Dennis, I don't understand how you correlated ownership growth reported on Pinside to ownership growth overall. If pinball ownership did not grow but Pinside membership did how would your data show that?

Visual Pinball brings a lot of people in. It brought me back to pinball. After building a MAME cabinet, I discovered vpinMAME and visual pinball 9 which finally had an all in one installer. Now with VPX more people keep coming to the virtual hobby and then to the real.

While the article is interesting, it's a pity it doesn't reflect on numbers from the early 90s. Then pinball was great. We're not even close to having that many games on location these days. Manufacturers don't put out that many games either. Obviously, the buyers market also shifted: today more game go directly to home users than in the early 90s. The operators market is nowhere near what it was in the early, or even late 90s. It may be up from 10 years ago, but still only a shadow of early 90s numbers.

Sadly, it falls under one of the flaw categories I listed (self-reported ownership; as you know it introduces a lot of issues). That data is incapable of distinguishing ownership increases' causes (be it just site growth or something else). It's why I do not actually provide a correlation value with a statement on statistical significance, because I can't really detect that without knowing the manufacturing quantities. And, if I had those, I'd just use that for ownership (since all games not destroyed would be owned by someone, and we'd just accept the flaw that we can't track destroyed as a small price to pay), though then we could compare ownership counts here versus production counts and probably get a sense of what percentage of owned games is reflected on this site (I wouldn't have bothered, but it would definitely be interesting).

My non-data based assumption at present is Pinside growth is collector-oriented and should, in theory, benefit all years, particularly since the range of examination is still "modern". Because people getting into the hobby now, or joining the site for the first time, still have access to all the games in the period of examination.

But your point is well taken. It would be like the idea of reporting Pinside's membership growth. The growth itself would be true (obviously), but we'd not be able to prove (statistically) that the growth was due to new hobbyists (in theory it could all be old hobbyists finally finding/joining the site). We'd need some other data source (surveying the members when they joined) or, we could use it to fuel our suspicion and then try to find another data source to help shore up what assumptions the data we had were making us think (what I tried to do with the IFPA data; more on that below).

Where I'm more concerned (and why I noted the flaw that the site seems very collector oriented) is when looking at the ownership count of Stern Pros versus Premium/LE. In several cases, the Pro figures are LOWER than the Premium/LE. I do not think this corresponds to reality (I think Stern sells more Pros than LEs and Premiums combined; don't know it for sure of course, just my suspicion due to costs). However, if the site's bias holds true (towards collector-grade games) then at least I feel relatively safe in assuming that's consistent across years. But I can't prove it, so the best I could do is list the flaw and move on.

I gathered the competitive data after the owner figures here because I was pretty disappointed with how many assumptions I had to make about ownership. Since the exploration was on if the pinball hobby was growing, I thought another dataset would help shore that up (since what I do have on ownership was suggesting things are more produced/owned now than 10 years ago). The IFPA data offers a lot more samples and a lot more consistency, and so it helped reassure me that the ownership trends on Pinside fit with the narrative (that pinball, the hobby, is in a growth phase).

that is incorrect in some cities.

Some cities and operators have way more pinball on location now than there ever was in the 90s.

Specifically cities like Seattle come to mind.

Hilton, why would you attempt to make the micro argument/point that there are individual cities/territories better off today when, as Jonathan points out, the overall picture for location pinball is abysmal.

I'm sure a lot of locals are pleased with the fact that you have played a part in seeing that the Madison landscape is what it is today. you deserve a merit badge for that, even though you are no boy scout.

boyscouts02 (resized).jpg

further, there is a difference between operators of the past who purchased and vended machines as their primary business vs some of the 'operators' of today who are just using bars to house their collections which have outgrown their primary residence, while struggling to net something less than minimum wage.

despite whatever resurgence is taking place, the socal location pinball scene remains virtually dead. ayce gogi, a two hr drive thru LA traffic, currently has ~20 machines.

growing up in the south bay area during the 80's there were 100's of machines at the Redondo Beach fun factory. today, it is all redemption games. the bally alladins castle at the del amo mall. the sega center at the old towne mall. the south bay galleria had ~40 machines. small biz arcades in strip malls. a machine or two in most every 7-eleven and liquor store. the differences between then and now remain staggering.

the 90s is a loooooong time ago. I think it's fair to compare 10 years ago with today, because arguably you are looking at the lowest point (when Stern almost went out of business) to what we have today, so basically the entire recovery period.

