I was wondering what your ideal pinball world would look like 10 years from now. I'm not looking for impossible pie-in-the-sky ideas, but ones that are "possible" even if unlikely or are a longshot in the next 10 years...
My goal for this thread is to begin an open brainstorm session, and just hear from those of you who have an idea in mind, what you'd like to see happen with pinball...
What future you'd like to see "ideally" in say, 10 years from now...?
Have fun with this!
-mof
In the year 2025, I'd like to see a future where:
1. In public, pinball has "made" its comeback -- pins are on location again like it's 1979, and are profitable for operators...
2. There are several more major pinball tournaments per year...
3. People with garages/warehouses of dozens or more of unplayed/unrestored machines have sold them off to people who will restore them and make them playable... (empty the garages/warehouses)
4. There are four or more profitable manufacturers creating pins with three or more titles per year...
5. CPR has tripled its capacity for creating playfields/plastics/BGs...
6. All needed electronic components are still available for old solid states...
7. Massive FREE specification catalogue of 3D printable parts so that we can print needed hard to find parts...
8. Cable TV channel devoted to pinball (like darts, bowling, golf, etc.)
9. All manufacturers are releasing titles for ($4500-$6000), and not a penny more.
-mof
Quoted from mof:
3. People with garages/warehouses of dozens or more of unplayed/unrestored machines have sold them off to people who will restore them and make them playable... (empty the garages/warehouses)
-mof
^^^ this...
what makes it even worse is that those machines will sit there, slowly decaying away, until the person dies... if even half the stories about "scooping machines up by the dozen dirt cheap" are true, who knows how many machines are just sitting there rotting... 
In 10 years, I'd like to see a future where:
1. In public, pinball has "made" its comeback and pins are on location again and are profitable for operators.
2. There are several more major pinball tournaments per year.
3. People with garages/warehouses of dozens or more of unplayed/unrestored machines have sold them off to people who will restore them and make them playable.
4. There are four or more profitable manufacturers creating pins with three or more titles per year.
5. CPR has tripled its capacity for creating playfields/plastics/BGs.
6. All needed electronic components are still available for old solid states.
I'm not looking for impossible pie-in-the-sky ideas.
Your own list sounds pretty impossible to me.
Honestly, I'd be very happy if pinball in 10 yrs looks similar to 2015.
1) A few new games made per year
2) Relatively all parts available
3) A easily accessible knowledge base of pinhead tech experts to help the rest of us
Perhaps I'm blind, but I don't see pinball growing into anything bigger than the recent boom. hope I'm wrong!
I'd love to see it become so popular again that there were enough competing manufacturers and demand was high enough the new titles went down in price. NIB games for 3k$ again would be amazing.
I'd Love to see competitive pinball on television, even if it was ESPN4, they show darts for Christ sakes!
It is the year 2025
Gottlieb System 1 boards that have been left unrepaired, battery acid has now started to repair the spider chips back to working order.
Location pinball is huge, with new games from Stern, Gottlieb, Williams, JJP and a few other new comers
3D Printing has made finding rare parts a thing of the past, keeping old games running without having to order parts
Steve Young has started making Gottlieb machines
Stu still vows never to make another Bally/Williams title again - Addams Family playfields are on their 7th run
Tron VE VE VE VE is released
Medieval Madness ships next week
Quoted from practicalsteve:
I'd love to see it become so popular again that there were enough competing manufacturers and demand was high enough the new titles went down in price. NIB games for 3k$ again would be amazing.
I'd Love to see competitive pinball on television, even if it was ESPN4, they show darts for Christ sakes!
Agree on TV, nice one.
-mof
Quoted from iwantansi:
In 10 years...
3D Printing has made finding rare parts a thing of the past
Nice one!
Let's imagine a massive FREE catalogue of 1000's of old pinball parts with their specifications so that we can 3D print them at will.
-mof
I think we have it good right now
New manufacturers, reproduction parts available
I'd be hoping in 10 years to finally get a new house and have an awesome games room set up
NIB games for 3k$ again would be amazing.
Inflation would put this "1990's nice $3000-$3500" number at roughly $4500-$5000 in 2015. Stern already makes this possible with its Pro model.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-of-nib-pins-back-in-the-day
In my ideal world, ALL pinball manufacturers will be releasing games for $4.5-$6K in 10 years.
-mof
I'd like to simply see pinball interest continue to grow in the gaming & sporting communities, becoming more widely acknowledged as a skillful and competitive option. It's unfortunate how many folks still don't even get how it's possible for pinball to be skillful or competitive. As a 28 year old living in Chicago, hearing what some people think about pinball makes it seem like there's still a pretty long way to go on that front (at least with young people). Lots of people almost laugh it off, in a way.
The next generation is already so blinded by the advancements of video games, it's going to be critical to show gamers how intense the pinball scene is becoming. Both for the sake of pinball longevity and also for the sake of future generation's sociability (that is, hanging out playing pinball compared to sitting on the couch yelling into a microphone)!
I'd like to see the p3 or a similar open source platform pick up steam and enable a team of a few creative people with access to a makerspace and maybe an interesting license to crank out a few hundred or thousand boutique games.
I wouldn't say "larger" tournaments would be better, the big ones are plenty big already, but I'd like to see fairly large tournaments more often and in more places.
I'd like to read one contiguous week of Pinside without encountering any of the following behavior: trolling, name calling, insulting, back biting, gossiping, spreading falsehoods or any other kind of bu!! sh*t that creeps into so many posts. I think we can do it, but believe it might also require an unplanned alignment of the moon and stars. However it happens and whenever it occurs, it will make my world idyllic. 
ps - all the other stuff that goes on here including speculative theorisms, negative opinions and analyses and pictures of boobs are welcome, even encouraged by my book.
Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:
speculative theorism, negative opinion and analysis and pictures of boobs are welcome and encouraged by my book.
Boobs!
1. New Barcades opened near my home. Friendly tournaments every Thursday nights
2. Got P3 and Heighway platforms at home, both with 6+ different games I can swap in a minute
3. True sound isolation (no more mechanical noises) is now possible - you may play a pin in a living room while your wife is watching TV
4. Installed a brand new cocktail pinball game in my office. Looks classy with its wood frames. Imagine your colleagues' face when you remove the files sitting on top on the glass and ask "Want to play ball?"
Some actual innovation from manufacturers- not simply making games that could have been produced in the 90s and absolutely no more boring fan layouts.
What would your ideal pinball world look like in 10 years?
-mof
My ideal pinball world is where people buy pins to play and enjoy instead of just to sell. My own personal unrealistic pinball fantasy. 
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run thanks to donations from our visitors? Please donate to Pinside, support the site and get anext to your username to show for it! Donate to Pinside
San Francisco, CA
Villejuif