A guy I used to know had an awesome collection. Most of which consisted of nicely restored Williams/Bally DMD games. He sold them all off a few years back and upgraded his Corvette. He was in it before I was. Probably close to 20 years and then one day he just decided he was done with it. I was kind of shocked at the time but now see it as a kind of liberating trade off.

color dmd?

images (resized).png

He had one of those too but color DMD wasn't a thing then.

My friend Rick (of Rick's Game Repair in Elburn, IL) fixes my games when I have board problems or other issues I can't resolve myself (or repairs I may have botched). The last time he was over he remarked that my staying interested in pinball for more than twenty years was an exception, since most of his customers quit the hobby in less time. He is aware of this because they often call him looking for advice on selling their games when they decide to get out. If they haven't been played in a long time then it's time to sell them.

This guy loved the fixing/restore part but said he never played them.

I may have met this guy in the bar near the entrance to Pinball Expo a few years backs. He had tons of pictures with him of a gorgeous_ collection, but when I asked him how many games he played in a given day, he gave me a look liked I'd just asked him how many times a day he schtupped his grandmother.

Why do people LEAVE the hobby?
Most don't even know it exists as one.
My son is in scouts, check out what the latest Boys Life says about our thriving little corner of the universe in the feature "Unusual Museums". oh well...

IMG_0614 (resized).JPG

Simple: boredom.

If you can only swing having up to a few games, it is understandable if they get boring.

If you have a large collection and you bail, you probably never were any good at playing!

Posers with large rooms full of immaculate games that rarely get played are like rich dorks who buy original Rembrandts and Picassos and hide them away. Glory hoarders. (Although art can make pinball's market appreciation look like peanuts!)

I can confidently say that pinball will never get old for me. I just hope I never get too old for pinball!

That can't be the Rick I know, because he has some of his favorite games that he likes to play, including Whirlwind and Black Knight 2000 and Scared Stiff.

No it's not, the friend I mentioned is from Janesville, Wi.

Honestly, people change. You evolve, your life evolves. Life situations change. Pinball is just a hobby, albeit an expensive one. How many hobbies or interests do we go through in our life? I think pinball's shelf-life may be a bit shorter for some people because at the heart of it, it is a game. Do people love playing the same Xbox or board game forever? Do people change sports they enjoy?

Frankly, a factor that pushes alot of people out (and this is from asking them) is the greed factor. It creates alot of conflict and takes alot of fun out of it for people. I've come close more than once leaving because I'm tired of the bullshit with the MI pinball market with scammers and flippers. It's why I haven't pulled the trigger on a new game in more than 2 years.

If pinball had started in the 90s with the dmd era, and all that was available was what's happened between then and now, this would have been a very short lived hobby for me and I probably would have already sold them all off (which I mostly have already) to the highest bidders and moved on to something else as any of them seem to get old real fast in a home environment, not to mention most of them get tiresome to look at day after day.

But I'm glad pinball has a history that is way richer than that, so I'm hanging in there with all my beauties from the past.