Yep huge fan of his games and di....

Maybe it was the good price or my lowered expectations, but I love TH. I really expected to not like it. Theme is okay for me, I don’t like long ball time games and Pinside.

Seriously, this game is so unique and I love the rule set. It’s a very different game then anything else in my collection or that I’ve owned in the past.

Seems like a great family game, but for a pin enthusiast I think it needs to be appreciated in a home environment. I could see easily dismissing this game on location or after a play or two, but I can also see how it doesn’t vibe with everyone. It can be chaotic and difficult to know what’s going on, but also slow and plodding. Control seems especially important in TH.

I like the game and will get one when they get to my price point, $5500-$6000.

The original owners are taking a bath now I'm waiting for the 2nd owners to sell at a loss.

Not sure if THLE or THSE will be below 6K, but maybe. If you like the game then it would be a steal. If you don't like it I don't think getting it for 5K would be worth it - you still won't like it.

I do like the game, the times I played it at Pinball Wizard (rip) and at shows.

I guess you could try to get to Five Armies 3 times.

I think TH is not going to appeal to very good players, or tournament players. The game seems to be more of a introductory pin or for casual players. Owners may keep it for others in the family or non pinhead visitors as it is more forgiving and simple rules to learn with the LCD/Book and callouts. I think making it harder with outlane and post settings will help, but I agree if you are a good player you will likely have very long games. I am not a great player so my scores are in the 1 to 2 million range and games are about 20 minutes or so. My kids and neighbors are still under 300K and 5 minute ball times so they LOVE playing the game.

I was going to sell it and get a TRON or IM, but my family didn't want me to get rid of because they love the look, sounds, and game play. So I am going to keep it and I am saving for pinball machine number 2.

Make your game tougher. Remove the center post and open the outlines all the way. Play with the pitch, adjust the rules. Hell, slap lightning flippers in it! Saying a game is too easy is not a valid complaint. You can control how hard or easy the game is. MB must be the worst game ever made and boring to you...

Making TH tougher by adjusting the settings just makes it all the more monotonous.

You still gotta achieve the same goals, but instead of spending 90 minutes to get there, it'll take two and a half hours.

It's still no fun. Actually worse.

There are people that will always love TH and DI. The demand for TH is really SLOW. Give it a while for DI and the same thing will happen, price drops on the secondary market.

They might be the greatest pins ever to some people. That's great. It should never be about the $$$, its a hobby.

We are going to get F ed on our high priced pins we buy NIB in the after market. If you don't like it, don't buy or grab a jar of vaseline to help ease the pain when you go to sell.

I loved the way mine looked and hated how it played. I just couldn't get into it. Sold it for a profit, guess I'm one of the rare ones to do that. Don't miss it at all and replaced it with a Met premium which I love.

Better add $2000.
Nota Fool

Why should he modify the game to make it harder? Wtf? The game is a snoozer. Sucks bc it's so damn pretty. He said it well though that the layout is so simple and you're in mb the majority of the time. I suck at Pinball and I was killing this game on location so hard I drained and left bc it was boring

Just played mine and timed it out of curiosity. 22 min game, but only got to Into the Fire.

Still love it.

Bottom line is not every game is gonna be a 3 minute tournament game. Plenty of people hate RFM and call it a "gimmick", but to me it's one of the most fun games to play. Sometimes presentation goes a long way. Hobbit just pulls me in with its amazing music, display, voices, etc. plus it just feels good. The targets, ramps, scoops and beasts are satisfying to hit, especially with Thiel's excellent music and sound design accompanying the action. It's a long quest and that's OK if you don't mind spending some time on one play. Ops will hate it. Tourney players will hate it. People who play one machine with their friends will hate it. Those who want a cinematic quest experience will love it. I still have no regrets buying it. I think it's neat having a JJP game, and I didn't want WOZ or DI.

