Ive been in the collectibles industry my entire life which is how I make my living (not selling arcades but other collectibles).
It doesn't matter if its coins, stamps, comic book, trading cards, beanie babies, bottle caps, mineral specimens or some other crap(the same basic economic rules apply).
Like it or not arcade collecting is a growing market and if you look at demographics and the limited supply of product it should continue to do so.
Unlike most industries, with vintage collectibles there is a limited supply of product. Its not like you can call a factory and order more. Whats out there on the market is whats out there on the market. The tendencies to skew trends generally are a result of a few things. One example is that hoards are found, I.E. a warehouse raid where they find a large group of games could temporarily depress the price of a certain product is there is too much of a specific item released in a market in too short of a time period. However the tendency is that once those are absorbed into the market the price will begin to climb again. Another factor would be games that are brought back to life and restored would raise the population of certain games, but still that is a finite number as well.
Now the demographics in my opinion is the real factor. Right now there are a lot of people in the late 30s-50s that are working professions that make good money and have discretionary income to spend (or have already made a bunch of money). This is the main age group that grew up playing games and is drawn by the nostalgia factor. Instead of needing to spend their money on school, mortgage payments, car payments, kids, or whatever they can afford to spend more on their hobbies (whatever that may be). If you take that age group into account then basic math would dictate you that in theory arcade collecting should have another 30+ year run in it. Compare that to something like stamp collecting which was big in the 50s-60s and practically dead now due to an aging collector base and no new collectors coming into the market.
The comparison between pinball and arcades I think is a fair analysis. Once again if you look at the demographics of pinball collectors compared to arcade collectors I think you will find that the average age of the pinball collector is greater than that of the arcade collector. Pinball was big decades before arcades hit the scene and began to decline with the invent and introduction of arcade games. I would even venture to bet that if you tracked the rising price of pinball on a timeline with the rising price of arcades that it directly mirrors the age groups of people who played them as a kid and now have the discretionary to spend on them. Its only a matter of time.
By the way in my industry when someone quotes a price from several years ago to use to compare to todays pricing they are generally out of touch with reality. We have a saying for this and call it "old price disease". Anyone that is not willing to pay todays prices thats fine, you don't have to. If trends in other markets transcend this one then I will tell you this. Other people will be willing to pay those prices and are clearly doing so. What happens in other markets is that the new buyers that are willing to pay current prices collections continue to grow while people who are stuck in the pasts collections remain stagnate. They either adjust with the times and being paying within the new price structure, or their collections remain the same without new acquisitions or even further they become sellers. Either way thats the circle of life in collecting anything. Collectors come in and out all the time.
BTW. Anybody that says a working paperboy is only worth $800 in nice condition with a clean monitor and control panel in this market in my opinion has "old price disease". Please sell me your paperboy at that price. In fact, I would like to place an order with you for 10 of them at that price as long as the quality is right.
Ok, one more cup of coffee and I'm off to work.
Cheers
I would agree with everything you said except the part about pinball collectors vs video game collectors. For me, they are one in the same......coin operated games.
I am just as much into one as I am into the other. There are a lot of folks who are only into one OR the other but there are plenty who are into both.
I would argue that long after the video game trend dies off that pinballs will still be strong as ever. Why?
Well, they are still producing brand new pins for home and for coin-op and the prices are over the top and they are still selling them. A 1950's em can still be repaired..there are no hard to find tubes to locate but most every single part in one can be reproduced.
With video games...once all the tv tubes finally die and once all the nos tubes are depleted, that's it. Sure you can convert to LCD but it will never be the same.
I'm thinking 100 years from now..assuming the planet is still here, this hobby will be nothing but pinball machines and if there are any video games left they will all be lcd video games....or whatever the newest tech of the day is.


