Pinball

"I shouldn't have to in just a few minutes be able to easily point out why a game is not going to sell in the current pinball market. They've spent two years making something. They have nothing but time to get it right."

"If a distributor just sells two stern alleys, just two, they make as much money as I make doing all the work I need to do for an entire month. And are you on top of them? Why should they get to make that much money?"

Distributors make more profit selling two Stern Alleys than Kaneda makes doing a month of podcast work

"The one problem with playing a game at a show for the first time, do you know what it is? It is actually the worst environment imaginable to experience a new pinball machine. It is so loud and deafening, you can't really hear the game."

Pinball shows are the worst environment to experience new games for the first time

"I prefer pinball because pinball like every game's random pinball. You can like, there's like, I don't know. It's like pinball is like having a golf course in a box because it's just you against the game. And every game is different. When you play these games, you know, it's always the same game. You're just studying the code and, you know, it's all repetition."

Pinball is superior to arcade games

"anyone who wants to get into manufacturing pinball, if you do one lap here, it is, it is not for the faint of heart. I mean, there is thousands of parts. There's wires everywhere."

Manufacturing pinball is incredibly complex and not for the faint of heart

"If you ship a game out with something like that, that customer should get a brand new game. I'm sorry. The defective game should be picked up by the distributor and sent back to Stern Pinball. And Stern Pinball should be the company paying for the shipping and the picking up and the sending back."

Customers with defective NIB games should get complete replacement units, not be expected to do repairs

"the most depreciating asset, maybe, in the entire hobbyist world"

Pinball is now the most depreciating asset in the hobbyist world

"It's not another Marvel game. It's not another Dad Rock game. It's not another game based on an obscure like horror movie. It's really unique, like a game based on Alice in Wonderland made in a much more mature way, a darker, grittier way."

Current pinball market lacks originality with too many Marvel, Dad Rock, and horror movie themes

"there is no easier way to lose money, to turn a million dollars into a thousand dollars, than to start a Pinball manufacturing company"

Starting a pinball manufacturing company is the easiest way to lose money - turning a million dollars into a thousand

"we're like babies. I mean it when I say it, we're like babies... We are supposed to be the adults in the world. We're supposed to act with a lot more wisdom and not act like children"

Pinball collectors act like impatient babies instead of adults when giving money to unproven companies

"With all of these great designs out there, is there really any excuse for a game to come out that's not designed well?... It's just geometry. It's just wood."

It shouldn't be so hard to design games that shoot as well as Keith Elwin, Steve Ritchie, or Pat Lawlor games

"Does it even really matter? Like if they make really, really nice premiums, that could be what kills FOMA once and for all."

Stern's new premium rereleases could kill FOMO in pinball collecting

"Do me a favor, take that money, whether it's $6,000 for a pro, all the way up to $15,000 for an Elton John CE... take that money and invest that in your health. Invest that in yourself."

People should invest money in health and fitness instead of more pinball machines

"But man, for like 10 to $13,000, I shouldn't have to be spending all this money on mods to make the orca look like the orca or or jaws eat the ball."

"what is happening now because of all the anxiety around finding sales is that everybody knows now if you don't have an amazing theme, you're not selling. You're not going to sell anything. And so all of these companies have been gobbling up some of the best themes we're going to see in pinball."

Companies have been gobbling up the best themes due to sales anxiety

"I heard the manufacturers are really mad at Kaneda. And the reason they're mad at me is that I continue to go on the airwaves and tell everybody that these games are overpriced"

Manufacturers are mad at Kaneda for telling people games are overpriced

"If you have patience you will win. If you are patient you will come out on top... Did you just see a dealer now is selling a godfather LE new inbox for $9,000. That's $3,500 cheaper than no $3,000 cheaper... That's $3,000 cheaper than that game cost new inbox a little over a year ago"

Patient buyers will win in oversaturated pinball market - saw Godfather LE selling for $9,000 NIB

"They can't rely on FOMO. It's not working... you're going to have to give up your only marketing strategy, which is this stupid FOMO approach"

FOMO marketing strategy no longer works and companies need to abandon secrecy

"Do any pinball companies do any market research whatsoever? There's zero market research going on anywhere. And I think that's a very dangerous thing."

Pinball companies do zero market research and are making dangerous assumptions about demand

"For the first time ever, all of them are nervous, because what they're looking at right now, as they think about this, they're looking at all the inventory they have that's unsold"

Dealers and distributors are nervous about unsold inventory

"We're going to talk about pinball machines in front of windows. We're going to talk about it because some of you don't seem to understand that you don't put pinball machines in front of windows. I don't care if it's a basement window."

