...and an old EM bingo machine would fit in nicely.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Stern is free to make a My Little Pony all they like, this doesn't matter to me a wit.

I'll ignore it just like the other titles they make which don't appeal to my interests for one reason or another.

It kind of irks me that out of the many female country artists that all we can come up with is to remake Dolly Parton.

Y's and O's take too long to type?

The backglass on the Bally Dolly Parton is hideous, would have been far better if they used the country Dolly on the playfield.

I understand she was in the process of "going Hollywood" regardless of that it was a mistake and looks terrible in my opinion.

The proto cabinet was better too.

Maybe add Lara Croft to this low risk female idea. Tombraider could be cool also.

It has already been said, but this really is a conversation where the opinions of women would be more valuable than any opinions men could provide. But ultimately change needs to happen at the manufacturers by getting women involved in design, marketing, and development. The themes may not be the issue, but women involvement at the company level would certainly help bring some new opinions and viewpoints into the company.

Instant buy for my wife and I. We both grew up playing tomb raider... so long as it isn't angelina jolie version.

Me too. I never understood why people get upset about titles beings made that they don't like. I think trying to create themes that'll make the pinball demographic more diverse, is an exercise in futility, but I wish them luck if they're willing to try. ultimately, I don't see anything wrong with hobbies that are either predominately male or female oriented. The OP thinks this is "real talk", I think its nonsense.

no crap

I'd say Big Dick is a really "female oriented" theme

/fun mode off

My wife and our female friends always go for the ToM in our collection first. After that they tend to go play SS. My wife would probably never buy a whole pin but she did pay for the Pedretti ToM topper herself as it's her favorite game.

Just saying that there already are pins that females appreciates.

My wife loves EM's with Melody and Night Rider her favorites and the only solid state she MIGHT play is Jurassic Park.

She really loves Melody, its her clear favorite.
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I tend to agree with you to a certain extent. I don't think Stern or anyone else should take the risk and raise the banner charging into a relatively untapped market.

Pinball is hard... but if the right group got together, analyzed the market properly, promoted sales effectively and addressed some of the major issues identified in this thread there is a chance for long-term profitability.

If anyone is truly interested in SWOT and just being hypothetical about starting a boutique company, PM me. I have experience, capabilities and a small amount of manufacturing space that can easily scale up in the near future. Taking a risk on something like this is a better bet then the "haircut" we took when the market last crashed.

I just think it would be worth the risk to try an unconventional theme to test the market. Not all games sell well regardless of theme. WWE comes to mind, I thought that sold poorly despite the popular theme. It might shock stern to see e how well My little pony would do compared to other themes.

You should probably put a blackout curtain up to prevent those games from fading.

I’d be shocked if companies aren’t using market research to try and figure out what their customers want.

@megafeenix, your post proved its point. If you intended this.. nice work on your part.

Pinside is basically an anonymous forum which gives users a license to spout off whatever they want (troll) to with little to no consequence.

For some reason, 29 people thumbed up this ridiculous post and pinside makes you think its worth reading:

This is not fact based, this is Vid's opinion - and it's just pinside trolling at best. Go convince the thousands of female players at tournaments and leagues and basements around the world that they really aren't as interested in pinball as they think they are - good luck. Maybe the appeal doesn't look like the same appeal as your appeal, but the appeal is there.

The only fact is the discouraging comments and responses in this thread are discouraging to the women who are reading and looking for support. For this same reason, some women are discouraged from an early age away from things like mathematics, yet some of the worlds most accomplished mathematicians are female. Can't say I blame anyone for avoiding a hobby that has such a high barrier of entry such as sexism.

Sorry to be like that, but if people don't speak up no change will be made. I will go back to only looking at marketplace now.

We do cover them up when not in use, I tried to get dark curtains but she nixed the idea.

I asked my wife if I could just spray-paint the window black, then the blackout curtain became HER idea. Always think ahead one move...

Its based on reality and actually observing people and what they do and their interests.

Nice stawman you setup there, I'm going to burn it down for you.

1) They are a fraction of the population that owns and plays pinball, exceptions proving the rule.

2) Were not saying their interest is any less than mine for example.

Were saying far more men are interested in buying pinball machines than women.

Talk about trolling, you totally misrepresented Vid's post. And yes, men and women (Not always, but for the most part) tend to have different interest when it comes to hobbies. It's not sexism, it's reality.

I spent quite a while writing up a long well worded response and deleted it once I remembered that this thread is the biggest waste of energy on Pinside

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Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Nicki minaj, taylor Swift, Ariana Grande. Id buy more than one of any of these and take my chances on location.

