The biggest blow will be because of their greed over Gottlieb schematics. Recently been downloading every PDF I can find on the internet still left just to make a stockpile for games I may get in the future. Yeah yeah, I know it keeps the boats afloat, but it'll cause a big issue for the future, whether that be 20 years, 30 years, or 40 years from now. Woodrails will be first, lots of information lost in time.

I find that PinballLife and others fill a good niche at a similar price point. Will be a loss, yes, but not the end. Don't mean to be all "classic Otaku", but still have never made a PBR order and I'm doing just fine and my games aren't in shambles either.

I have thought about this a reasonable amount lately, EMs especially. I wonder what it's going to be like when a collector passes away and his or her family is left to sell their games but nobody wants them. As much as I am looking forward to the inevitable market crash I am not looking forward to being one of the only ones left (could put a period right here too) to save every single game I see from its landfill death, meaning it's me or the trash heap if I don't want it. Talk about guilt!

At least o-din is going to live forever, he'll have the West coast covered.

(Forgot to mention/didn't care to mention the plan is to open a museum one day (sooner than later but somewhat more importantly for later on when the niche is no longer filled), not sure if the above was directed towards me or not)

I think what Zacaj is trying to say is we should have the best of both worlds: Sell print copies for the many who want them, but don't enforce the IP on schematics and allow them to be shared online freely too (especially for non-profit use like here)

I share the same opinion. He'd still make money there - a lot of people do want the nicely printed copies and also don't want to search/request/wait. Yeah, you could just go to Staples, but I'm sure there's a lot more people that would just save the drive AND throw it in with another order.

I have yet to ask to be put in anybody's will.

There's a few collectors around here with hundreds of machines in warehouses and stuff that they have been "waiting to get to" for 20 years (and refuse to sell at project price until they get to fix them up). Makes me wonder what will happen to all of that. There are a lot more EM machines around than we think, they're all just loaded up in barns somewhere. Even though I know some of these people as friends it admittedly makes me a little sad. The whole EM pinball resurgence thing is going on right now and these things are in the dark and cold holed up for their 20th Christmas in a row and missing all of it. To each their own, I just hope they don't all get thrown out when said people pass on.

Seems like a lot of people in this hobby don't have a plan for these things either, although likely a private matter.

It's a losing battle. Around here "information should be available/PBR is wrong about one single thing" = "SCREW STEVE AND ALL HE'S EVER DONE FOR THE HOBBY!"... when that is obviously not what we mean at all. There's no in-between for a lot of people and also the whole thing of internet copyright/SOPA/etc. is after a lot of people's time here, I could see how the effects are hard to grasp. Oh well. Also, criticizing Steve to a lot of people is like saying the pope did something wrong and you're ostracized for even thinking it.

Keep fightin' the good fight.

To summarize: We'd totally buy schematics - but if you don't want to, the option should be there especially since you likely own the machine.

Not his product, it's the product of people who've probably been dead for 20 years. Steve is just the lucky guy who paid for the Gottlieb cash cow. Dishing out cease and desists over schematics for 40 year old hobby games makes you a loser IMO. Maybe a successful loser making a lot of money, but still a loser. You can sell the product without enforcing the copyright to people wanting to not make profit from it and just fix their games.

That makes sense. I'm happy to spend the extra $2 to make the buying experience 100x easier though. Have done it before, and will continue to do so. Can pay with PayPal, zero phone or e-mail contact, instant ordering, and not having to deal with you-know-who is probably worth the $2 on its own. Although, I don't think I've bought a lot of Gottlieb-specific products before, haven't really ever had the need. Things like plastics and whatnot already come pretty mint on my games - usually just end up buying light bulbs and pinballs which thankfully the copyright-hounds can't get their grubby fingers on.

Excuse me? I encourage you to come over and take a look. At least it's not a cookie cutter collection.

You insulting my collection is not doing wonders for your argument. Clearly we do not agree but you don't need to be a jerk.

Probably the only valid point. I'm not saying it's just Steve, it can be Steve and the Gottlieb copyright owners or just them or whatever combination. I am not targeting just Steve, I'm pretty sure the Gottlieb copyright owners have more of a hand in the legal end of it anyways. I'm pretty sure they're the ones who sent the cease-and-desist to IPDB. I'm glad Steve sells printouts of the schematics, that is a good service for the community, I'm just saying that enforcing it to be the ONLY method and not letting people share online is hurting the hobby, especially its future when his business goes away after he retires or passes away. Perhaps Gottlieb/Mondial will find a new business to distribute them however I'm sure eventually that whole thing will fold too, speaking long-term, and the issue will then be lack of Gottlieb schematic documentation as a whole rather than people enforcing it/who's selling it.

Oh, and everybody here complains about how awful the owner of PPS is, but the Williams (and Bally) schematics are free game to share and distribute online (and are able to be used here much more than the occasional Gottlieb schematic snippet posting), as well as being freely hosted on IPDB. Food for thought.

