While this isn't necessarily far off of reality, I have indeed been surprised by very young kids that seriously enjoy pinball and retro (Atari/NES) gaming. It was an arcade in Jacksonville that had very young kids talking about such retro games with in depth knowledge (I had over 400 NES/Famicom games myself at one point), as well as a group of kids that were heavily interested only in pinball...one kid (12 yo?) in that group roared toward the ceiling, "Oh my God!, I am SO HARD to play some Mario pinball right now!" -- Now if young kids can get THAT excited about a Gottlieb, then perhaps the future isn't so dark after all

And for what it's worth--I was 14/15 then and had no idea I'd ever collect pinball machines.

Yep.

I'm 33 and my girlfriend is 25 (she liked pinball before I met her). Our friends are ~20-38 years old and several have said that the first thing they'd buy if they could afford it would be a pinball machine (not necessarily advised, but said nonetheless). The interest is there, but I'm not sure I have any close friends that could afford even a $2k range game (I can however foresee multiple being able to afford machines in the next few years as they enter their mid 30s [with their current jobs]). The last girl I was with was working at a Law Office in Orlando before we moved to Gainesville. It took her about 20 interviews over 6+ months to finally get a job that would pay her just $15/hr at 32 years old (less than the Orlando job of course). I have a friend here in his 30s that was excited to get a dirty job that paid $11/hr (after a couple years of school to get certified). I have no idea how someone can even survive off that, but it's the reality for many in my age group.

I used to collect MtG cards (since '95) and travel for tournaments. Selling two decades worth of collecting funded much of my pinball collection (hard to realize how much is accumulated over that time when crammed into binders and boxes). Now I travel to pinball events

Pinball Arcade is what ultimately dragged me into the physical side of the hobby, almost immediately getting TPF tickets after discovering it (so not too hard to spark interest without a physical machine), and yes, I thought prices were crazy and that I'd NEVER spend over $3k on a pinball machine. Boy was I wrong, haha.