Every newb for the past 20 years has made your predictions (personal
wishes, really) and you've all been wrong.

It's simple supply and demand. The only thing that crashes prices is for masses of individual games to show back up on the market simultaneously and for no one to want them. There's no real scenario where that happen....at least not any time soon. Let's say someone puts up a MM for $2000. What happens? 100 vultures fight over it, it's gone in two seconds, and it doesn't change the market a bit. Someone gets lucky, end of story. I got lucky once and got LOTR for $500. Did that one deal crash the market? Nope.

You compare it to the retro game scene....you shouldn't. A NES isn't $3000 for many reasons. There were 34 million NES systems made. Most pinball machines have a few thousand units. If someone wants to play NES games, they don't need any NES. There are emulators, Retro Pi, clones, FPGA systems, Virtual Console. If you have NES you don't need real carts, you can get an Everdrive.

Pinball's physical mechanical nature prevents it from being replaced by a facsimile. If someone gets the pinball bug - they're gonna want a real machine.

The last time the economy was in the shitter, pinball prices kept going up. It almost put STERN out of business...but, the poor economy didn't cause all pinball owners to simultaneously bail on their games.

Well this already happened due to MMr. Restored MM's were going for $12-$20k. Now that you can get a new one for $8k, those prices came down. Supply and demand. Same's happening for AFM. Not every game is going to be remade, though.

To be upset, your premise would need to have some logic and merit behind it. It doesn't. People with EXPERIENCE and KNOWLEDGE are trying to educate you. Try to learn from this knowledge instead of pushing back with snark.

For what? Magic Girl didn't exist in 2007. It practically doesn't exist now. It was never $2k or $10k. Not sure it can even be called a "game", really...lol

Calling MG a "game" is a disservice to actual games.. Magic Girl is more like a "Scam in a box".

Google "Projection".

Jumping into a forum filled with tons of people with decades of hobby experience & trying to "educate" them when you know every little about the hobby and its history is going to result in people poking fun at you, especially if you keep digging deeper rather than LEARNING and engaging in a fact-based conversation. When you're all passion/no knowledge yet trying to "pinsplain" to us, that's what we call "pulling a Kaneda".

It's a fact. MB, like MM and AFM is an A-List B/W game that everyone wanted, even in 2007. If they were nice, shopped or restored they were expensive. I got lucky and got my beater piece of shit MB for $4000 in 2012.

Every newb for 20 years has said this. What makes you so brilliant?

They're A for a reason. Everyone likes and wants them. There expensive for a reason. Not enough supply to meet demand.

Want an A title for cheap? Get lucky and find a beater. There's no reason someone who owns and loves a game will sell it for less than its worth.

Pinball isn't dependent on generational nostalgia. It only depends on people playing it and loving it. And because machines are only produced in the 100's or 1000's and not millions like video games, there will always be enough people wanting games & not enough games to go around at low prices.

That doc was made 10 years ago and even Steve Ritchie thought pinball was dead. Look what happened. Resurgence. And even when it was "dead", games were expensive because "enough" people were into it to keep snatching up the remaining inventory.

Pinball will always be niche....even in its low points. But always remember - not many exist. Even if only 1000 people want a machine, but only 800 were made - the price is gonna remain high!

No one likes an angry & arrogant newb martyr. Pinball is supposed to be fun. It's your choice to be fun or to be a douche. You're choosing douche. It's not too late, but that's on you.

Dude, you still don't get it. Let me make it simple.

-YES OF COURSE we would all love cheaper pins! Cheap pins rock! I built my collection on cheap pins!

-It's not "the community" that is preventing cheap pins for selfish reasons. It's basic supply and demand. Only a finite amount of any given title exist, and if most have been bought as keepers & tons of people want them, it's just the "everything has a price" factor. MB sells for a lot because that's the amount it takes to pry it from someone who loves it.

-People didn't get personal with you because of their "pinvestments", it's because you posted a stereotypical newb know-it-all type of post, and instead of learning from the information people were sharing, you got arrogant and snarky.

Passion without knowledge will only bring you frustration in this hobby.

Learn. Grow. Fighting experience and knowledge will only make you a martyr for the cause of ignorance.

How many times are you going to miss the point?

Stop being a douche martyr.

Listen & learn from those with experience and knowledge...and grow.

Or keep being a douche. Whatever.

Projection.

You know nothing, that much is abundantly clear.

Being right isn't the issue. Looking at the information that's available to us is. You've been presented with information and instead of having a conversation about it, you're snarking at every bit of info that comes your way.

You're not having a discussion. You're having reactions to words. You're not actually listening to anything. This "discussion" is very one way.

You're enjoying the attention. Trolls who call non-trolls "trolls" are trolls.

Again - you know nothing.

There's been a guy like you every month making this prediction for the past 20 years. The "yous" have been wrong for 20 years. Multiple people have explained why. You keep fighting it rather than understanding it.

Projection. Look at the first post....hypocrite.

I got my TAF around the same time and price - but it was not the norm. Collector and reseller prices were much higher. We got lucky - why? Inventory. The warehouses, Craigslist casual sellers, auctions, and operators hadn't been picked clean yet. Those lucky finds are much more rare today because the existing games have been snapped up and reside in collectors' collections or resellers showrooms....or are on route at locations like barcades. So - prices tend to be consistently more consistent these days due to less likely deals like we found pre-2011.

That was breaking perfectly good working slingshot tech.

A move backwards.

Never again, please!

Interesting doesn't = good or functional. Some pinball things are just things that work. Slings have always worked well being slings. Changing them to magnets didn't do anything other than make them less sensitive to firing (due to 1 switch) & give you cheap deaths by randomly just making the ball drop down the middle for no reason. I love magnets in pinball, but they usually have a reason and purpose for the tricks they're doing. Magna slings don't do anything but make slings into worse-slings. It's a gimmick that wasn't well thought out...but hey, that's one of many things that weren't thought out on GB.

Newer games are too new to be relevant to long term price discussions. If a game is in production, of course used games prices will take a hit. Once it's out of production, the game will have to earn a reputation in order for there to be demand.

"Classic" games should remain relatively stable as their reputations have been earned (good or bad) and their supply is finite (unless they're remade lol)

Sure they fit the theme, but I don't really think they accomplish anything interesting for the player. Like - if you walked up to it and didn't know they were magnets - you probably wouldn't even notice except you might think they're weak....and then when they drain you you're like WTF. I really never want to play GB again but if I did - I'd rather play the Pro I think. I like Slimer more on the Pro, too.

You're right - both versions are too fundamentally flawed to exist.

Last time the economy/market tanked, pin prices went up. That's the thing - even though pinball may be an. "Investment" to some people - it's not usually viewed as a traditional financial investment. It's a physical item that is collectible due to the finite amount that exist. No one liquidated their collections for cash during the recession. They were immune to what happened. There was no "pinball bank" that said "Today that $5000 game is now only worth $1000". I've said it before - the only thing that causes prices to "plummet" is a simultaneous mass sell-off. There's almost no scenario where that happens....where 100's of the same titles all of the sudden flood back on the market.

I think a good majority of existing pinball collectors bought their games pre-bonkers prices. I certainly did. Almost all my games are worth way more what I paid...but, I don't feel like cashing out for the sake of cashing out. I like my games. I'll prob sell a bunch in the future, but due to personal life stuff vs. any relationship to the economy.

We've already seen prices go up without a mass sell off. To me, that shows the power of pinball! Collectors value the fun and coolness of their games vs. DA CASH.

He's just learning how to internets.

Liar.

Really not sure where this is coming from. You sure you're responding to me? You clearly know nothing about me.