If PPS can do it I'm sure it's not a necessity, and if it is in Steve's agreement and not PPS's, it's fault of the owners of the Gottlieb copyrights then. So regardless, it's somebody's fault.

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Anyways, I'm off for the night. You guys have fun and sorry about the thread, the original intent was cool and hopefully it can return to that.

People are taking it too personally, just because I think schematic information should be free to share if you own a copy (not even GIVEN to us virtually for free by Steve, I am talking about Bob sending Joe a scan of his factory original El Dorado schematic and Joe putting it on his website for all El Dorado owners to utilize, not Steve giving free handouts), doesn't mean I think Steve should stop selling them or earning money from them, and he probably wouldn't because as we all know print copies are pretty nice and a lot of people want them.

Copyright is a killer. There are people out there that say piracy of movies should be free but I'm not even that kind of person and totally get why companies would want to stop that - but we're talking about extremely niche old documents in an extremely niche hobby (and 3/4 of the participants can't even read them), yet we aren't allowed to share them around like the documents of the rest of the manufacturers. And the only way you can even use the document in question is if you legally already own the machine in the first place (otherwise it's pretty useless), which originally came with two copies.

The guys who made and wired, designed and painted these machines are all pretty much dead. The machines themselves wore out their corporate value decades before they entered anybody's collection, going into obsolescence and all of that, in terms of the original creator. (Which is why Steve was here back then and why he is here now, obsolescence of older parts/machines and then the eventual complete death of Gottlieb) Even if Gottlieb the company was still around we all know they wouldn't be selling Bank-A-Ball schematics out the back door of the factory, or 1960 metallic posts, and I'm not even saying that Steve/Gottlieb should give up with the copyright enforcement for the parts - just the documentation to keep these machines running. Especially since they came with the machines to begin with.

God forbid Steve dies or the place burns down and the database is lost and backups are forgotten about (ESPECIALLY if the copyright is still enforced preventing sharing online after that), then yeah you'll probably find an El Dorado schematic pretty easily on eBay but good luck trying to find a Mermaid schematic whether or not it is enforced. I would imagine out of all the stuff he has he probably has some copies of rare schematics as the only examples left in the world that nobody needs now but might need down the road - and even letting us share wouldn't fix that, but that's a different story. At least if we get a headstart on preservation of these they won't be the only copies left one day.

Not going to even reply much to this, since you're not even beginning to see what we are saying - where exactly did I say Steve should give us anything or pay for anything? Didn't. I don't want free access to his bank of schematics, he can keep those, not even remotely what I meant.

Easier to say at your age I would assume. Just as people on this thread think millennials are guilty, the older folk are guilty of generally not giving a shit of what happens once their time here is over or setting up preparations to set the next people off on the right track. I can see how you don't mind as you'll likely always have the luxury of the schematics being around for sale for the rest of your tenure in the pinball hobby, however pinball is not ending in 30 years. And if you don't think these EM machines are going to last a decent while longer, imagine what the people who created these machines would think of these machines meant to last 4 years before going to the dump are doing being collected and enjoyed 40-70 years later. We don't know the timeline and the "live and let die" attitude will surely kill this part of the hobby a lot quicker than it would die off itself without it.

I can't imagine $16 schematics are keeping him in business, but even if they are, the census here seems to be that printed schematics are heavenly and that people would continue to order them for the sake of that they're printed on paper that you can't just load in your office printer and do. I'm sure many people order Williams and Bally schematics from Steve if he sells printed copies of them even if they're copyright-free, because they want the many pluses of owning a printed copy, or just don't want to look for one online.

You know, you say that now, but I say when they grow up you may very well be surprised. Considering how 99% of people here are riding some form of a nostalgia wave from playing as a child, you may very well be "creating" future pinheads, or at least a casual owner of one. In the 60's/70's there was a huge craze of "family with 1 pinball machine in the basement" ownership (slightly off-topic: which is where a lot of these games come from today too) and I see nearly as many of those stories as reason for collecting as I do of people playing on location - they remember from their childhood at home (which matches what you are saying).

Maybe not many hardcore collectors but you never know. I don't think anybody here or their parents imagined they would have 10+ pinball machines in their house at any point through their life. Plus when they grow up they'll probably be cheap, and having a pinball machine in your house is pretty much deemed as "cool" even for today's kids, so I'd say the chances are at least there if not decent.

I agree, don't have to follow the hype - there are PLENTY games out there that are really great fun that aren't Atlantis or El Dorado.

I would look into Williams games if I were you if you're just starting out, just as cool and as reliable but don't have the Gottlieb hype price behind them.

Welcome to the mid 60's Bally club - I'm glad to see more of these being picked up and actually seeing that they still EXIST. When I was researching my Star-Jet it became pretty apparent that that era of Bally pins is almost forgotten and extinct, not many Pinside linked threads (if any, rarely) on most of those games. Low production numbers and 50 years didn't seem to be as kind to them as others.