So they are making themes that appeal to fat balding middle aged gen x rs and 4 year olds. Whoopee!

Nah, that describes you Boomers.

I'm not a boomer or a gen xr. I was born in between. Too young to hang with the old folks and too wise to live like gen xrs do. And I'm still younger at heart and soul than most of them.

Well then, you should love Batman 66!

Why? I watched the show 50 years ago. And have seen it hundreds of times since. Sure it's the best idea they have come up with lately, but if that's what it takes to keep pinball afloat you can count me out. Just like all the rest of these ancient licensed themes, I don't need them.

I think it's important to support location pinball as well. Not everyone has the means or space to own a machine but most everyone can drop some coins into a machine and play for a few minutes. Every time I see a location machine I try to play it no matter what shape it's in.

Well, aren't you the hipster 50 year old! Are you wanting a Kayne West or Kim Kardashian pin?

Yup.

So much junk being spewed by people who are passionate about the hobby, but with no data to back any of it up.

What do we know?
Arcades are still basically dead. Pinball is even more of a ghost in what few arcades remain.
Barcades are doing well, but are geared toward the 21+ crowd due to their nature. Possibly a fad, time will tell.

The hobby has been increasing since the early 2000s. Today we have more vendors, more repo parts, and this has helped cause a surge in prices.

What we don't have are new techs. Probably one of the largest hurdles in this hobby is having a dedicated person you can call up to repair your broken machine.
These machines are complicated. It takes a lot of tools and knowledge to keep them running. This requires a passion on the part of their owners to invest time/resources.

What would be useful is a poll to show the age of various owners. My anecdotal experience is that the new blood tends to be mid 30s to mid 40s. These are the guys who have disposable income and also experienced machines as a kid. What I do not see are younger people. At 29, I am no spring chicken and I can only think of a handful of people I have encountered that are younger than me. Of those, many inherited their love of pinball through their father who collected which is a pretty small pool.

In 10 years you will see some of the people who got in during the late 90's early 2k's age out. Those machines will just get sold off into other collections. 20 years many of those dropping bucks now will be out due to age. There are things we cannot know now, but what happens when clive/john wart/rob anthony retire? What about Terry?

There are a lot of people that have enabled our hobby to flourish. No one knows who or if someone else will step up to replace them. If parts get hard to come by and boards cannot be repaired then the hobby dies. If the next generation doesn't take an active interest, the hobby dies. Anyone who thinks they know what to expect is dreaming.

pezpunk will still be ranting in the why do pinball guys all get girls thread

Honestly, I spent a lot of time living with the surf crowd. Dwelling in the past is not one of their past times. It's all about the next swell, or the next cool thing in pop culture. Get on it before it's no longer relevant. I love pinball and I have old games now. But have decided I would rather collect antiques than be one.

All well and good, but that won't put pinball in the mainstream. If there is not an economic driver that puts pinball back on the streets en masse, pinball won't ever be mainstream again as it was at its peak.

Doesn't have to be as hip as a PS4 to be healthy and survive.

So....Point Break the pin?

Not like I didn't try. But none of my ideas seem to fly. So they can keep on making games for whoever else. And I'll keep playing what I have.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/point-break-pinball-machine

I heard the SDLE is the 90s classic but the Promium®™ is the remake.

I think we have already seen the trajectory if you are paying attention. It is not simple but a very complex equation.

What I see from just plain observing...

The hobby itself will not change much.

There is lots of new blood coming into pinball and lots of that is coming from competition and from exposure due to the resgance of pins at arcades and barcades. Few people on pinside actually seem to play on route so they have a very narrow vision. Route players are continuing to grow. Many of them are in there 20s and early 30s. Many of them have wishes of owning their own games when they get the income. The main collectors are in their late 30s/early 40s and deisposable income continues to grow. All in all, more pins will be bought in the next 10 years and lots of companies will flourish.

What I see as unique right now is the bimodal change of the hobby/ distibution of collectors.

