Pinball Community

"If you are going to see a movie for the first time, do you want to go to the movie and see it for the first time or watch somebody watching the movie for the first time, spoil the whole entire thing... The less you pay attention to Beetlejuice threads, the less you read other people's reactions, the less you watch of the streams, the more enjoyment you will have when your Beetlejuice arrives."

Don't watch streams or play games you've ordered - wait for it to arrive unspoiled

"Knowing that he did this and people are now posting where he works and people are saying, call his employer. That is where I'm like, come on. Like that's going too far... going after someone's employment because of something they do off to the side in pinball, it's something I've had to deal with a few times"

Community going too far trying to get Christopher Scully Thompson fired over topper theft

"It's fun. It's fun to scout pinball machines. Can I, can I repeat that? It's fun. It's fun. Now, I want to just stop there. Do you think it's annoying that I just said that that it is actually really fun to scout a pinball machine that I actually get tremendous pleasure in scouting a pinball machine."

Scalping pinball machines is fun and natural market behavior

"What will ruin this hobby is people losing three to five thousand dollars on every game. That is what will destroy pinball not the other way around. Scalping and secondhand value is healthy for a hobby."

Scalping is healthy for pinball hobby, people losing money on games would ruin it

"what FOMO tends to do to everybody is it has everybody suspend common sense in favor of excitement... They don't even know this yet. And this was enough yesterday to separate 11,6 from people."

FOMO causes pinball collectors to suspend common sense and make irrational purchasing decisions

"I got people yesterday that were like, man, like big trouble and little China makes Star Wars look like crap and I'm just like, come on, man, simmer down. Simmer down, no, it doesn't. Star Wars makes Star Wars look like crap"

People saying Big Trouble in Little China makes Star Wars look like crap need to simmer down

"I want to commend each and every one of you for not running in on this game, New and Box. Like almost nobody I know bought it. And it's going to send a message"

Community is successfully sending message by not buying recent Stern games

"Stern Pinball has done nothing wrong. They didn't miss a release date. This hobby is filled with the biggest bunch of babies I've ever seen. How can people say that the game is delayed? They didn't even give you a reveal date."

Stern Pinball has done nothing wrong with Star Wars launch - the pinball community are just babies complaining about a delay when no release date was ever given

"It's modern, gas-lit pinball community now. Everybody says everything is packed when there's nothing really in the game at all."

The pinball community is gas-lit and overhypes games that lack substance

"It is the armor you need to wear to absorb all the slings and arrows of this community. It's a brutal community because you don't want to let anybody down"

Pinball community is brutal and designers need armor to absorb criticism

"A bunch of mostly wealthy men who are somewhat bored, whose bles are very full, not just in their game rooms, but in their lives. And that's why they're very critical because they're not hungry to just play pinball. They're not hungry just to have fun because they can create fun every single day, every single moment."

The pinball community has become overly critical wealthy men who aren't hungry for fun anymore

"I think overall, King Kong is not as bad as people are saying it is right now. And Harry Potter is not as incredible as everybody is saying it is right now"

King Kong and Harry Potter are both being judged too extremely

"I also want to say on another level, I think this community is maybe the most gaslit community I've ever seen. I really mean this."

The pinball community is the most gaslit community ever, convinced empty games are 'loaded'

"This is the dumbest hobby when it comes to secrets. You know something about pinball. Guess what? Nobody cares. Nobody cares. You can't go anywhere in this world. There's only like a few hundred people that really do care."

Pinball secrecy is completely pointless and dumb

"It's when I start hearing people talk about Jack's health and then making guesses on what's wrong with Jack. What are you doing? Seriously, is this what this pinball content creating hobby has turned into? People speculating on people's health... It's not your place. You know, there used to be a thing about respect for elderly and people's health and they were just things you didn't talk about."

Harsh criticism of people speculating about Jack Guarnieri's health

"Sometimes I read about these companies and I read people's like commentary and I'm like, do you even want these companies to be successful? Do you even like pinball? Like it's almost like there's these armies that have formed. We root for these companies like they're sports teams. They're not sports teams... But people really have a lot of vitriol and a lot of anger."

Attacking people who root against pinball companies like sports teams

"There's not a massive market for this pin... I really think some of you don't understand how marketing works and how crossover works with fan bases."

