Thoughts on Pinball

The money and the constant maintenance are the difference IMO. Ive had both at the same time and my pin was constantly breaking therefore i was constanly throwing money at it.Not to mention the initial cost to buy one.
 
So isn't collecting pinballs that natural progression from colleting vids?

There are people that like to claim that, but the reality is that it's not that way for everyone. It's all personal preference. I have both and so do many other people around here. Any game can get boring and be sold or traded off, and a game isn't necessarily still fun because you haven't finished a wizard mode or accompished something else with the game, or because it has a deep ruleset. As I said, it's all personal preference.
 
The money and the constant maintenance are the difference IMO. Ive had both at the same time and my pin was constantly breaking therefore i was constanly throwing money at it.Not to mention the initial cost to buy one.

Constant maintenance? I never understood that. Besides cleaning the playfield, I seem to be tinkering with my vids a lot more! KNOCKING ON WOOD!
 
No it's not a progression, but pins are fun and if you have the money and space a lot of guys wind up with them.

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I've seen a lot of "Hard Core Video Collectors" pick up a fascination with the Silver Ball. I Was all video for 2 years , then went to a few pins, now, I'm about even. It's funny that my Pinhead friends think of me as a video guy, and the VidKids think I'm a Pinhead.

I like it all - I really like EM arcades, but they are just too far out of my reach (cost wise).

I guess it's an individual thing. I am glad I bought WPC Pins 10 years ago instead of now. The cost was so much lower.
 
not for me. just want one in the house at a time.
fun to play but too much ongoing work.
i like to have fun not be a slave to maintenance.

plus if i wanted to sell one, it would take forever due to not being near any major areas.
i'd never burden myself with a 300lb paperweight collection.

but having one is splendid!
 
But can't we all agree that pins are more fun to play, more fun to tinker with, and more fun to fantasize about?
 
Constant maintenance? I never understood that. Besides cleaning the playfield, I seem to be tinkering with my vids a lot more! KNOCKING ON WOOD!

one flipper coil goes out,may as well replace both while your in there,sound for the ramp quit working,multiball not spitting the balls out right,shaker quit working,score stopped registering,etc etc. I find a lot less can go wrong with a vid and i find myself playing alot more on them.
 
"So isn't collecting pinballs the natural progression from collecting vids?"
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For me, its the opposite.
I started out collecting pins, never thinking I would want old arcade games..

Boy was I wrong. I got it bad now.
Incurable.
Glad theres a support group.
 
I like my 2 pins, and I may get more over time, but I definitely have not "progressed" to a point where I like them over vids. I remember 1 - 3 pins in each arcade, and that still seems to be a good ratio for me. I think that makes me more of a guy who just likes to own and play some games than a collector.
 
I like pins, but if you're trying to say pins are somehow superior to video games then just remember you're still a nerd like the rest of us.
 
Its not a natural progression if your best memories are from playing video arcade games, not pinballs. I've owned only one pin, and I do hope to someday have another one. But my passion is for the vids.
 
I like my 2 pins, and I may get more over time, but I definitely have not "progressed" to a point where I like them over vids. I remember 1 - 3 pins in each arcade, and that still seems to be a good ratio for me. I think that makes me more of a guy who just likes to own and play some games than a collector.


But isn't that how it starts?
You begin innocently enough as a guy who just likes to own and play some games and then suddenly one day you realize you are a collector.
 
They really compliment each other in a gameroom, I always want to have both.
I noticed that a lot of people that are intimidated by video games (mostly older people and the ladies) will go right up and play a pin. There is some kind of welcoming familiarity there for non-gamers.

Price is the only downside. Its painful after years of $200-$300 vids.
 
But isn't that how it starts?
You begin innocently enough as a guy who just likes to own and play some games and then suddenly one day you realize you are a collector.

It can. I have collected games. Six months ago, I owned all 3 of the Donkey Kongs, and while the "Nintendo Row" looked kinda cool, I realized that I only really liked one of them. I like my little arcade much better now without the other two. I think that is where I draw the line from being a collector; if I by something because I feel the need to complete a set, that is somewhere I don't want to be.

Feeling a need to progress to something just doesn't seem fun to me anymore. That could be because my arcade is pretty full though. I recently updated the list of games I have gotten rid of on my site, and I was a bit shocked. 41 games have come and gone since I started this in 2008. I only have 13 now, but I have had as many as 21 in the garage at one point. I think I was not only collecting at that point, but hoarding a little. Now I value space to move around in more than trying to pack every possible game into the space.

The pinheads that I know around here tend to be also bridging the gap from collector to hoarder. One friend has a house full, a garage full, and 3 storage units full. Crazy. I know he probably plays more of them, but I have only ever seen him play the same 10 or so games out of all of those.
 
But can't we all agree that pins are more fun to play, more fun to tinker with, and more fun to fantasize about?

Like everything else, it's personal preference. A lot of it is probably what you remember from when you were growing up. I played pinball machines growing up, but the video games were much more fun for me.

I've got both video games and pinball machines, but if I was forced to choose having to get rid of one or the other then it would be the pins that go.

- JM
 
So isn't collecting pinballs the natural progression from colleting vids?

Yes, I believe it is. Of course all the differing POVs are also correct. But for someone who starts with Vids, pinballs are the natural progression. Its just like a motor head who likes tinkering with hot rods. At some point, he's going to get a really nice car and want to restore it. Then, he's that guy that restores 50K hot rods. Of course, anyone could be content with what they collect and are collecting indefinitely. But over the course of years of collecting, they want to try something else that pushes their bounds.

For me, I grew up during the golden age of games, but really cut my teeth in the Silver Age. My first grails I bought were Ninja Gaiden and Rastan. Over the years, I bought this and that and eventually started collecting golden age and rare silver age boards with HS-5 cabs to put them in. Then, I come to the realization that my Vids really didn't hold any value compared to pins, so I started tinkering with pins. Now I have 4. I enjoy them, and at some point, I'll go back to my golden era games or my Jamma's. At some point, maybe I'll get a vintage jukebox, or an EM gun game.

Ultimately, collectors collect. If they don't have it, there's a good chance they will. And if they like it, they'll keep it and keep adding more.
 
Playing HS and my phone rings. Ask son to hold the flipper for 2 minutes. Smoke. Fire. Spent 6 months replacing parts in an escalating effort to find the root cause and no - it was not routine. In this system, something completely (well, seemingly) unrelated in the circuitry ended up as a smoked induction coil. The LED's were gassing out anyway at the time. and I never had a topper (lights) so I traded it.

Same thing happens with Tempest, in all fairness, but even Tempest is cheaper to fix and easier to move than a pin. That said - man do I miss my pins. We play emu'ed pins as much as MAME around here.
 
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