Group 1 is high $$$ collectors. I am continually amazed by the people on pinside with only the top 25 games as part of their colleciton and they buy every new LE game that comes out. These people seem to enjoy the ability of buying everything new and then dumping is for only a $500 loss in 9-18 months. I see this high $ secotor experiencing a shift and as unsustainable. I think in the near future due to the sheer amount of games coming out, that people had better get more comfortable with 1k-1500 drop in resale.

Group 2 is the regular range collectors. They dont buy every new game and this is more the entry level range. This is the sector experiencing the major growth and why we have seen sub 1k games now sell for 1500, 1500 games now sell for 2500, and 2500 games now sell for 4k. This is also what has fueled the growth of the more seasoned collectors starting to jump into sector 2. They bought games for relatively cheap back in the day and now are making heafty profits which they then have turned into NIB games.

I see at some point in the next 5 years the high end $$$ market changes dramatically. I expect all the hot titles from the past 2 years and the next 2 years which were heavily produced will see the largest change. Inserest in this sector will decline and at the same time the supply of the better games will be quite high. This will change the dynamic of this buying group. We will likely see the exodus of some larger players that see the writing on the wall (we have already seen it > most recently with some of the super high end and restored collectors getting out of the hobby), others will just sit it out and no longer buy or sell (hold on and wait/see approach, but things wont rebound), and others actually like to play and have enough to just keep buying and will be comfortable with the actual cost of the hobby becoming a reality.

We will see MORE competition. We will see more first time buyers looking to snap their first 1500 pin and some willing to pop for a 4k HUO more recent game. We will see more botique manufacturers enter the market and realize that if they can make fun games and briong in a price point under 5k then there is a healty market for limited games.

Fortunately in this hobby, if none of today's licensed themes appeal to you, you don't have to go too far back to find an unlicensed one that does.

2 (resized).JPG

I think that pinball is on the precipice of a new era... morphing from game to full immersive experience. Hobbit, WOZ and TBL are only scratching the surface of what is possible. Then again, I could be talking out of my ass.

Or it could go retro!

40840347_1_x (resized).jpg

I'd rather be immersed in an eight foot south swell with a slight off shore breeze. Now I'm talking out my ass. Time to sell all this shit and go on safari.

You had a lot of good ones, but this one hurt me the most...because it is the truest.

You certainly don't sound like an old man, constantly complaining about the same thing, over and over, shouting angrily at clouds.

I don't know any old people who do that.

Anyway, I'm off to visit my 92-year old grandmother, and listen to the same stories she tells me every time I visit about her rotten grandaughter and her sister in law whom she hates.

A shame that I have but one thumbs up.

The broken record is getting tiresome.

People that own MMr will be talking down the crappy quality and feel of the new MMrr that just came out!

I have no idea what the future holds for pinball, except that I will still love my games

I'm not old and not complaining. Just stating facts.

In ten to twenty years you will be a 60+ year old man playing your Doogie Howser LE pinball machine. And still telling me I'm wrong.

Wow! Odin! Your making a Doogie Howser Pin! Im In!!!!

10 years ago stern was about to go out business and was making really watered down games to survive. That has changed, but they are even pricing me out of the nib market and I make a good living. This hobby does not appeal to the masses so I think there will always be a market. There may not be arcades anymore but my kids are growing up with these toys in their house. There will be some nostalgia for them.
Taking in a all factors we will probably be in the same spot. Maybe two manufacturers, someone challenging stern but the same deal. What else are people going to put in their basements?

No, I'm not making it. It will be one of the last licensed themed games ever before pinball goes under for good.

A real collectors item!

Dude, you like games with 2" flippers.

You are not Stern's target demographic.

.???

He is a pinhead with money... He is exactly sterns demographic. They just need to work harder to get the money from some.

Dude, I am a pinball player that has bought machines new and old. If I am not part of their "target demographic" whatever the f#ck that is supposed to mean then I'm sure nineballs like you are.

Back to Doogie, I think he might sign sign on for this.

The seem to be doing just fine......

If he was Stern's demographic, he'd have a house full of new Sterns all blinged out, not one filled with games from the 50's and 60's.

Him bitching about Stern's license choices is like my dad complaining about Top 40 radio these days - it's not targeted at him so it's bad. Stern just sold out of those Batman '66 LEs without even showing the game, they know what they're doing.

