While I respectfully disagree, what bells and whistles are you referring to? I haven't really seen anything that would lead me to believe the game would cost twice the price of a nice TZ to build

Grossly overestimated:
Playfield, mechs, toys, etc: 6k
Cabinet, art, translite, etc: 3k
Electronics: 1.5k

I have brought pins to our local show for many years, and none have ever been damaged. Shoot the EM's usually come back playing better. If one does happen to get damaged this year, I'm not gonna sweat it. I enjoy sharing my machines with people. They are meant to played and enjoyed.

The guys I understand least in this hobby are the ones with these high-end, huo, mint games sitting in their house locked away. Usually they are on 5 ball play, still have factory high scores, aren't leveled, have a nice layer of dust on em, and play like crap. We got quite a few of these guys around here. I'm sure you all know these guys as well.

I have not seen that myself.

Regular people are always shocked that pinball is still being made, or that anyone collects them.

Regular people are not going to pay $100 for a family to play pinball for a few hours.

I would suggest that the shows are packed then, because that is when people are off from work.

Maybe my pin-radar is off then. Still, I see lots of parents with two or three kids in the line for a one-day admission. I have conversed with some of those and overheard others and they aren't collectors or owners. They are used-to-be players who want to re-experience that fun with their kids. Or maybe use the show as a baby-sitter?

This is exactly what we at Pintastic New England are going to change. Pinball alone is not an easy sell for the whole family. This is why we are having a magician, Clown doing balloon animal , Face painters, nice lake with a sandy beach, beach volleyball, retro gaming lounge and much more. Tons of fun for the hole family all FREE with your show admission! Check it out www.pintasticnewengland.com

You had me at magician

Exactly

I think you're only considering the parts and assembly aspects. A few examples off the top of my head...

There is a documented case of a NBA FB conversion to MM which cost $7k and 1000 hours of time. That's just manufacturing a game already done. What's the cost of those 1000 hours? Nearly 10k at minimum wage.

JPop's MG. Even receiving $17k for 25-ish games, he's struggling on time, struggling to pay vendors, much of that that with volunteer assistance.

WOOLY. Riot said they need at least 100 orders at $7995 each or they just haven't the means to make it happen... 100x the volume you are talking about.

If you can design the game, write the software, do and print custom artwork, design custom electronics, handle low-volume custom parts tooling and manufacturing, etc, and so forth for only 2x the going rate of mass manufactured machines, then you are a genius. I think you can probably do it for $18k if you ignore the time/cost spent doing it, but custom tooling will probably kill it. Think of this: even Stern spends at least 1 full year on a game with an entire team devoted to it. 1 man year is worth more than your $18k cost. If you would build me a custom one of a kind game with my specs, I'd find $18k.

You're correct that those estimates don't include labor. This is not my business (yet) I do it for fun, and 7k is more than enough to incentivize that work.

I'll be in touch when I finish the game I'm working on. For what it's worth, I'm about 1k in, looking at about 2k more for ramps, a display, cabinet, art, and wiring harnesses. This is using a lot of mechs from a parted stern to save costs, so it's not technically "new"

Great to hear you did it and everyone got to enjoy the game.

People like that should have their ass kicked out back.