Pinball Industry

"The pinball market has been inflated prematurely, in my honest opinion, before the magic arrived."

"And the entire hobby is overpriced and it's happening everywhere."

Pinball hobby is overpriced across the board

"Your game is probably not played at all before it goes into a box... because they care more about you seeing that unmolested playfield. Then making sure your game has everything hooked up right."

Games need pristine playfields over proper testing, creating $10,000 paperweights

"Hello, Jump the Shark pinball hobby, Kaneda out."

Pinball hobby has jumped the shark at $13,000-$15,000 per game

"I think you need to do more market research... I think sometimes what happens in pinball is there's a little bit of ego. There's obviously a little bit of personal taste. There's a little bit of if we build it, they will come. But in this competitive pinball space, I think you need to do more market research"

Jersey Jack should do market research instead of relying on ego

"nobody and I mean it's not Jersey jack not stirring not spooky nobody nobody has rewarded consistent long term buyers with the ability to get first dibs on new games think about how silly that is that I asked this of sub Davis and George Gomez and Gary Stern I was in the room with them have you ever given anybody who's bought two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in your product have you ever given them the ability to buy a game without having to wait online"

No pinball company rewards loyal customers with priority access to new games

"a graphic designer at my company most likely a senior one in the in the marketing ad world makes more money than Keith L. Wynne all right they make more money than Eric Meunier they make way more money than all your pinball designers I think it's funny how in this myopic space we don't realize like what real skill and real talent is is paid"

Pinball designers make less money than regular graphic designers in marketing

"It's hard not to feel like Pinball is reaching a point now where there's just so much happening... I'm just worried that it's just oversaturated"

Pinball market is becoming oversaturated with too many games

"And you tell me that all these Pinball companies don't need Kaneda as their chief marketing officer. There's no way that Pinball should be here in 2024. It's embarrassing."

Pinball companies need Kaneda as chief marketing officer to fix theme selection

"this market is about to collapse. It is. Like you know this, right? This can't keep happening."

The pinball market is heading for collapse due to oversaturation and excessive pricing

"Does it have enough room to grow? Or has the Pinball collapse already happened? It's just being hidden right now from our eyes... All those games are marketing casualties. They are stacking up. And how long are they going to hide it from us?"

The pinball market collapse may have already happened but is being hidden by unsold inventory piling up in warehouses

"No pinball machine should ever be revealed to the world unless it is the final production version of that game... This is a pinball machine. There shouldn't be any differences between the game you see on the day they ask for your money and the final version of the game."

Pinball companies should never reveal a game unless it's the final production version - no concept reveals like the automotive industry

"The collapse is coming if there's that much unsold inventory... I think it's all going to come crashing down like a house of cards soon."

The pinball market is about to collapse due to oversaturation and hidden inventory

"I want my pinball company to just make pinball machines. I don't want them to have ancillary revenue streams. When we look at the pinball companies that are successful, it's always the pinball companies where they need to make pinball to be successful."

Successful pinball companies must be dedicated to pinball only, not have other revenue streams

"I don't like pinball companies asking us to buy a game and not showing us gameplay. It is a game. You have gameplay. That is the most important thing to see is how the game plays."

Pinball companies shouldn't take deposits without showing gameplay

"I could see this hobby being so over saturated that it starts to really collapse faster than people think."

The pinball market is oversaturated and heading for collapse

"You're an old toy for old men. That is what you are. And look, everyone's going to get old. And the next generation of old men that are going to be into Pinball, because you have to be an old man to make enough money to buy these damn games."

Pinball is an old toy for old men and should embrace that instead of chasing new demographics

"there's no way anybody should be spending $6,000 to $13,000 on a product, you open it up, and it doesn't work right. And then you gotta wait weeks if not months while the company tries to fix it. We never should accept that."

Games are shipping incomplete with major hardware and software issues that customers shouldn't have to fix

"I worry in general about the oversaturation of pinball in general. There's so many companies. There's so many products coming out. I think everybody needs to chill. I think everybody needs to realize we don't need 18 new games a year or 12 new games a year."

Pinball industry oversaturated and needs to slow down production

"the little dirty secret about the hobby that we're all in right now, gang, is that there's thousands of unsold games"

Pinball pricing model is broken with too much unsold inventory

"What made this hobby so much fun for so many years was the FOMO. And we've lost it for so many years. These newbies have no idea the excitement we're all feeling today."

FOMO is what made pinball hobby fun and has been missing for 3-4 years

"And that's why nobody in Pinball could afford my hourly rate. They should just be able to figure this out on their own."

Kaneda claims pinball companies can't afford his hourly consulting rate and should be able to figure out basic marketing on their own

"What's going to be interesting about Twilight Zone coming back, it's the most loaded game in pinball history... if Twilight Zone comes out and it's like 10 grand, how are you going to charge 15 for Avatar? How are you going to charge 13 for like John Wick?"

Twilight Zone remake will create pricing problems for other manufacturers

"The only thing amazing in pinball right now on day one is the pricing. That's the only thing that's amazing. Every game is priced as if it's the greatest game ever"

Current pinball pricing is ridiculous - games are priced as if they're already amazing when they're not

"I think what we need is this I think We Need A Stern Pro To Be $6,000 I Think A Stern Premium Should Be $8,500 And I Think A Stern LE Should Be $10,500"

Current pinball pricing is unsustainable and will cause market collapse

"FOMO is dead. The only way I'm going to go in on a game is if the game has all the magic."

