Derry, NH
Quoted from DakotaMike:This might not be a popular opinion to state out loud, but I wish new people would stop getting into the pinball hobby. New blood is great for pinball locations, great for tournaments and leagues, and great for pinball shows, but it's awful for us home collectors.
More people buying for their home just means more demand that the manufacturers can't keep up with. Stern and JJP's manufacturing capability isn't growing with the rate of new home buyers, so all these new collectors are just more competition for the limited number of Premiums, LEs, and Pros that are made. Not good for me or for you, since if you don't get in on that first run, you might be waiting months or years.
New people in the hobby is also bad for the 2nd-hand market. There are a finite number of older pins, but a growing number of people interested in buying them. So more people in the hobby just means it's that much harder to find those classic Bally/Williams pins for sale, and that much harder to find them at good prices.
So yeah, it's kinda awful to say it, but I don't actually want the pinball hobby to keep growing right now. I'd be happy for the location and tournament scene to grow, but once people get into playing on location or in tourneys, they almost invariably want to start owning pins at home.
What do you guys think? I can't really see any benefit for us home collectors in the continued growth of the pinball hobby. All I see is more buying competition and higher prices. Sorry to sound like a grumpy gatekeeper, but I think it's hard to argue I'm wrong here.
You sound like a selfish person.
Quoted from DakotaMike:I knew this thread would be fun.
I just repair pins as a side hustle. Mainly to get experience working on and playing a variety of games that I wouldn't normally get to, and to help fund the habit a bit. And most of my clients are guys who have one pin in their man-cave, that they bought 20+years ago when operators were fire sale-ing them. Not much need for my help on brand new Sterns.
Well, just because my Pinside profile is 2 years old, doesn't mean that's when I got into the hobby. But I agree to an extent I am a new guy, but I'm not hating on newbs anyway. I'm bemoaning the massive influx of buyers that have entered the hobby recently, mainly since the pandemic started. I keep hearing people say it's good for the hobby, but it hasn't been good for any of our wallets, unless you all ready owned a big collection.
Also, I've brought several pins back to life that sat broken down for years. And would probably still be sitting if I hadn't fixed them up and gotten them running. And I only have room for 2 pins at a time anyway, so in my case I've added more pins to the buying pool than I'm currently taking up. So you're welcome!Pins were great 2 years ago too though. Hello DP, hello JP. I'm not sure new buyers are why pins are so great these days, I'd say it's more the new designers and coders we've gotten recently. Elwin, Eric, Tim Sexton, Raymond Davidson, ect.
Oh yeah, long term all the new pinball people will be good for the hobby. But only if manufacturers are actually able to increase production, and only if all the new pinball companies actually prove themselves reliable, solvent, and able to produce pins at scale. Right now, I wish the speed of the pinball hobbiyst growth would slow down though. The market is too nuts right now.
Yep. Still selfish.
