dare i say it?

mrgone

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 29, 2010
Messages
1,140
Reaction score
39
Location
California
i keep seeing the same type of topics come up here, stern pins being sub par,why dont williams,bally etc. get back in the game? as i see it sterns only real issue,no competition.
if you have any kind of monopoly then you can treat your customer base any way you like cause you cant go somewhere else. here comes the dare i say it part. almost everything is made in china today. everythjng except pinball. why has china not started pumping out pins? would any self respecting pinhead buy one?im as red blooded american as they come.
when im at the ball park and some jerk will not remove his hat during our national anthem im on him like a pit bull. anyway, im not saying i want any third rate pins from a third rate dictatorship flooding the market. it just kills me to see a good company like stern do things so half assed just to save/make a buck. thanks for letting me rant.remember,if they build it we will come.play pinball,keep america strong.
 
in the late 60's america made ass kicking muscle cars. then the gas crunch. then import econo boxes,remember the dodge omni?
fast foward to 2010. the dodge challenger,with hemi,ford mustang,with 5.0 chevy camaro with 350.
why you ask,cause thats what people want. i dont buy the no market idea. people will pay 10 grand for a medieval madness,6 to 8 grand for adams family or tz. then those same people would pay 5 g for a new kick ass pin from stern or another company. and if more companys were making pins and people were out in the marketplace getting them in to more locations. plus look at everything out there today,music,whats popular, 70-80's rock.movies,tv,remakes of 70.s -80.shows and movies.look at the posts on here there are hundreds of people whoould kill to have a tron pin.a pin based on a 30 year old movie.
 
Now that Williams rights have all been bought out, we are expecting more parts and possiblel remakes of some classic playfields, possibly even full games. I would think there would be a market for favorites such as MM. (I know that can open a can of worms, but now it is owned by the owner of Bay area amusements as a joint venture with a collector)
 
i dont buy the no market idea. people will pay 10 grand for a medieval madness,6 to 8 grand for adams family or tz. then those same people would pay 5 g for a new kick ass pin from stern or another company.

Those 100 people are not enough to build a company on. So yeah maybe there's not "no" market but there is not enough of a market. That's a well established fact. Stern is having enough trouble keeping their heads above water and they're already well established. Starting a new pinball company and actually making money is virtually impossible. Gene Cunningham lost something like $200K+ on the Big Bang Bar remake.

and if more companys were making pins and people were out in the marketplace getting them in to more locations. plus look at everything out there today,music,whats popular, 70-80's rock.movies,tv,remakes of 70.s -80.shows and movies.look at the posts on here

If there were a demand for pins on location they would be there. If you could sell a pin in costco for $400 you might get the retro market. At $4K+ the nostalgia market is going to be pretty limited.

there are hundreds of people whoould kill to have a tron pin.a pin based on a 30 year old movie.

There are lots of people who say they want a Tron pin. When it comes time to pull out the $5K we'll see how many actually buy one.
 
There's no market.

End of story.

+1

Sad but true. There is just not enough money in it now. I think its pretty much over. I wish there was something that could be done, but that is the hard truth.
 
There are lots of people who say they want a Tron pin. When it comes time to pull out the $5K we'll see how many actually buy one.


i have every intention of snatching one up......we'll see if the wifey agrees when the time comes. ;)
 
It's possible there could be a new interest in pins if enough business owners would take the chance and have them in their establishments.

I don't think pins are suffering in popularity because the younger generations don't like them. I think it's more of a situation where the younger generations just don't know much about them. You can't really like or dislike what you haven't been exposed to.

Case in point: My sister-in-law and brother-in-law -- who are both in their 20's -- recently came over to play my pins for the first time, and they were really into them.

For both of them, it was somewhat of a revelation, with my brother-in-law telling me "I had no idea there was so much to pinball. I thought it was just about keeping the ball from going down the center." He was quite surprised that pins could tell a story, have multiple objectives, have different modes, etc., etc. And that's despite the fact that he's a young, hardcore console gamer. If he saw a pin out on location somewhere, I'm sure he'd be inclined to give it a play. (Well, as long as it didn't cost $1 per play or something.)

Hell, I'd LOVE to be able to go play some pins on location in my area, but despite Chattanooga, TN being a fairly good sized city, I've only come across one machine while out and about: a NASCAR at Chuck E. Cheese, that was not only dirty as all get-out, but wasn't even working.

And that points out another problem, doesn't it? Not only aren't there many machines on location to begin with, but the ones that ARE out in the wild aren't being kept up at all.
 
It's possible there could be a new interest in pins if enough business owners would take the chance and have them in their establishments.

I don't think pins are suffering in popularity because the younger generations don't like them. I think it's more of a situation where the younger generations just don't know much about them. You can't really like or dislike what you haven't been exposed to.

Case in point: My sister-in-law and brother-in-law -- who are both in their 20's -- recently came over to play my pins for the first time, and they were really into them.

For both of them, it was somewhat of a revelation, with my brother-in-law telling me "I had no idea there was so much to pinball. I thought it was just about keeping the ball from going down the center." He was quite surprised that pins could tell a story, have multiple objectives, have different modes, etc., etc. And that's despite the fact that he's a young, hardcore console gamer. If he saw a pin out on location somewhere, I'm sure he'd be inclined to give it a play. (Well, as long as it didn't cost $1 per play or something.)

Hell, I'd LOVE to be able to go play some pins on location in my area, but despite Chattanooga, TN being a fairly good sized city, I've only come across one machine while out and about: a NASCAR at Chuck E. Cheese, that was not only dirty as all get-out, but wasn't even working.

