Money 1st and all are in the basement gameroom.

Hahaha, I would hope so after you have 94 of them.

IMPOSSIBLE.

If I ever find a way to fit 94 pins at my home then and only then can I begin to understand your pain.

It must be horrible pinballslave just horrible just joking

The wife.

i only wanted one

So, reading between the lines, your wife is locked in your bedroom... nice arrangement!

Thanks for trying to understand... the reality though is that I just have 1 in the house and 93 in storage waiting for me to build the games room they need... if I had enough money I'd have a team of builders working on it right now...

I let her out occasionally when I want a sandwich.

MONEY. I don't think I'll ever be able to justify financially having more than a couple of pins.

Not surprised that 'space' is leading the poll. One thing is for sure: most of you guys don't have a shortage of money to spend.

my ability to find games that are priced at or near the value i place on them.

part space/part wife

Funny, I agree. Mine is really a space issue. I have plenty room left, but I don't really want to dedicate any more to it. The longer I go on the collection I have, the more I feel like it's the right number for me anyway.

I'm single & have the space. Could probably fit 20 pins in half of my basement with room for mingling in the same half. 50 or more if I wanted to jam up the ENTIRE basement & get rid of other stuff down there. Money & no desire for that many pins are my limiting factors. (Although I could certainly see having as many as 20... if I had the money.) I'm thinking 10 to 12 is tops for me eventually.

Space for me. I think I can fit 4 more in the garage in addition to the 4 out there now. A couple of the nicer ones will probably end up in the house, which will be nice. I still have 8 vids out in the garage, and don't see those leaving anytime soon, so I am very limited. I have switched outlets for 20 games, but I don't think I can actually fit that many. Pins and Hydro Thunders take up a lot of space.

It's all about space. Unless I get rid of the pool table that's on it's way I can only fit 4 in my front room that we are converting into a rec room. I suppose I could get rid of my Neo Geo MVS but nah I don't think so. I also don't want them spread throughout the house as that looks ghetto IMHO. And as for the bedroom... that's sacred area

Reason 1 through 98 . . . . wife. Reason #99 and #100 . . . . space and $$$. On second thought, reason #1 through #100 . . . wife. For me, no other reason not to add more.

I chose space. I had a 10 pin game room up until last December. I got married and needed another bedroom for my bigger family. I still own the games, but I have some happy friends "storing" some games for me.

Jason

That's what we all said when we started this... they grow on ya though!

If space is the issue and money is not an issue, you could just buy another house

Option D. A Happy wife.

Space as I only have room for 4 pinballs down stairs and can't go beyond that number.

For me it is 100% space. I have space for 14 pins. I can jam in 15, however, it gets very tight. That said, with Tron arriving yesterday I am at 15 so once again I have to figure out which pin has to go. Worse, is that I am out of pins that I would be happy to unload.

<What dictates how many pins you have? >

SPACE.........................The Final Frontier...................

Ken

Star_Trek_ship.jpg

Definitely space. As much as I love the hobby, I absolutely won't place my games in non-traditional locations. (living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, etc.) If they don't fit in my game garage or separate recreational area in the basement, I consider myself to be out of space.

1. Wife

2. Nagging wife

3. Severely bitching wife

+1

Don't try "It's set on free play! So it's not coin-op!"

Won't work....

money. space problem can be solved with money, but money problem can rarely be solved with space.

This is a fact.

If you don't think money can solve most everyone's PINBALL problems than you've never earned it or had it. If I had enough then I could buy the house, yacht, security, and pin collection of my dreams. I'm sure if everyone had the money, the space and wife issue could be easily solved.

Anyone consider that you could start your own pinball company. If you had the MONEY!

Million_Dollar_Man.jpg

I'll say space, but the truth is I could cram more into my house if I really wanted to. I think 5 or 6 is enough. After that they become a pain in the ass to maintain.

If you had more MONEY you could hire someone to maintain them and a bigger house to store more pins.

If I had more money I'd be fishing every day and I wouldn't have time for pinball.

If I had more money I'd be fishing every day and I wouldn't have time for pinball.

Agreed. Boats N' Ho's!
boatsandhos.jpg

Exactly... out of space but money not the problem... buy more space...! Space can never really be the real reason for stopping building a collection... except maybe if you live in Tokyo... I guess you could always by the adjacent 30 pods to put the collection in... if you had the money

I maxed out at 16 pins. Im down to 7. It went from space, to money and time. I guess thats what happens when you go from sub 1k pins to a 4k pin. Whoops!

Money limits me. I have room for any size collection of pins that I would like in my house and no one to answer to. If I hit the lotto I would buy 50 pins right off the bat. And that would not even make a dent in my space.

Hey,

I'll chime in. I said space, but really, time is the mitigating factor for me. When I started finishing my basement, I think I had two or three games, and I planned for about a dozen to go down there (maybe a bit more; I can't recall). The basement is at the mudding/taping stage now, and I'm up to nine machines. Some of those were pretty cheap (half were under $400), but really, they were purchased because they were cheap, not because I particularly have any attachment to them. And at least two of them are time sucks; they need work.

Long story short, I think I'll sell a couple for a bit of a loss and be done with it. For the amount of time and money I'll have to put into them, I'd rather be playing the other ones that do work, or actually working on the ones I do enjoy. Summarily, I have the games on my "really want" list right now (TSPP, TZ, Pin*Bot), and have a couple others that are really good even though I didn't really account on having them (Flash, The Shadow). I'll probably keep Mars God of War as a simple game for people who don't want to dedicate their life to the games, and maybe keep BMX as a rarity. But Satin Doll and a Gottlieb 300? I don't really need them sucking up time that could be spent playing.

Luke

This is exactly why I don't have more pins. I have five and will eventually add one more(hopefully a NIB), but that is my limit. Not to mention, my brother has 8 pins which I help him maintain and between the two of us it seems like something is always broken.

for now....

Thats what I told my wife when I started to actually look. She's like your not just gonna get one, in a few months you will be looking for number 2, then 3,4 ect ect

Space, wife, money.

100% Space.... It's depressing when you have to unload a game that you like to add a new game to the collection. It's also a PITA when you have about 6" between pins and have to do even a minimal repair...
I guess there could be bigger problems to have....

So if money is not the issue, why don't you built a bigger games room or move house to one with a bigger space to build a bigger games room?

definately space! unfortunately i live in an apartement with 1 spare room where i manage to put in 2 arcade cabinets en 3 pinball machines (i currently own one but am in the market for 2 new ones) But every time i want a new one i have to sell another one. So never can have more then 3 in my collection

in the netherlands there are not that many houses with basements beneath them due to high water levels. I wish i had a gameroom basement

Money right now. I am the wife & I suggested we give up the dining room & make it an extended game room because it is off the great room. Took the husband a week to add doors to the dining room opening & break though the dining room wall into the great room, now we have a cool set up that we all enjoy!

Take it from a woman, pinball is not the game we want to play in the bedroom!!

A wife takes up roughly the same amount of space as a pinball machine. Just sayin

I'm almost out of all three...

It's all about $$$$$$. Money can get you more space, more pins and sometimes a more understanding wife!

Space will always be a factor but I said money, because at the time, that is keeping me from buying more.

All 3 apply to me, and the longer I stay in the hobby the less I really want to be honest. A few years ago I wanted 16+ machines, but now I think my ideal number would be 8 to 10, and that will probably change in a few years and be lower.

I concur with some of the others.

---> WIFE <---