I guess I'm not one to believe a pinball player should be typecast. If those are the only people Stern wants to buy their pinball machines, then they will be out of business faster than than you can wipe your stinky ass.

Tell you what goat, I'm not going to argue with fools like you anymore. Feel free to put me on ignore. I will speak my mind whenever I please. How's that bucko?

It's true, Stern games are selling out and I don't believe that's hype. They are on a roll lately.

Odin has yet to offer any convincing reason for Stern to sack their licensing department and start over beyond the fact that the themes make him fussy. It doesn't matter if the themes make any one person cranky or fussy, it's about bringing in the dough.

I think it will die with this generation.

It seems a lot of this generation is already brain dead.

Except it's not.

There are car shows every weekend in the nicer months. There are cruise-ins in practically every city. It's a FAR more popular hobby than pinball. We have a handful of businesses that cater to the pinball hobby. There are literally thousands of companies that cater to the antique car hobby-- from guys who run a small business out of their garage to huge international companies.

Shows are no different than leagues. People are competing for trophies in the different divisions, others come to watch the spectacle. Big shows (like the Hershey show coming up next month) are events that draw people from all over the world. The swap meets cover acres and acres. You clearly haven't ever been to one, because you have no concept of the scale... they make the pinball shows look tiny by comparison. A show like Hershey has thousands of cars in the show. Many hundreds more for sale in the car corral.

I know guys who have literal airport hangers filled with old cars. I know guys with enough parts in their collections to build entire cars and they wouldn't make a dent in their parts collections. Just because it's outside of the realm of your NYC existence doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

On this, you have a point. The cost of entry into the hobby is too high for most. The cost of a single desirable collector car would put a Big Bang Bar, a Cactus Canyon, and a HEP AFM. Most guys in the hobby have more than one car. While I don't have any really high dollar cars, I have a collection of 9 vintage cars (and enough parts to build about 3 more), and could sell them off and fund one hell of a pinball collection...

Then again, I don't know very many "older millenials and younger Gen Xers" who have large pinball collections either.

And now you're just blowing hot air. The "No True Scotsman" argument isn't going to work with me.

I'm not thinking ten years out yet. In a little over six years ( 2,211 days to be exact ) I'll have my 50th Anniversary Party. The Golden Goose.

After that I'll think about the four years after.

LTG : )
Disclaimer : I'll still be helping people with their pins.

Nonsense. I work at a university. College aged kids don't watch old movies. They don't listen to any of the bands that have had pins themed after them... heck, many of their PARENTS are too young to listen to all of those bands except Metallica. They listen to EDM, they listen to rap. Very few listen to anything resembling rock.

I totally agree with that. Pinball has always been about making money. At one time they could do that and be cool all at the same time.
I don't see anything cool about the path pinball is on and do believe it is winding down despite big sales today.

I know you're not an EM guy and it has showed more than once but something like a Gottlieb Atlantis (not even rare, either, just a really good game with a theme a lot of people love, almost a 'cliche', like our EM version of Monster Bash or Medieval Madness) can easily go for $1,500 in medium-to-nice condition here on Pinside, probably much more fully restored and even more if it is a spotless original, we're talking at least like several thousand dollars there, and I've seen some of the crazy woodrail guys even pay five figures for a rarity from their breed. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but that is a hard-headed remark ('in my opinion') and monetary worthlessness is a fact, not an opinion, while personal worth is a different story.

I'm actually really curious how the EM market will change over time. Just like with solid state machines, every day there are less games as projects and less games waiting for us in warehouses, but at the same time the main collector base for them is getting older.

I know those bagatelle pinball machines used to have quite a worth too but now that most of the people who can thoroughly enjoy them and reminisce over them have passed away, they're a tough sell these days for anything over $200. (From what I've seen at least) I've heard stories from a collector from the old Mr. Pinball days to back that up too. Interesting, and makes sense. (Also of course kind of sad... but that's a part of life.)

$10k for a Pro.

I hope to attend this!

Pinball has been around since the 18th century.

It's not going anywhere, folks.

800px-Early_Pinball (resized).jpg

He said 10 years, not by Christmas