And that points out another problem, doesn't it? Not only aren't there many machines on location to begin with, but the ones that ARE out in the wild aren't being kept up at all.

Some very strong and valid points. I'm finding that exposing people to pinball gets them hooked. It's like drugs, you've heard the words/terms/names but until you actually do it ... it means nothing and you have no urge to do them. Sad analogy I know ;)

Being in Chattanooga - RLEVIN should be going wild if there's no pins in the wild ... surprise surprise.

And yes - OPs tend to not take care of their machines and wonder why they don;t earn any money ... duh! And the OP's are too damn lazy to realize they need to rotate games. Most pubs/bars have local bar flys. they get bored of a title and we're back to not making any money. Again .. duh!

And here's another hurdle. IF BayareaAmusements decided to make a run of a B/W game it'll cost $5-$6K (estimation of course). People will bitch just as much about the price as they do about Sterns games. I don't see pinball making a come back because most of the technology is archaic and is the same reason "most" kids have no interest in Donkey Kong or Ms. Pacman.
My .02
 
so everyone assumes...

Unfortunately its not an assumption.

If there were material demand, china, amoungst others would jump in (or back in) to the game. Investors and companies like Bally, Stern, Williams etc dont make decisions based on vague assumptions. If the demand were real and sustainable, there'd be lots of new entrants to the Pin market.
 
i don't think the popularity of pins has as much to do with age as it does with exposure....my 5 year old plays the hell out of my pins. and every time we have his friends over, that's the first thing they run to.

i haven't run across too many people that don't enjoy playing them when given the opportunity. hell, my dad makes a bee-line to pin row every time he comes down to visit....and this man is about as far away from a gamer as you can get.



all that said, i don't think pins are making any sort of a comeback. i just hope stern hangs on long enough to make a few dozen more pins so that there's some more variety out there when the whole thing finally dries up.
 
i don't think the popularity of pins has as much to do with age as it does with exposure....my 5 year old plays the hell out of my pins. and every time we have his friends over, that's the first thing they run to.

i haven't run across too many people that don't enjoy playing them when given the opportunity. hell, my dad makes a bee-line to pin row every time he comes down to visit....and this man is about as far away from a gamer as you can get.



all that said, i don't think pins are making any sort of a comeback. i just hope stern hangs on long enough to make a few dozen more pins so that there's some more variety out there when the whole thing finally dries up.

+1

If there were a pile of redemption machines and pins, the kids hit the redemption machines. Again, if reality was anything other than that, we'd have more pins out on routes and in the local family entertainment centers.
 
Any idea how many machines Stern is pumping out a year? 5,000? Less? More?

Either way, it's a far cry from the peak in the late 70's/early 80's when a few years bumped at 200,000 machines produced by the industry.

The pinball industry these days is pretty much entirely in restoration and repair of older machines. Be it parts warehouses, manufacturers or restoration shops. This area is alive and well.

-Hans
 
all valid points, i just cant stand seeing somthing i see as a good thing just fade away.

i have watched every drive in within 100 miles shut down to make room for a starbucks or costco. anyway,the good part is there are tons of cool pins out there for all of us to collect.
 
+1

If there were a pile of redemption machines and pins, the kids hit the redemption machines. Again, if reality was anything other than that, we'd have more pins out on routes and in the local family entertainment centers.

It sounds like someone needs to add redemption to pinball and pay out redemption tickets rather than credit / extra balls :cool: in the local family entertainment centers.
 
I You can't really like or dislike what you haven't been exposed to.
Case in point: My sister-in-law and brother-in-law -- who are both in their 20's -- recently came over to play my pins for the first time, and they were really into them.

Your very right. I am a great example of this. I am 24 now. The first pinball machine I ever played was one I had just purchased and got running (Time Warp) closly followed by Black Knight 2000. I think I was around 18 or so. Why did I do this? I didn't have any arcade memories, there were 0 around when I grew up. And I didn't know the games, and had never played pinball before.

2 Reasons

KLOV message boards - I came on here and was asking about fixing a arcade, started reading about pinball machines and dreaming.

And- PINBALL IS COOL! Every person knows that. Even people who would never buy one think pinball is cool and fun. I dont think there is many that think "I hate pinball" its mostly that they have never been exposed to it, and its something they "know of" but not something they really think about. Most people dont go into arcades much, and when they do there is rarely a good, functioning pinball machine. There just isn't much chance for exposure. I think they will continue to be a nitch thing in airports and bars. At least I hope so.
 
all valid points, i just cant stand seeing somthing i see as a good thing just fade away.

i have watched every drive in within 100 miles shut down to make room for a starbucks or costco. anyway,the good part is there are tons of cool pins out there for all of us to collect.

We hear you, brother. Your enthusiasm is definitely not lost here. All we can do is continue to support pinball and try to get others interested. But hey... at least we still have one manufacturer making them.
 
It's easy to get someone hooked on pinball. I've helped friends buy machines after they've played mine, but the purchase price there is generally $1,200-$1,500 or so. They wouldn't be buying their own machines if they had to pay new prices for them. So even if a new company came in and started "doing things right", they'd still be priced too high for the mainstream. Until they could make them and sell them for $1,500 with the same bells and whistles as the mid-90s games, everybody will just keep buying the older stuff instead of the newer stuff. It puts Stern and anybody else interested in making a machine in a bad position.
 
Back
Top Bottom