Quoted from Aurich:Playfield protectors are hot garbage, and utterly unnecessary for home use games. If someone tried to sell me a game with one of those protectors on it they'd have to either cut their price or remove it before I'd take it.
Your game, do whatever you want, but if you're new to pinball stop being paranoid about your playfield.
I’m guessing these are hot for home use as people don’t play games like a game on location gets played and don’t see the long term affects. Home use games don’t wear unless your using rusty balls and never wiping the game down for 20 years. I’m sure these will cloud up quickly and collect lots of dust under them on a location game wich is what would actually need a protector. We had one on and Addams here at The Sanctum. Got very cloudy very quickly. It’s getting a new playfield currently.
Not saying the playfield protectors don’t have a place. An old Bally with cupped inserts everywhere. Do a few touchups and lay one of those protectors down and it would be a massive upgrade. Great bang for the buck and easy solution for most anyone.
From what I’ve seen with spooky playfields I think it’s very unnecessary to have one on it.