is there really a "resurgence"? or just the same group of people selling the same group of machines back and forth amoungst themselves (and buying whatever new machine stern/jjp come out with)?

if there was truly a resurgence, i would expect to see a lot more games on location...

yea, there's a few "new" people in the hobby, but it's still a tiny tiny number of people in the grand scheme of things...

somehow, saying "the economy tanked, so people are going out and dropping $6k on a toy" hardly makes sense to me...

@butch...

i suppose... that being said, i'm still having a hard time seeing it... if you were already a pinhead, maybe... but a "new person"? even $3k was a pretty steep entry price if the economy was truly affecting your wallet...

i freely admit that i may be being blind here...

don't undersell the value of a memory... i have many good ones that i wouldn't trade for something more tangible...

while they are becoming "hot as collectibles", that doesn't imply a resurgence of pinball... hell, a cursory glance through the threads at pinside would seem to indicate that many people don't even play their games because they are too afraid to "hurt" them...

if anything "hot as collectibles" will kill a market, as it drives pricing "for collectibility" vs. pricing "for players"...

again, i freely admit i'm being blind, but from this seat, any thought/discussion of a "pinball resurgence" on a site such as pinside (i.e. insular community) is a bit of a "circle of self pleasuring"...

you can't have "nostalgia" for something you never were aware of...

^^^

yup...

and 99% of them can't even put gas in a car, let alone attempt to fix a pinball machine...

re: "cheaper"... true dat... read the comments on games for handheld devices... you'd think that spending 99 cents for a game is a life changing decision from reading them...

it's a HUGE step from pinball on a handheld device to a "real" pinball machine... have some made it? sure... but i'm willing to wager it is a VERY VERY small percentage...

@pinny...

i was one of those you watched playing em's at old orchard beach maine... you might have even watched me in person, as i'm about 8 years older than you...

now i want pier fries...

big leap of logic there on pricing...

that's entirely possible... 1 cabinet, 1000's of games... nothing to "fix"... plug and play... no hunting around barns for machines... no dealing with people who haven't taken a shower in a month... no ridiculous pricing, basically retail for the cabinet and software, and no "rarity"...

i can even see me (crusty old em fart that i am ) with a virtual cabinet someday...

re: tv a wasteland... while true, that doesn't imply "nothing to watch"... if anything, in today's world, there is a HUGE library/catalog of programming that exists with the push of a button... and it's even legal... we have more "home entertainment" options today than we ever had before...

re: classic vids... dying for a "defender" machine here... but can't lay my hands on one...

thanks for the heads up, i just emailed about it...

re: "special when lit" increasing new pinball players.... welllllllll.... are people SURE about that? sure, for pinheads, we know that not everyone in the hobby is ummm, "different"... but when watching that documentary, it wouldn't exactly be a group of people i'd be clamoring to join... it's more likely that people would run the other way, and FAST...

treading gently...

while jjp has caused a great amount of excitement in a small community, i'm struggling to see them making an impact on the non-pinball community... a few thousand machines, most of them seemingly sold to those who already have collections, does not make "growth"...

same deal for stern's new games...

^^^

buying "new" machines, but you were already in the game, right?

"individual examples" of "new entrants" can be found, sure... no denying that... a few hundred new entrants isn't a resurgence though...

and that is ignoring the other side of the equation, which is the people who are either leaving the hobby or dying off...

edit: i hate sounding like a debbie downer... but i'm just not seeing any great resurgence... i wish i were...

^^^

there's a lot of us "50 somethings" here...

as it would be virtually impossible to set up machines identically, it's hard to envision a scenario where "online competition" would work...

the actual communication is the least of the worries, and would be very easy to do... it's far from rocket science...