Do I really have to explain? SM out of the box was the second easiest game I’ve ever played (Stern Playboy is the easiest...I think I breezed through it on my first ball). I literally beat everything SM offered the first game I ever played and it had multiballs like crazy too. I dismissed the game for several years until I played a friend’s SM that was set up tough. It was a completely different game and I bought one soon after. It quickly became one of my favorite games ever. TH out of the box is no doubt “easy”. I was having hour long games where I’d score over 4M pretty consistently and it did get to be a grind. I then set it up tough and now it’s pretty great. It will never be a SM for me don’t get me wrong, but it’s far from boring and kicks my ass regularly.

Of course it’s all just MY opinion just like you have yours. Give it a chance though, you might be surprised.

It’s really funny to read how people hate the long ball times of TH and how they love short game times, but what’s the difference between playing a 20min game or playing four 5min games. When I get into a good game on TH a 30min game feels like a 5min game. I also get some pretty long games going on Metallica and when I drain the last ball I really don’t feel like jumping into another game.

The difference to me is that TH doesn't get interesting or exciting unless you reach a milestone mode and/or start approaching a good score. It takes time to get there, and getting there is more monotonous each time, and not really fun on the way

TSPP on the other hand is a long ball time game, but there are constant goals and challenges always within reach with just a few shots. You don't have to grind away just to get to a fun challenge. (Woz too, to a lesser degree).

I love it when a game goes long, but not so much if it MUST go long before it becomes interesting.

The best deep games have immediately attainable (not necessarily easy) goals on every ball, along with deeper goals for when you have one of the long ones.

TH modes suffer from feeling samey because of the ramp and target-centric layout.

Hobbit...Tron...WOZ....STILL not as good as Scared Stiff!

That's what she said.

Why so many GB for sale? Is it really that bad?
I counted 15 Hobbits in the market place. Wow that is alot. BUT, I count 25 GB.

to reply the OP ask : the hobbit is wonderfull without any doubt, code is deep, game build seems high quality...

BUT

if you're a good player, and than from that aspect only, TH is slow, so slow, terribly slow that you'll found asl.... rrrrrrrrrrrrrr zzzzzzzzzzzzz rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

easy, and same approach as above :

1. if you're a lambda player : game is hard ! so hard that it could quickly become frustrating
2. if you're a good player : than you know code need more than an big/good update (honestly, that's why i sold mine)

The only logical answer is that GB sucks way harder than TH.

No that's not logical at all - There are more Chevys for sale than Porsches. These "Why so many for sale" threads really mean nothing and tend to divide people rather unite. I'd rather know why you personally like or hate a machine. BTW I prefer my 13 year old Chevy to any Porsche or Lotus I've owned.

What does that mean?

IMG_3124 (resized).JPG

Wow. Ill take my 997.1 911 over any other car I have driven. The driving experience is the best.

I was speaking ironically. These threads are silly. But I like reading silly comments.

Among all JJP games, TH is the one I like the least - yet I do not hate it.
Expectations were very, very high - too high - for this game.
People who support JJP and bought TH now want to buy DI or POTC... and not everyone can afford a new game without selling another.

Don't know what you are talking about, OP. I have been trying for over a month and I can't find anyone willing to sell me a quality Hobbit machine for $6K, even if I pay for shipping of $500 (i.e., for a total of $6,500). The cheapest I can find a gently used HUO Hobbit right now is $7,000 out of pocket if I agree to pay the shipping. Considering most of these guys bought the machine back when it was only $6,500-$7,500, I don't see the price has changed much at all. It is a quality pin with a well-executed theme that will appeal to a large audience of Tolkien enthusiasts for a long time. Moreover, it is still being manufactured so there is bound to be a few more offers floating around in the wild than other pins.

Keep an eye on the Pinside marketplace. There’s a $6500 OBO Hobbit up now that’s been listed for three weeks, so with some bargaining you should be able to do better than $7k shipped right now.

Based on the archived ads it looks like < $6.5k Hobbits come up about once a month, so if you’re patient you could probably save a couple of hundred by waiting.

And you’ve probably gathered this, but it is the norm for the buyer to pay shipping. Most pricing discussions (except NIB, since Stern includes free shipping) exclude shipping and tax by default since they vary so much buyer to buyer.

