Pinball Industry
topic"I think by this time next year, you are going to see half as many pinball manufacturers in business."
Half of current pinball manufacturers will be out of business within a year
"Unfortunately, most of these themes are only targeting men, right? They really are."
Most pinball themes only target men, limiting appeal to partners
"I wrote on on Pinside I said if these companies would just tell us the truth we forgive so much if they would just come out and say hey look you know we screwed up there's there's something wrong with this board"
Pinball companies should be honest about delays and financial problems
"I've never seen an example where that's actually helped the company. I've never seen an example where by the time the game came out the hype was strong at launch"
Companies revealing games 6+ months early never helps them
"This entire hobby seems to be filled with leadership that just can never deliver on what they say. Skip B did it with Kevin. J-Pop did it. Andrew did it with alien. How many times have we heard we're going to get new Batman code in two weeks?"
Companies consistently fail to deliver on promises and timelines
"I personally don't think that pinball will ever come close to being out there like it used to be. And for all the reasons we talked about, right, the complexity of these machines, putting them on location seems to be in operators nightmare compared to where they're making their money, which is our redemption games and other forms of entertainment that just don't require looking under the hood and fixing things that are complex like pinball machines. So I do think pinball will be primarily a home collector device."
Pinball will remain primarily a home collector device, not return to location play
"I think it's a great time to be a buyer of pinball machines. I think it's a hard time to be a manufacturer with all of the different games coming out"
The crowded new game market is great for buyers but hard for manufacturers
"it is just ridiculous how much money Pinball machines are for the level of enjoyment and for what we get out of it and for all the drama and bullshit associated with Pinball and Pinball collecting"
Pinball is an absurdly expensive hobby that can't justify its cost compared to other entertainment
"There should be one thing just one singular thing that has that wow that you can explain and articulate to someone before they play the machine."
Modern pinball has lost the magic and wow factor despite higher prices
"Are we getting enough creativity in pinball nowadays for how much money we are spending on pinball machines... with prices being from eight thousand nine thousand ten thousand fifteen thousand dollars. The fact that we are not demanding all of those things being top notch is ridiculous"
Modern pinball lacks creativity and magic for the high prices being charged
"I think the quality of those games is still better than what we're getting now, for sure better than what we're getting now... I don't think anyone has built a game that is better than the best of Williams yet"
Williams games are still higher quality than modern pinball machines
"you've got two that have the potential to be gone within the middle of the year... The industry is going to shrink. It has to"
The pinball industry will shrink - two manufacturers could be gone by mid-2017
"the new inbox sales for the Christmas season this year dropped. They did. Because they, they couldn't, they couldn't, well, they're competing against use games. And people are looking at go, do I want to spend, you know, $7,000 on a new game or do I want to spend $3,000 on a use game that's pretty good?"
Market stall is already beginning - Christmas sales dropped and games are sitting
"I also think 2016 isn't the new golden era pinball, but I actually think it's kind of the beginning of the end of the hobby as we know it when it comes to collecting a NIB"
Kaneda believes 2016 was a letdown and marks the beginning of the end of the hobby rather than a golden era
"when I look at the new games and I just don't see that I just don't feel that anyone is really pushing The envelope as far as they could... I want to see analog magic. I want to see that ball flowed across The playfield like bram strokeers Dracula right just do something with the ball that's magical"
Modern pinball lacks magic - no one is pushing the envelope with innovative mechanisms
"2016 is shaping up to be the year I predicted. It's the craziest fucking year in the last 30 years of Pinball."
Prediction: 2016 is shaping up to be the craziest year in pinball in the last 30 years.
"this whole collecting hobby is about the stall. It's about to collapse under its own weight... You are going to see Pinball companies fail by 2017"
The pinball industry is about to collapse under too much competition
"this is the date. The pinball officially became a collectors hobby and not an operator's device. It's over."
