machine prices become higher, thereby increasing the price floor of all machines of that same title incrementally over time. The carrying trade value on these older machines are always maxed too.
- Older games are being reproduced and setting a new price floor
- New pinball machine manufacturers have very high base entry
- Inflation

Probably a bunch of other reasons, but these stand out to me right away as to why pinball machine prices have sky rocketed over the past few years.

I honestly don’t see any pinball prices going down soon because no one is willing to sell less than what they paid for something, and everyone is over paying.