This thread provides some fascinating (and sometimes sad) pinsider insights.

WoZ is a nice non sexualized pin based on a female lead. And it’s been crazy well received. Good theme. Good table.

So family friendly and wide appeal can certainly be done.

As a business it makes the most economical sense to have as wide a consumer base as possible. Unless you’re cool with being a niche product with a low sale volume ceiling.

It can’t be half assed or contrived though. The whole package has to work. The table has to be solid.

It’s funny to see that some people that have argued in other threads that theme doesn’t matter now think Stern taking female tastes or ips into account would somehow tank the entire company. The new Stern TMNT pin proves that a Turtles game can sell just fine without showing April’s cleavage on the back glass. Turns out we just needed it to be good.

I wouldn’t mind at all seeing themes like:
Wonder Woman (With Gal)
WandaVision
Tomb Raider (based on the reboot)

Just make em fast and flowing!

My wife says these are some themes that would be shut up and take her money:
Marvel Women of Power (zen did a virtual table)
Princess Bride
Labyrinth
Phantom of the Opera (a new one)
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)

Y’all telling me a Wonder Woman, Princess Bride or WandaVision pin doesn’t have the potential to be amaze balls?

I don’t think it’s bashing to think outside the box from time to time and re-invent the space. Non (or low) presence of females playing and working on the tables doesn’t mean they don’t like pinball. It just means we haven’t shipped tables with enough appeal to draw them in.

Once upon a time (and for a scary dry spell) dudes weren’t into pinball either.

Jersey Jack and Stern saw that and that’s why the themes we see now have quite a bit more focus on family and HOU appeal.

Yeah and if a company made one of these, all of the women would come running to join the pinball community!! Shows would be filled with new women, you'd see women start winning major tournaments, most of pinside would be women! That's what they've been waiting on all these years is just a good "girl theme" pinball machine!!

The notion that most women generally don't care about pinball (and never will) , is a bridge too far for some of our more "enlightened" members to understand. I just know that somewhere out there, there's gotta be a hobbyist forum that is made up mostly of women and they're desperately, spit balling ideas on how to get men interested and involved in their hobby.

I know you guys probably don't care, since you are having so much fun with this, but you are completely missing the point.

There are ALREADY plenty of women interested in pinball. It really shocks me that people supposedly into pinball don't know this.

It's not about roping more in, it's about expanding the appeal of games to a growing segment of the player base. It's just good business.

When Stern came out with Iron Maiden, it wasn't because they suddenly thought they could create a massive influx of Maiden fans into the pinball hobby. It's because their customers were demanding a Maiden games for years. This is very much the same thing.

You guys pretend that all men are into pinball, when in fact it's very few. Considering the time most of you guys spend begging your wives for permission, whining about color pallates, and shopping for plastic dolls, this hobby is about as macho as a Dynasty marathon. This is still a tiny niche hobby and the vast majority of people still think there's something wrong with us.

ALL of us.

So maybe try remembering we are all in this hobby together.

Levi, I don't disagree with any of your post, to be perfectly honest. I just think the idea that you're going to get a huge influx of women into pinball, is a pipe dream.
I get it, as far as being good for the business, but I think the demographic will remain the same, regardless of what theme is manufactured. Claiming sexism is to blame, is where I find fault with this argument when it comes to women and their lack of participation in pinball.

Some lessons I was taught when young were that life is not fair and that sex sells. It didn't matter if I liked it or not, it was reality. People are not taught reality anymore. "Everone gets a trophy" and "everyone's feelings matter" is not reality. Sorry, it just isn't.

I know that feeling. I get trophies. Of course one has a misspelled word, and recent one misspelled my name.

I'll be butt hurt later. At a to be announced date and time.

LTG : )

If anyone deserves a trophy, it would be you, LTG.

I wouldn't go that far. Years back I preferred being anonymous help on pinball and arcade forums. That ended with my first seminar at Expo when I had to start wearing a lanyard.

LTG : )

Stating this hobby is more appealing to men does not mean it has no appeal to any women. It simply means it appeals to more men than women, which is a statement of fact. You're trying to twist what Vid said and we're not falling for it. The only thing more annoying than virtue signaling SJWs are virtue signaling SJWs who pipe off when no offense was even committed.

I want a Barbarella pin just so I can beat Duran Duran in the wizard mode. “Blow Up the Excessive Machine!”