Today marks the end of pinball as an operator's device - it's officially become a collectors hobby only
"I think competition just makes everyone's quality better and I think the other thing too which we are going to get to is competition will drive the prices of things down so that is a good thing"
Competition is good for the pinball industry and makes everyone's quality better while driving prices down
"Personally, I think the market's gonna get oversaturated soon and every pinball price is gonna go down"
Market saturation and price decline prediction for pinball collecting
"Tell me because only two pinball companies actually make money. Oh Shit, I'm gonna call spooky right now. Hold on there. They're the second one. Oh Who's the number one is Stern?"
Only two pinball companies actually make money - Stern and Spooky
"I keep on bringing up things from the 90s because the 90s is where the hot nostalgia is right now"
Pinball needs to move away from old themes that only appeal to aging demographics
"People are tired and they're sick of everyone just talking so early years before pins come out. These slow reveals are just over with. It doesn't work. It is so hard to maintain excitement and hype over a long period of time."
Slow pinball reveals are over - people want to buy and ship quickly
"I think we are going to see more new inbox pens ship in this year than we have in the last 20 years... In the first six months I put up a thread that there could be eight pins that start shipping"
2016 will see more new pinball machines ship than any year in the last 15-20 years
"when it is your livelihood you have to be extra careful extra careful when everything that you have is on the line every time you grab a drink or you want to socialize"
People whose livelihood depends on the community need to be extra careful about their behavior because everything is on the line
"It's really ironic that this is happening in the exact moment Stern's releasing a $15,000 super LE. Stern is pricing a pin at where magic girl is at and J-Pop's coming in at a price where Stern used to be at with its premiums. They have traded fucking places. It's blowing my fucking mind. The whole fucking hobby has been turned upside down and I don't know where it's going to go."
The whole pinball hobby has been turned upside down with price positioning reversals
"The 2016 is not the golden age of pinball. We are back in the bronze era, struggling to get back to the magic that Bali Williams brought."
2016 is not the golden age of pinball but a bronze era struggling to recapture past magic
"you don't need more games You don't need to keep chasing after every new release"
Collectors don't need more games - there are already enough quality machines available
"I think the next three years of pinball will produce the best pinball we've ever seen ever. I mean it. I think the next three years of pinball will produce games better than the last three years. 30 years of pinball."
The next three years of pinball will produce the best games ever made
"there are no friends in this in this pinball world as much as everyone likes to be like it's everything's good for the hobby you know we're expanding pinball we we should be in this together that's total BS welcome to the real world of business people"
There are no friends in the pinball business despite everyone claiming it's good for the hobby
"Unfortunately for all of us out there, we are going to have to start paying a lot more than we used to to get what we want in a pinball machine. Unfortunately, in 2022, we're going to see prices go north way past what we've seen in 2021 because this game is an indication of that."
The success of Legends of Valhalla at $8400 means pinball prices will skyrocket in 2022
"if these pinball companies want to stick around, Then make great fucking pinball machines the onus is on them. The onus is not on us... I've to blindly support them and buy games that I feel are compromised"
Pinball companies shouldn't expect blind support from customers - they need to earn it by making great games
"I guarantee you pull any manufacturer right now, whether they're doing it in house or not, and you drop a ball from three inches... Every one of them will dimple. And I'm sorry, that's an engineering defect"
Current industry playfield quality is unacceptably poor across all manufacturers
"That only happens when Lyman is on it. And I think he spoiled so many of us by doing that. Like we've sort of ingrained in our heads that eventually a year from now, every bad game will get good because of code. That's never going to happen anymore because the guy who did that was Lyman Sheats Jr.."
Only Lyman could save bad games with code - other coders can't do this
"Stern pinball has 92% of the pinball market okay so in any category in any field of business when someone has 92% of the market they don't have competition they don't there is no real competition for Stern"
Stern has 92% market share so all the 'competition' is fighting over just 8%
"Just by doing things just simply and using my noggin, I could out, you know, market, out business, out manufacturer, out design, anyone else that's been in the industry ever."
Claims to outperform anyone in the industry through simple methods