Looks like your site is infected, it's asking for authentication.

Edit: Whatever it was, the link is working normally now. Initially it popped up an authentication box for username and password and upon escaping out of that showed a page about Zeus botnet and played a female voice announcement about a Microsoft alert, zeus botnet detection. Weird.

Yes. Links from a DuckDuckGo search worked fine.

Just clinked on link and got infected message - wasn't hanging around to click anything else!

That horseshoe shot to go up a ramp on Deadpool is as John Trudeau as John Trudeau can be.

The designer will also help set up the machine, discuss the design process and the game, and play your game at your place of residence!!

OMG... they are busting out the jpop handbook verbatim.

Surprised Ben Heck wasn't told he was going to have to help out.

This whole promising to give away a pinball machine before it even exists was done before... by Skit-B. When they announced Experts of Dangerous.

There is so little marketing value to this, and certainly not worth the costs of giving away these machines, plus this idea that these designers will travel and set the machine up at your house for you.

The lesson to me that I learned during the first generation of stupid pinball startups was that I will never go against my own business instincts again. If something doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense.

Good for getting a little bit of Pinside chatter going, a year ahead of when you plan to actually sell machines. Yay.

Donation sent. Thank you for all of your hard work. Your website is really a great resource for our hobby.

It doesn't matter since all that's being given away is a "promise" and a far out delivery date. We know what those are worth.

Not meant to kick you over this. Just sharing my opinion that this does not give me confidence that deeproot know what they are doing. Beyond raising some money from some people. I'll let them talk big when they actually, you know, sell something (and deliver it).

I made a donation out of respect for your work. No give aways needed for me.

Look over the information on their private equity funds and use that to decide if you think it's a legit operation. https://deeprootfunds.com/
To my cynical eye it reads like every other make money fast product. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Signed up for monthly donation. Keep up the good work bro.

just reading today's news about spooky's next game... I looked through the licensing list and found this:

https://licensing18.mapyourshow.com/7_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?ExhID=14088&CFID=28281574&CFTOKEN=66f9a95ee1ee6640-E95B877F-AB68-E9B4-A9F8F5FDEDC42A66

spooky (resized).png

Do what where?

godzilla? monster island?

I love toho! ... and Godzilla. Have been waiting three years for Spooky to get this one and if it gets built by 2020 I'm in.

this isn't confirmed just speculation on my part. here's the full list of attendees it could always be something else:

https://licensing18.mapyourshow.com/7_0/alphalist.cfm?endrow=300&alpha=*&CFID=28285885&CFTOKEN=4106693b1cdf001b-ECF70788-AB68-E9B4-A9F45F3F94407703

I don't think it's a secret that Godzilla is a passion for Charlie. It was the first custom machine he ever build and he brought it to Expo 2011 as I recall.
It looked and played great.
zz GP2 (resized).jpgzz GP3 (resized).jpgzzGP1 (resized).jpg

Yeah Charlie and Bug are Godzilla fan-antics!! ... and lovers of all things lizard. So it was only a matter of time really. I'm 90% sure it is going to be The King, The Big Lizard ... Godzilla. Cue the smoke machines and blast Godzilla from Blue Oyster Cult until your ears bleed.

IMG_2437 (resized).PNG

I agree! Can't ask for a much better project than a Big Time - 5 Magic Lines, two super cards and much more.

Having a little experience (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/1950-bally-turf-king-one-ball-horse-race-game) teaching kids about fixing games, I believe that there are few things more valuable to a young mind than learning how machines work, how to read a schematic, how to fix their own electrical and electronic stuff (and hopefully applying those lessons later in life, too).

Be happy to - any time. If you've got a project in the queue, just give me a ring.

Great interview with Frax