There's many pinball machines with many themes. If we are talking equal opportunity any theme can be enjoyed by either sex. My wife likes AC/DC, yours likes Game of Thrones, someone else's wife likes NASCAR. Already there is a bounty of gender neutral pins available to both parties. The Beatles fans by estimation is at least 50/50 in gender, and greatly slanted toward more female fans in the 60's - There's a Beatles pin for the ladies too. If you say they need a Wonder Woman or Tomb Raider pin, well I am thinking that's something men want, maybe even more.

^Mine likes Stargate. Figure that one out.

If the boomers just want to rant about SJW virtue signaling (while ironically signaling their own virtues), then whatever. Don’t expand the hobby

I’ll buy your pins off your widows and ex wives for cheap because she doesn’t give a fuck about those games nor do most under 50 year olds.

Like it or not, people like myself are the future of the hobby.

My wife's favorite pin is BSD...she loves Gary Oldman. She pretty much likes all my games/themes, though. I don't have it anymore, but she thought Rolling Stones was awesome, as she's a big fan of the band.

I'm under 50 and you're just wrong. Sorry.

Wrong about what? Time in linear and I’m younger than most of the farts in this thread by decades.

Oh good, let’s morph this into an ageism thread. /s

We've been over this! It's not so much "outraged grandpa", we call it by it's official title, "boomer hornyposting"

I have nothing against older people. Some of them just suck like some people my age suck.

It’s basic math that I’ll outlive most of them and reap the rewards of their LE collection that no one cares about when they pass on

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if there are few if any boomers in here. My parents are boomers & can barely use their smartphones. I think someone called me a boomer in this thread lol ...I guess is it just an insult for anyone perceived to be older than you?

Yeah and millennials like myself call the generation below us zoomers

I know it’s more Gen X than boomers here, but slang is what it is

Also you know it drives some crazy that they’re being compared to their parents

it's become a mindset instead of a demographic. Seems only fair after enduring so many years of articles about "irresponsible Millennials" when they were all in their 30s.

browsing through the thread and ignoring the off-topic pieces, themes that I think would be exceptionally strong as industry choices AND appeal to women:
Metroid
Mad Max w/Furiosa as the protagonist
Tomb Raider
Wonder Woman (classic would be my preference since I didn't like the 2nd Gadot movie, but whatever)
BlackPink vs BTS (if there was a chance of pinball getting picked up by South Korea, this is the theme that would do it)
Alice in Wonderland (goddamnit Popadiuk was on to something there...)
Pokemon (nothing to do with women, but strong demographics)

Let me give two examples to counter this, one anecdotal and one real world.

First, anecdotal. I deal with hundreds of ladies and guys every year given my industry and anecdotally, it's been the ladies that have been the ones more interested in my pinball machines. I only have the one right now but still as far as which of the talent is more likely to gravitate to it, ask about it and try it, it will be the female talent. As far as why they don't buy them as often I can say this much, again anecdotally. While they like playing them they often find them too fast, find it's not clear as to what needs to be done during game and they are worried about what do to if they break down. It's like many things that you can buy, you need to target the audience if you want to sell to them and to do that it helps having the target gender involved in the creation and design of said products if you want to be successful. One addendum to this, the reason they love playing them at my place is because, to quote what they often say, "I can play and be left alone". That's also why they tend to not play them on location unless they are in a group of people that can offer some protection. Make of that what you will.

Second, a real world example that directly follows the above. A super common thing in the adult industry where I work is that ladies don't buy porn. It's "common knowledge" and often parroted by the mostly male filmed content that unsurprisingly is targeted at you guess it, men. Hence the trope gets parroted to this day that ladies don't have interest in this stuff. So some years ago I decided to make a new adult website focusing on the female demographic and I consulted many ladies over a long period of time to see what they were looking for that I as a dude could never see or figure out. So I asked lots of questions and looked for patterns in their replies. Fast forward to today and not only is it my most successful website making me the most money, but it's demographic as per Google analytics is mostly female and I regularly get emails from ladies that are so happy something has finally been made for them. Of course to this day the same trope that ladies have no interest in adult content still gets parroted regularly. Their financial loss.

The TL:DR of all this? You need to both involve the target demographic in the product you are making otherwise no proper conclusions as to sales/acceptance of said demographic can be drawn.

LOL fair! I don't think I have a Boomer mindset.....buuuut, I do like 60s/70s/80s music. I think the only new albums I buy are new Morcheeba albums...but they've been around since '95, so I guess that's old deathbed fogey music, too

Skye Edwards is the best female singer...fight me!!! Morcheeba pin, anyone!?!?!?