Please regale us with more of the dumb hypothetical conversations you've had with friends about pinball. They are fascinating!

that's not settling down

Or, the one with 20k plays appears to be in better condition, now what?

Asking amount of plays on a machine is akin to asking a girl you recently started dating how many guys she's slept with before you

Ok, but hypothetically, you have two smoking hot babes. They are microscopically identical, down to the number of miniscule hairs on their big toes, cup size, and amount of bellybutton lint. One says she slept with 100 guys. The other says she slept with 87. Which one do you ask out to the Harvest Social?

See? I proved a point, or something.

Except game counters can be rolled back and they don’t do division before showing you it’s number

always so salty over nothing, lol. calm down pops

Can I see the shooter lane first?

Dude what part of "microscopically identical" are you missing here?

THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME IN EVERY WAY. You could literally canvas the game/babe with a microscope and would find precisely zero differences. Which is a situation you come across all the time when shopping for pinball machines or cruising babes (or dudes).

The ONLY actual difference is the mileage!

Which one do you choose, hot shot? ANSWER ME!!!

Boom. Now you understand why people care about play counts.

I think we really need to think about how play counts combine with home use only, used at a show, or routed to create a sort of numerically accurate master condition rating score. Then there could be an overall sort of Kelley Blue Book value assigned to each game, with an associated accurate value.

Or maybe a grading system similar to comics and sports cards grading. We could just send our games off to a certified grader, who would then return the game graded and sealed inside a lexan cube.

Yes! New mfg option, the sealed LE vault, Comes packed in a hermetically tight, UV protected NOS pinpod. This will also be a good way to dispose of any poorly cleared PFs as they are not meant to be played. win win.

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

I’m all-EM and I’ve never cared about the game counter. By this time, playfield wear, backglass flaking status, and cabinet wear, along with overall structural integrity count far more than whatever is showing on the counter.

Perfect for people like d0n they could make money off their fellow pinheads without the hassle of playing pinball.

Yup, and you can just roll those counters back to zero and sell as an unboxed HUO..

Even with elevator games us EM folks have good shooter lanes since the ball slides over. Newer games getting the balls slammed after deflection from the trough assembly.

If only I could find the original box to make it even more valuable!

I have a 2013 Metallica (about 6000 plays) that still looks amazing. You just have to wax them and change the balls out every 500-1000 plays (yearly, for me).

“HUO” and play count are both bullshit. I bought a ratty routed JM, put new decals on it, and sold it a few years ago. The current owner now has it listed it as “HUO - undocumented”. If that’s a HUO pin, then I’ve never flogged my dolphin, not even as a teenager.

The only way to avoid disappointment is to inspect the game you’re buying. Bring a flashlight.

Condition is king. I've found routed games with 1000's of plays on them that clean up and could borderline pass for NIB.

It all depends on how the game was maintained and the environment it was in.

I'll take a game with 4,000 plays on it that looks / works great over a game that has "low plays" but has been heavily abused and has issues any day of the week.

Back when I bought my TZ and CV for maybe $1500, I didn’t mind the cigarette grime and scratches on the cabinet and didn’t even think about number of plays.

But I’m sorry, if pinball “enthusiast” sellers dream of dollars and want $10k+ for their precious, I’d also expect quality and would want to know if it’s a worn wet noodle or a pristine restored machine worth that money and number of plays are a factor. That GZ LE on route at the local barcade with thousands of plays looks worse than my TZ back in 2000 when I bought it off route.

Not that I would *EVER* pay that much for a used pinball machine but I do understand that many buyers got picky.

The one that is closest to my truck.

I've read a lot of carguments on here but now were doing girlguments?

Can we do both?

pasted_image (resized).png

This^^^ Things wear out period, Not only the playfield, It's the parts you cannot see. All moving parts under the playfield, they do wear out and the more plays the more worn every part on that machines becomes. The higher the plays the more used that item becomes. It may still look new but check under the hood for worn parts. Really though When a 10k count and a 1k play count are for sale at the same price, what one would you pick? The lower play count all day long.

I bet her hair smells like daddy issues

Wondered if there was a topic on this, and pinside didn't disappoint.

Recently picked up an OG TNA (#88) and I didn't even think to ask, or check myself, the amount of plays before buying. I did a physical inspection of it, and played it. The shooter lane was starting to show some wear, but I can throw a cliffy over that so who cares? The cabinet, playfield, and everything else was in fantastic condition, and it played great, so I was happy.

I'll say I was just a bit surprised when I checked the audits today and found it has 15k plays on it! Given the condition, I can't imagine it was routed and the coin audits are only at one coin per each slot. Maybe it was taken to some shows? Or, is TNA really just that brutal with the ball times (and that fun) that it racked these all up in home use!

I feel content knowing I've got a tried and true machine and not a potential lemon.

Some home users always restart after a bad ball one. That might account for a lot of the total. Or they might have button-mashing kids playing 30-second games.

The metric that would be more accurately indicative of overall wear would be total play time, ideally minus any time of sitting in the shooter lane. I'm not sure if that audit is available on games from any of the makers.

I have a 2 year old that presses the start button constantly. The game is never played. There is zero immersion in these events.

I have seen games with 400 plays show signs of wear in the shooter lane and I have sold many games with over 2k plays with zero wear in the shooter because I keep my pins clean with new balls constantly. When a game is HUO you (well I) can tell how the game was taken care of. Plays to me mean nothing.

Only dealers and private sellers who specifically buy and sell games for profit try to downplay play counts (at least until they’re on the buying end of things and then they amazingly change their tune). Any seller who wants to try to get away with telling you as little as possible is someone you want to steer clear from, especially if you have no prior business with him

Of course play counts are important. Like someone else said, it’s like the odometer on a car. Sure, you can wax the car regularly and store it in a garage. If it has 300K mikes on it, that’s a reason to take pause.

If a game has thousands and thousands of games on it, you’ll definitely want to more closely inspect it for possible issues. It doesn’t mean that it’s out of the question. It just needs to be looked at more carefully.

Why do some people get all weird when it comes to reimported games? They are just hung up on certain things I guess.

It matters if it's really high. Otherwise, I don't care if it's 100 or 1000.

No, you are missing the fact that cars have engines and transmissions that eventually, no matter how nice the outside is, will fail, and cost thousands to repair. If a pinball machine is not hacked, looks good, and plays good; who cares?

So is it worth a fortune?

20230123_123614 (resized).jpg

20230123_130002 (resized).jpg

Components that tend to fail, like capacitors, age matters more than use. Play counts don't matter if everything else is great. A well played game likely those moving parts replaced, like flipper linkages. Once again, condition, not plays matters most.

Look, just accept it folks. Cars are exactly the same as pinball machines and play meters are the exact same thing as odometers.

Give yourself over to this truth and you will experience a sense of wellbeing.