FOMO is dead in pinball - only pure magic will make people buy games now

"the entire industry has turned its back on what we really want and all these companies have been making games for themselves"

The entire pinball industry has turned its back on what collectors really want

"brand new game manufactured by Pedretti Gaming and nobody at the factory like opened up that coin door... This is getting to the point now where pinball quality is like a country mile away from the prices of these games."

Quality control issues plague new releases across manufacturers

"we're not stupid like we know there's nowhere near 13 thousand dollars worth of value in any of these boxes of lights there's nowhere near 15 thousand dollars in value inside a jersey jack"

There's nowhere near $13-15K worth of value in these machines

"every single pinball manufacturer must be feeling the heat, because the market is soft, and what that means is you need to bring EM out. You need to bring out a hit game next. There's no room anymore for mediocrity."

Every pinball manufacturer must be feeling the heat due to soft market - no room for mediocrity anymore

"The pinball hobby over COVID, I think, saw a manipulated market that didn't last very long. And I think every single company adapted the way they do business as if that COVID frenzy was going to last forever. It's over."

COVID pinball market was manipulated and temporary - companies need to lower prices and limit LEDs

"What pinball machine since Godzilla has achieved what Godzilla's achieved? What pinball machine since Godzilla has done theme integration so damn well?"

Nothing since Godzilla has achieved what Godzilla achieved - it's been 3 years

"I've always said pinball is a winter sport. I don't think there's a lot happening. I think when this show goes back on is when stuff's going to start kicking again in pinball"

Pinball is a winter sport with little happening during summer

"You really only need two designers at most to keep your pinball company going at a large volume because the bigger teams you need are the software teams"

Stern has too many designers when they only need two at most

"Those three companies alone are all we need"

Only six pinball companies matter - the rest could disappear without anyone caring

"you shouldn't buy anything until it's made in a box ready to go to you... Stop throwing money at stuff that's not built. Stop trusting people you don't know"

Don't buy anything until it's made and in a box ready to ship

"I think right now there is nothing, and I mean it, there is nothing exciting happening in pinball"

Nothing exciting happening in pinball right now

"what I'm hearing now is that the next three years of pinball, the themes we're going to get are better than the last like five to six years of pinball themes."

Next three years of pinball themes will be better than last 5-6 years

"You've got like 14 pinball companies trying to make new and box games every single year. And then you realize, oh my gosh, like this thing is over saturated. Like pinball is about to experience a collapse like never before."

Pinball market is oversaturated and heading for collapse

"Why does pinball need to grow so much, right? We've heard it all these years. I've been in this hobby for 10 years. You always hear the line, like, it's kind of like the excuse, we need to grow pinball."

Pinball doesn't need to keep growing - it's a niche hobby that should stay niche

"They made the base level of the product way too expensive. They're just charging way too much to get the machine itself. What they should be doing, they should not have raised the MSRP of the games so much where they should have made the additional revenue is with stuff like mods"

Pinball companies made games too expensive instead of monetizing through accessories and mods

"He spoiled it for everybody. It's amazing to me. Like that was the greatest troll move ever. And he was like really upset about it because you could tell he wanted to make it with Stern... I've never seen someone like that ever do that. Like someone who's really in the inner circles of licensing and merchandising. Spoil another company's IP like that. That's bad blood. That's bitterness. And that makes me happy."

Joe Kaminkow spoiling Jersey Jack's Harry Potter announcement was unprecedented bad blood

"Winter is here for Stern... you can just feel it. Like it's in the air, like everyone's starting to just like panic a little bit."

This is 'Pinball Winter' - an industry downturn where expensive games aren't selling

"So all of your beloved pinball gods and luminaries, they've all been colluding behind the scenes to make pinball this damn expensive"

All pinball industry leaders are colluding to keep prices artificially high

"I don't even want to speculate how much cheaper it's going to be to get a John Wick or a Foo Fighter or James Bond or a Texas Chainsaw Massacre or a Looney Tunes or a Pulp Fiction. All these games are going to be so easy to get for so little money if you just wait it out."

Wait 6 months to buy any pinball - all current games will be much cheaper

"There are hundreds of thousands of pinball machines out in the world. If all these companies went away tomorrow, we would still have enough pinball to satiate every single person on planet earth that wants to own a pinball machine."

Pinball factories only exist to make new games, but there are already enough machines for everyone

"I think this pinball market is going to keep going south because I think there are probably right now on a global level, there are probably thousands of new and box pinball machines sitting somewhere unsold"

Pinball market will collapse due to oversaturation

"all pinball marketing is stale. Every company does it the same way every single time. We never see truly creative and innovative stuff being put into these games based on the themes they're based on"

All pinball marketing is stale and uncreative

"if the only strategy in all of pinball marketing is FOMO, right? That's the only thing they're gonna rely on to try to get us to buy a $7,000 to $15,000 item is the fear of missing out. That's the only thing they do."

FOMO is the biggest problem in pinball marketing - companies shouldn't rely solely on fear of missing out to sell $7,000-$15,000 games

"In the highest pinball prices in the history of pinball, where are the games that are gonna take a spot in your home?"

Current pinball landscape lacks great machines worth the highest prices in pinball history