What would it take for pinball to become main stream again?

ixtlann

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What would it take for pinball to become main stream again?

Video games were not super main stream until ps1, etc.
What would it take for pinballs to become more main stream again?

Breaking Dawn part2 the pinball? Lolz?
Discuss.
 
What would it take? The internet to go away, and video games to get a whole lot less awesome.

Sorry, but pins are dying because of much better entertainment hobbies are getting... well... better.

With that said, I am in love with pinball NOW. Back in the day, I couldn't give a shit about pinball, and played nothing but vids. However, now that games are even more advanced, I find myself drawn to games from years and years ago that I never played before, and being blown away by them. My arcade is slowly turning into more pins and less vids!
 
Video games were not super main stream until ps1, etc.
What would it take for pinballs to become more main stream again?

Breaking Dawn part2 the pinball? Lolz?
Discuss.

01. Competitive Tournaments paying out thousands of dollars and being televised on ESPN.

02. A Hit HBO show centered around an attractive pinball player and HER pins who resorts to prostitution to pay for her pinball addiction.

03. A Hot Model telling TMZ that Championship Caliber Pinball players should call her.

04. Pinball Groupies of the same caliber as 80's/90's Hair Bands

05. Rick Grimes killing a zombie with a Pinball Machine

06. A pinball machine based on HBO's "Dream On" which takes advantage of LCD Technology to shows a different topless beauty for each mode completion.

07. ... (add your own)


Marcus
 
Pins not costing $5k+ to buy new, it's mainly a home market these days and that price is one that most people already in the hobby are not willing to pay.

Cut the Premium/Pro/LE/Super LE bullshit out...offer ONE model, period. This only alienates potential customers further.

Neither will happen though.
 
01. Competitive Tournaments paying out thousands of dollars and being televised on ESPN
Marcus

It would be nice to get the coverage, but will it help ?

Lil Putt miniature golf had big tournaments years ago on ESPN and courses all over the USA.

All gone now.

You need joe average playing pinball in huge numbers and seeing they suck compared to the greats is a big turn off, they'll just find something else to do.

LTG :)
 
I think popularity of pinball in general is in kind of an upswing. There are lots of new apps (Pinball FX2 and most recently Pinball Arcade) across nearly every platform cranking out new video versions.

The down side is that price and access to real machines is a huge issue, which is perhaps why realistic pinball simulations are so popular.
 
What would it take for pinball to become main stream again?



despite what we're told by the "experts" around here, it really wouldn't take much to get pinball back in the mainstream....











































.....just figure out a way to have monkeys fly out of your ass and you're halfway home. :)
 
Exposure is Pinball's #1 Problem

How about games actually being on route and working?

Arm chair analyst time: The manufacturer that is willing to take the financial risk of exposure > profit for one or two games has a chance of revitalizing the genre into the mainstream and becoming the big boy of the very small market.

Right now pinball is in a "collectors paradise rut". For a majority of people pinball exists only in collector's basements and MAYBE 1 or 2 machines in a random spot. If you're not lucky enough to be in an area with an active community, publicly the genre is pretty much dead. Find my Tucson thread. It's a major area and I couldn't get an arcade/pinball online community to tell me where the machines are.

If pinball is going to truly go mainstream again, someone has to take the risk of making a game that utilizes modern tech to attract Joe Blow that also has almost insane incentives to ops to route as many as possible. The machines need to be everywhere. Not just movie theaters or random bowling alleys. I mean EVERYWHERE. That means losing money on a few projects, gambling that flooding the market will make pinball huge and profitable again...so you can make money if it rebounds.

It's really easy to blame other forms of entertainment, but the problem with pinball is pretty much self created. Pinball expects Joe Blow to hunt down their games and do all the leg work. In a lot of cases it expects Joe Blow to know a collector that has bought the latest game or to find an op that knows where he is routing his stuff. Joe Blow doesn't have time and doesn't give a shit when every other form of entertainment is going straight to him.

Otherwise...we'll just have to live with pinball manufacturers playing it safe, pandering to collectors and leaving Joe Blow to play with his 360.

Edit: P.S. Video Games weren't super mainstream until PS1? Were you alive during the 80's?
 
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Yeah, every time I come across a route pin it has major issues and some entire features can't be accessed because of a broken part. I wanted to play Family Guy about a month ago at a bar. It was unplayable. I was very disappointed. Top flipper didn't work at all among other things.
 
hmmm...

A modular pinball system. I don't know if this needs to happen via virtual pinball with LCD's, or with kits that change out the games and are available for no more than $250 a pop.

Truthfully, pinball will never become main stream until it is viable in the home market. It will never be viable in the home market until it is cheaper and takes up less room.

Folks can justify the space for a pinball machine. Five? Only us weirdos.