D&D won't open pinball to massive new audience - crossover fans don't work

"99% of you are not D&D fans. 99% of you didn't play D&D. 99% of you are gonna turn into Apologies and say this is the greatest game ever. Are you buying it? No, it's the greatest game ever. Are you getting one? No, it's the greatest game ever."

99% of pinball buyers aren't actual D&D fans and will become apologists praising the game without buying it

"When you become an apologist, you've actually helped these companies make pinball worse... If you keep buying $2,000 cheap plastic toppers, they're going to keep making them. If you keep buying like $9,500 premiums, they're going to keep charging us more and more and more."

Apologist pinball buyers are making pinball worse for everyone by accepting poor quality and high prices

"If we go to war against the second hand market in pinball and we get angry that people want to sell their machines for more than they paid for them, we will inadvertently destroy this hobby. We will. It'll be over."

The pinball community's war against scalping will destroy the hobby

"How can we even with a straight face discuss the major issues affecting working class Americans as we spend $6,000 to $15,000 on pinball machines? We are all the biggest hypocrites in the world."

Pinball collectors are the biggest hypocrites discussing working class issues while spending $6-15k on machines

"I heard your feedback when I went to go flip this game for a profit just to see where the market was. People lost their mind. They absolutely lost their mind. They're like, you're not allowed to, Kaneda. Make a few bucks on a scalp of a game."

Community got mad at Kaneda for scalping but he's just doing what dealers do

"The reason why we got here again is because the pinball community supports, for some reason, we support these delusional men and their ideas of grandeur."

The pinball community enables boutique company failures by supporting delusional founders

"if you put your foot down now and don't buy it guess what's going to happen they're going to lower their fucking prices it's that simple people like mcdonald's lowering its prices tesla forward we can make stern pimp all lower their fucking prices"

Consumers should boycott overpriced games to force Stern to lower prices

"The ability for this community to be hoodwinked and suckered by businessmen who don't really know what they're doing. It's amazing. All you got to do is say you're going to make a pinball machine. And this intelligent male audience that's in pinball, all of a sudden turns off all common sense and just follows you towards the light and basically will throw money at you, even if you've shown no real ability to know what you're doing."

Pinball community easily fooled by businessmen claiming to make machines

"If you think you're flexing with your $20,000 or $10,000 pinball machine, you're not. This nation and this world is filled with so many millionaires... go to a car forum and we look like little kids bragging about $15,000 pinball machines as they're showing off like $2 million cars."

Pinball collecting isn't real flexing compared to other luxury hobbies

"Imagine if everybody in the pinball world did not buy JAWS NIB when they revealed the game. Imagine if we understood the power we have as a buyer base and as a community and we just said no and we didn't buy it. What would happen? The price would come down."

Community should boycott JAWS to force prices down

"That's the most annoying message ever, by the way. You know, and this is why Kaneda's Pinball Podcast is different because everybody else is like, we just need to expand pinball. We need to keep pinball alive. Stop with that."

Stop supporting mediocre games just to keep pinball alive - demand quality

"remember the good old days when you can get an LE for $7,500, remember the good old days when there were only 500 LE's and the game was actually limited, welcome to 2023, they doubled the price and they doubled the volume and we're still excited, really something is wrong with each and every one of us but I'm happy we get to be wrong together"

Modern pinball pricing has doubled while LE quantities doubled - players are crazy but happy to be wrong together

"This hobby of ours that's so willing to forgive all these companies who continue to mislead you and lie to you, you forgive them time and time again, but the one character we can never forgive is Kaneda. Still banned from Pinside after eight freaking years."

Pinball community forgives lying companies but won't forgive Kaneda

"We all got greedy. COVID turned us all into greedy jerks. And I used to love this hobby when we would buy a game and if we flipped it, we flipped it for a thousand or two dollars more... Now if you get a game that's a hot game, I don't want a thousand or two. I'm going to ask 10,000 more than I paid."

COVID turned the entire pinball community into greedy jerks with inflated resale prices

"I think a lot of us need to just lighten up. I actually liked the teasers that they've been putting out there. It stays true to the campiness of the theme. And I just liked seeing Dennis Norderman having fun, being playful with something that is a toy. I think a lot of us are taking this hobby way too freaking serious lately."