Good lord, what kind of twisted and unique hell is this that you've imagined Levi? You're quite disturbed sometimes.

This is what it was set up like at Pinburgh, plus with lighting flippers iirc. I only got to play 1 game on it but it was quite a different experience from every other time I've played The Hobbit, which admittedly is only a few dozen times. It was a short game for all 4 players, so limiting ball times is certainly possible. I'd like to get in some more time on a machine set up like that.

Seen 6500 all over the place. You cant be serious...

So.... why do people like DEEP games? Words like “homework” “monotonous” “boring” aren’t great selling points.

I'd love to see a stream or video of a setup like his. Wonder if we could convince the buffalo guys to do one.

I think he interpreted that as $6500 shipped. Which is of course a different thing.

Because it's the opposite of boring. People used to complain that the B/W games were too easy and simple...and when TSPP and LOTR came out, people were thrilled that you could own these games for years and they were great for home use due to their massive amount of content and long "quests" to get to the final wizard mode. Anyone can see Monster Bash's wizard modes....almost no one can get to TSPP or LOTR's final modes. Depth = an amazing accomplishment to get deep into the game. After those games came out, people loved and expected depth...it's only a recent phenomenon that a vocal group dislikes it and only wants 3 minute long games.

I think everyone just needs to own TH and GB.

Their suckiness compliments one another in my collection.

“You like the movies
And I like T.V.
You take thing serious
And I take 'em light.
You go to bed early
And I party all night.
Our friends are sayin'
We ain't gonna last.
Cuz you move slowly
And baby I'm fast.
You like it quiet
And I love to shout.
But when we get together
It just all works out.”

Middle of the centipede is how I feel sometimes on Pinside.

Deep can mean diverse... varied... lots of things to try and master. The game isn't boiled down to just the same thing all the time.

Deep doesn't have to mean long and grind-y through the same stuff...multiplied to make it more of the same.

Deep to mean means... lots to keep you engaged. Reading a good story is good... reading the same page or very similar pages over and over is not the same thing.

Deep can simply mean variety of scoring strategies that make sense... or rules that have real meaning and consequence. It doesn't mean just "scale"

Still a ton for sale but the prices have increased!

What are they selling for now?

Looks like new is still at the 8 to 8.5 K (depending on model). HUO appear to be around 7K. Under 7K is hard to find but should be out there if the owner wants to sell it quick as possible.

It is going to be interesting to see what the longer term price is for WOZ and TH after JJP stops making them. They are still making both and that has to impact just where the HUO prices are. Will they be in higher demand and cost a little more than average? Who knows...

I am not sure how much they have increased.

An HUO Black Arrow just sold to one of the guys in my neighborhood for $6,600. Just a few months ago, my neighbor picked up an HUO Smaug with crazy low plays for $6,500.

Thx. We are discussing selling our lightly routed one (well maintained and plays good). I personally don't want to sell, but only so much money accounted for route fun and have some other new things on the radar...

I think the point is that some owners didn't much care for it -or wanted to get something else more - and took the hit for selling at under 7K. Not sure if they will get that low again soon. If I were to sell mine today I would probably ask for 7K OBO and see where it goes. Luckily I don't want to sell mine (not anytime soon anyway)

Full disclosure I bought mine NIB in 2016 for 8K. So - 1K after opening the box isn't too bad at all.

I think now's a good time to sell. Prices will drop even further once JPOTC and other new titles hit the market. I don't think there are any new titles from anyone available today that will be worth more 6 months from now than they are worth today. Market is getting saturated on the high end of the market. Only reason Hobbit has been holding lately is that GOTG is a flop and TNA and Houdini have a 6+ month wait time for new orders. After TPF no one is going to be going after games like Hobbit unless prices are significantly cheaper. The higher priced games I own will continue to drop as well.... It's just the way the market is now.

Here is my opinion. If you honestly think that the game is a chore to play than it obviously is not for you. I really like the game even though yes, it can be slow at times and yes the trolls can be annoying but it is really cool to actually play it because it's like going through a story. It can get old but I think it would be a keeper in my collection if I bought it.