So a company comes out of nowhere and has games to deliver today, with a throwback design and illustrative artwork, and didn’t rip anyone off through preorders, and the first thing people do is crap all over it? Jeez. It costs a lot to make manufactured goods in places like the UK and USA. Especially from scratch.

If this is fun they’ll rip through their 100 no problem. And yeah they probably are padding their pockets a bit on price. But better to do that and use the money to possibly make another game or buy equipment to scale up, vs offering a way too low preorder price then failing to get the games out the door.

8K couldn’t get TBL out the door profitably from a European manufacturer. So I don’t think their price is outrageous given the history of pinball manufacturers not making it.

Yeah why not? I own a few EMs. “The Mafia” is a bit on the nose but hey Sopranos was a pinball machine. So was Kingpin.

WNBJM sold more than 100 units. I’m sure this one will sell despite its price. Some collectors want limited items and have lots of money. And if it doesn’t? I mean they only made 10 so far right?

CrazyLevi Dude gotta disagree with you. Boutiques aren't driving up the price of pinball. What's driving up the price of pinball is way more collectors, and every year it seems they got more money. If anything, the failed boutiques actually helped keep some of that money from sloshing into used game prices.

Our New England Pinball League has gone from 30 players in 2012 to 250+ players in 2018. A lot of those players got into it when PinWiz opened in NH or one of the like 10 New England barcades that opened up (Providence, RI has TWO barcades and a pizza joint with like 10 games. a city of 180K!). All these guys like myself started buying a few games, seems like everyone in league has at least one now. Used to be games that collectors wouldn't touch like Torpedo Alley would sit around forever before selling for under $1000. Now people see PAPA streams, or Jack Danger's twitch channel, or played it in league, or at a barcade, and now most games that aren't total garbage are north of 1K and more likely 2K.

There's also just a LOT of money sloshing around the economy. Interest rates have been low for a long time, and I'm seeing wacky things from people. Don't get me wrong I love a good well-made product but when people making $100K a year are buying $50-80K teslas I am scratching my head like crazy. Pinball is not immune to this either. Too much money chasing too few goods.