The pinball community needs to lighten up and stop taking the hobby too seriously

"I also think people should wait to see that before they order the game. That's my big thing in 2023. Wait and see people"

People shouldn't order games without seeing proper gameplay streams first

"I am so shocked by people in this community all of a sudden acting like it doesn't matter how well the theme is integrated into the pinball machine... these games can hide their lack of mechanical engineering with artwork"

People defending poor theme integration are apologists - flow doesn't excuse lack of mechanical engineering

"The prices are just going to keep going up and up and up as long as we all keep buying at these prices. The only way to get them to slow down is to slow down the purchasing."

Only way to control pricing is to stop buying at current price levels

"I think it's a really good thing because I do think in this hobby, it's really important sometimes to just stop trying to predict what's around the corner. Look at the stuff you have. Play the stuff you have. Enjoy the stuff you have."

The hobby is healthier when people focus on their collections instead of speculating about new releases

"I think we've got newbies and the newbies are always a little bit of the suckers. They don't know. Like they don't remember what it was like."

Community is divided between price-aware veterans and newbie suckers

"This hobby has jumped the shark. And it is now just theme, take my money. I don't even need to see much. I will buy stuff regardless of the price."

The hobby has jumped the shark - people buy on theme alone regardless of quality or price

"I have known this pinball community over the last six to seven years to be the most understanding, the most patient, and the most forgiving community possible. That if you come out and you just tell them the truth, they will forgive you."

Pinball community overly forgiving of company delays and poor practices

"Why are we as a community so easily convinced that everything is going according to plan, that production has begun because we saw two out of eight cabinets being worked on."

The pinball community is too easily convinced by sizzle reels and doesn't ask enough critical questions

"I don't understand why Kaneda's got to be the bad guy pointing this stuff out."

Challenging the community's acceptance of Haggis video as proof of production

"And I think there's two words that just always sort of evade us when it comes to the pinball community looking at a company like Haggis. And the two words I think everyone is forgetting about is this, common sense."

Pinball community lacks common sense when evaluating boutique manufacturers

"There are many people in this community who worked at deeproot Pinball, who did not let the community know how bad things were going over there. And there were people who knew a lot about Pinball, who did not say anything. In fact, they said the opposite. They went on shows and they convinced everybody that this company was gonna do great things, bring great innovations into the Pinball marketplace. And we let all of those people get a hall pass and never ever even once have I heard anybody apologize for all of the shilling that they did around deeproot Pinball."

Pinball community gave insiders who promoted deeproot Pinball a free pass despite knowing nothing would ship

"I don't have to support everyone's dream. I don't have to support everybody's passion. When did the world turn into a place in which people have to support everything simply because the people creating it are passionate?"

People don't have to support everyone's dreams and passions in pinball just because the creators are passionate

"as a pinball community, we've got to stop pre-ordering games, it is absolutely asinine that people paid in fall or even paid at a deposit on games like Fathom 8-9 months ago, and not even a single screw has been put together in the game"

Attacking the community for pre-ordering games and enabling bad manufacturer practices

"I don't understand why people have an issue if haggis pinball says they're making games in January... I don't understand why people are so hesitant to hold these companies accountable."

Defending accountability requests for Haggis Pinball against community criticism

"And it's funny to me because people come up to me and they tell me how they really feel about this. And then you go on to Pinside and none of them are honest about their opinions about these games."

Criticizes pinball community for dishonest opinions about Spooky games

"all of these haters that are supposed to be these chill people that are into pinball were so upset that Kaneda was going to join his show, that they made Albert not want to do the show. And so I'm happy he came on to my show, and for all you haters out there, I want you to listen to this."

Haters tried to prevent Kaneda from appearing on Albert's show

"It's at the point now where I think everyone needs to look in the mirror and say to yourself, you are in a hobby where you are buying a luxury toy. So why are you surprised that the prices are high?"

Pinball prices complaints are unjustified because it's a luxury hobby

"Like most of the pinball buyers out there, you guys are addicted to this stuff. You need to have it. It's like Stern is making cocaine. They're not making pinball."

Stern is essentially making cocaine, not pinball, for addicted buyers