Folks can spend $1000 (although this would be a big investment) for a modular pin, and then $200 for additional games. Or perhaps more on the cab, and less on the games...if the LCD route was how it went.

Ether way, until something like this happens they will remain a rich man/enthusiasts toy.
 
It's on the way now. More happening in the pinball world this past year than I've seen in a decade.

The tide has turned: Jersey Jack Pinball.

Wizard of Oz will soon be in the arcades along with new ways to take your coin (or maybe coin-less)

http://tinyurl.com/768n5sd

- Don
 
It's on the way now. More happening in the pinball world this past year than I've seen in a decade.

The tide has turned: Jersey Jack Pinball.

Wizard of Oz will soon be in the arcades along with new ways to take your coin (or maybe coin-less)

http://tinyurl.com/768n5sd

- Don



how many WOZ's do you think are gonna make their way into "arcades"?? that's a lot of scratch to put into a machine making a dollar a play...
 
01. Competitive Tournaments paying out thousands of dollars and being televised on ESPN.

02. A Hit HBO show centered around an attractive pinball player and HER pins who resorts to prostitution to pay for her pinball addiction.

03. A Hot Model telling TMZ that Championship Caliber Pinball players should call her.

04. Pinball Groupies of the same caliber as 80's/90's Hair Bands

05. Rick Grimes killing a zombie with a Pinball Machine

06. A pinball machine based on HBO's "Dream On" which takes advantage of LCD Technology to shows a different topless beauty for each mode completion.

07. More Awesome topless hot chicks

08. A time machine to transport you back in time.

09. Making them Illegal again, because fun stuff is illegal.

10. ....
 
Curious what an ops cost for a pin vs some other titles is?
Then again, in my experience ops whp are running brand new games and machines are running new sterns as well.
 
I would encourage you to email Jack and ask. He'd love to discuss that topic with you. There are apparently quite a few that are placing their Emerald City editions on location. He's not building a pinball company just for the home user. I'm hoping this is just the ice breaker for other ops to see that pinball can again attract paying customers when there is new technology to offer. The Hobbit will follow which, what I'm hearing, is promising to be even better.

- Don


how many WOZ's do you think are gonna make their way into "arcades"?? that's a lot of scratch to put into a machine making a dollar a play...
 
I would encourage you to email Jack and ask. He'd love to discuss that topic with you. There are apparently quite a few that are placing their Emerald City editions on location. He's not building a pinball company just for the home user. I'm hoping this is just the ice breaker for other ops to see that pinball can again attract paying customers when there is new technology to offer. The Hobbit will follow which, what I'm hearing, is promising to be even better.

- Don


i think i'll pass on emailing jack. thanks anyway. :)



i wish i had the money to put into a WOZ. i actually like the theme and what we've seen so far of the pin itself looks promising.

if the hobbit does indeed follow WOZ, i may have to sweet talk the wifey into letting me get that one....probably have to take out a second mortgage on the house to afford it though. lol.
 
How about games actually being on route and working?

Arm chair analyst time: The manufacturer that is willing to take the financial risk of exposure > profit for one or two games has a chance of revitalizing the genre into the mainstream and becoming the big boy of the very small market.

Right now pinball is in a "collectors paradise rut". For a majority of people pinball exists only in collector's basements and MAYBE 1 or 2 machines in a random spot. If you're not lucky enough to be in an area with an active community, publicly the genre is pretty much dead. Find my Tucson thread. It's a major area and I couldn't get an arcade/pinball online community to tell me where the machines are.

If pinball is going to truly go mainstream again, someone has to take the risk of making a game that utilizes modern tech to attract Joe Blow that also has almost insane incentives to ops to route as many as possible. The machines need to be everywhere. Not just movie theaters or random bowling alleys. I mean EVERYWHERE. That means losing money on a few projects, gambling that flooding the market will make pinball huge and profitable again...so you can make money if it rebounds.

It's really easy to blame other forms of entertainment, but the problem with pinball is pretty much self created. Pinball expects Joe Blow to hunt down their games and do all the leg work. In a lot of cases it expects Joe Blow to know a collector that has bought the latest game or to find an op that knows where he is routing his stuff. Joe Blow doesn't have time and doesn't give a shit
Edit: P.S. Video Games weren't super mainstream until PS1? Were you alive during the 80's?

Home console games is the specific example sir. And that is correct if you research the numbers. They made that mainstream, so I wonder how one would make something else become mainstream, befor ethis it was lookued upon as a nerdy dork hoby though not always true, similar in the case of pinball collecting and wat many may percieve etc.
 
Curious what an ops cost for a pin vs some other titles is?
Then again, in my experience ops whp are running brand new games and machines are running new sterns as well.

Ops now days often pay more through a distributor than collectors buying from Trent and others.

In the last ten years, there wasn't much difference on what ops paid or collectors paid through resellers - if they did their homework.

LTG :)
 
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