Woz brought me in...7 games later I am hooked..cant wait for JJP newest game

I agree with you Iceman, I don't know if they will make it or not. Even if they reopen people have either lost their jobs or are afraid to spend any money.

If they can reopen and run maybe at half capacity for awhile maybe they will be ok but I dont see any way that they open back up at full capacity like they were before the shit storm hit.

I think it would be a great idea for them to focus on their quality right now too since their only customers will now be people buying games for their home because they demand it. Location pinball is dead for a long time is my guess. I bet Stern and JJP both is kind of wishing right now that they wouldnt have pissed off their faithful customers because they sure could use them right now. I want a Elvira and a JP but I wont buy because I'm scared of their quality and they never have got back with me on my two bad playfields that I have right now.

Pissing off your loyal customers is always a bad idea and it will come back and bite you in the ass usually. I think that's what they are seeing right now. Give me a warranty on my NIB games and stand behind them or I'm not buying, it's as simple as that.

I honestly think a smaller company like Spooky is in better shape than stern with all of their overhead, but who in the hell wants to wait for a year or longer to get a game that's not much fun? Not me!

Is Spooky’s latest not fun?

AC/DC got me hooked back in around 2012. When I first played it I knew pinball had a bright future.

The economic impact has just began. People are tapping 401ks to pay mortgages.

That's better than not paying the mortgage. Most lenders are allowing borrowers to delay payments for a month or three so far.

Not sure, haven't played it yet.

From the little that I have seen thus far as far as games for sale, there does not appear to be an all out mass liquidation of games by owners. I think that the demographic majority of pinball owners are probably in their fifties or there about with a decent job and SAVINGS. This is what separates the haves and have nots during times like this. Mom always said there would be rainy days. Well it’s pouring. If you prepared, you’ll be ok and just may be in the market for a new game. Undoubtedly the manufacturers will see a tightening. We all will. While I would like to think we will go back to where we were before in due time I think k that is a pipe dream. However, with some belt tightening on the part of the manufacturers they may just slide through this with less scarring than otherwise thought.

I do agree that on location pinball for the time being is probably not going to do well.

Time will tell! Stay safe and healthy.

Woz brought me back, I had several titles earlier but was pretty much dormant. I had Pinbot for 25 years (loved that pin) when I saw Woz at a show in St Charles, Il Pheasant Run I couldn't believe it. Great times from then on. My first purchase was Stern ST. then IMVE then Woz.

I would be willing to bet you that their sales will be cut by 60-70%. Stern has lost the location business, the people who have lost their jobs business, some people who haven't lost their jobs because they are holding onto their money, and they have also lost a lot of loyal customers due to not standing behind their products recently. That's a lot of customers.

They better start doing like the car companies are right now and give people some incentives that makes them want to buy games.

Time for Stern to lift their game. If Stern want to survive all they have to do is look after their loyal followers. There are many of us that have been given below par product, below par service and below par responses to genuine questions and genuine warranty claims. If Stern go back to looking after us, they will survive. If they choose not to, who knows what will happen, time will tell. With money tight and sales low, Stern need to step up and prove that they are willing to stand behind their product giving customers confidence in buying their games. Hopefully Stern will go back to treating customers like they did before 2016.

CGC and Spooky will survive, I am not sure about the rest.

I wish everyone well in this difficult time.

I think we all need to get behind CGC making Addams Family remake

Kind of what I was thinking

Yes we have purchased a lot of games!

It will not take much for Stern and their distros to pick up the phone and resolve some issues. Fix this and I think plenty of people will keep buying, maybe just not as many games. Reality check will be good for the hobby I think.

TAFr from CGC would get operators that don’t run pinball anymore to run pinball again because every older operator (myself included) remembers the collection numbers from TAF. But alas, CGC isn’t going to do TAFr.

Pinball will survive. It always does. Think about what pinball has endured-legality issues, the late 70’s/early 80’s video game boom, the mid 80’s second video game boom, the 90’s home console explosion, the dark days of the early 2000’s and the 2008 recession. Pinball is like a cockroach...hard to kill!

I wouldnt like to be a slot machine mfr right now.

I respectfully disagree. I’m thinking people will want cheap/fun entertainment at social environments and pinball is that. As long as we have sensible operators restructuring their contracts I think, if anything, we will see more pins on location after people are allowed back out in the next 6-18 months.
I route for hobby and I am looking forward to going around my county with the success stories that I have been able to establish for businesses for the past decade so I can build pinball instead of letting it go like it did back in the early 80s and in the late 90s

Down turn puts almost all of them out of biz. Market shrinks, big guy scoops up little guys for pennies on the dollar until big guy gets into trouble and then they start to shed people / investment. Stern will be back to it's former self pre-pinball-boom (relatively speaking). Of course not right way, but a year into the recession things will hit hard, money will bleed. People will not buy. The interesting part is will Stern pivot into other areas like CGC is manufacturing OR will Stern go down the cheap China labor path. (I would bet make in China is coming or some other region of the world). Think about software programming, etc. - buy lots programmers in India / China, etc. Maybe made in Mexico, programmed in India coming soon....and then you can buy games for pre-boom prices.

Agile, niche manufacturers will survive like CGC who is diversified.

I believe the rest will go belly up.

I have bought several NIB or 1 year old machines in the past 15 years. I stopped about a year ago based on recession and shit quality.

Oh yeah - those distributors that have not killed their customers with kindness - say bye (cause doing it after you took advantage of buyers is not going to work).

Why not? The big guys were shipping and supporting new games until three weeks ago. The casino shut down is allowing casinos to quickly update floor layouts and game configurations, install complete new bar areas with new bar-top machines etc. No need to put up false walls or rope off floor areas. Konami and Aruze still have employees working today.

Keep in mind that the really big gaming companies make less than 50% of their revenue and even less profit on gaming machine production. They make more on progressive machine participation fees, Slot data systems, related software packages and daily fee games.

I gotta admit it was weird seeing IGT's HQ and Gigafactory with only a handful of cars in the lot a few weeks ago.

As soon as Nevada "reopens", they will all be humming again.

.

the $3k and under used market is gonna be hot for a while