Pinball machines should never be placed in front of windows

"Receive the request for payment and finally make the payment on 126 only to receive their email on 216, like everyone else regarding the problems and delays. It royally sucks, but it's my fault for proceeding."

"are the days of flipping anything over sticker are they over they might be people... we might just be at a point now where there's no money to be made"

Flipping days are over - no money to be made on new releases

"never put a pinball machine in front of a window if you're listening to this and I'm talking about you and you've got pinball backboxes in front of windows you don't put furniture in front of windows I don't care if you pipe and drape I don't care what you're doing it's the worst Feng Shui look imaginable"

Never put pinball machines in front of windows - worst Feng Shui imaginable

"what these pinball companies have all done wrong is they're making way too many of everything"

All pinball companies are making way too many limited editions - true collectibility requires much smaller production runs

"It's the worst place on the planet to play new games and get a sense of if the games are any good or not, because if you've been to a show, the games are so loud, all the games are on at the same time, you're not really immersed in any of the gameplay experience"

Kaneda believes pinball shows are terrible places to evaluate new games due to noise and crowds

"I wish I worked in the marketing department at a pinball company. Because I do think these pinball companies sometimes they just don't get it."

Pinball companies don't understand good themes and are missing opportunities

"And you best believe, I bet these Pinball companies now are saying, don't even bother with that. The mod community will make a fix for that... So as long as we show them that we're willing to accept less for more money, why would they ever change?"

Mod community success enables manufacturers to produce cheaper products

"Just like seven months ago in July, every single media outlet gave Damien and gave Haggis Pinball the stage to talk about Centaur Revisited... Have any of the people that covered this company seven months ago, have they followed up? Let's use their own terminology. Have they revisited this story?"

Media outlets gave Haggis Pinball a platform to make promises but won't follow up on broken commitments

"Trust me, within six months you're going to be able to march in and get whatever you want for a price that's better than it is today."

Wait six months and you'll get whatever pinball you want for better prices than today

"did all that pinball positivity work out for Colin and Will and all those other content creators that slammed me for months, destroyed this award show, and this is what we're left with"

TWIPYs award show destroyed by pinball positivity advocates

"It's not because of the scalpers. We were scalping for so many years and these companies didn't do it. It's all because of COVID and there was no inventory."

COVID inventory shortages, not scalping, caused the pinball price spike

"you know me, I like fresh blood in pinball because I think fresh blood tries to make a name for themselves. All of these like older, cremagini designers. Give me new blood. Give me new people that want to make a name for themselves."

Prefers new designers over established ones

"But mark my words, people. This train can go off the track. Everyone keeps losing a ton of money on these games. People are gonna be tapping out."

Prediction: The pinball market will crash as people lose money on games and tap out of the hobby.

"Pinball content creators as a whole, most of which have never even played Jaws pinball, they don't have any patience either. Like they're either like praising this game before they've even played it... And on the same front there's no patience in like whether or not they're gonna slam the game."

Pinball content creators lack patience, praising or slamming games before playing them

"The reason you have money in it is every day you get to wake up and it makes you happy. It gives you an experience. It's fun. It's joy in your life... But when you just buy stocks or invest in a portfolio or gold or a 401k, how many of you out there have any memories associated with any of that?"

Pinball machines are worthwhile investments for memories and experiences, not financial returns

"that is why Kaneda's wait and see mentality is gonna be the ultimate way to embrace and engage this hobby. If you wait and see, trust me, you will be able to get all of these games when you want them for the right price for less money than they are brand new."

Wait-and-see approach is the best strategy for buying pinball machines in 2024

"the good news in pinballd is this, scalping is dead. You can no longer scout machines and that's not a bad thing... I think LEs really don't mean much anymore"

Scalping is dead in pinball and LEs don't mean much anymore

"The best part about Pinball right now, people, is all of these games have to be great or we're not buying them. I mean, it's just that simple. At these prices, nobody's going to buy stuff unless they want to bolt it to the floor"

Current pinball market requires games to be exceptional or they won't sell

"I think one of these pinball manufacturers, somebody has to wave the white flag and take prices back to 2019"

One manufacturer needs to wave white flag and roll prices back to 2019 levels

"All we're going to do at this point, if we bring more people into pinball, we're just going to screw ourselves. These newbies are going to spend so much money because they don't realize what these machines should cost. So I don't know. I think pinball is just fine. I don't really feel like we need to expand pinball."

Expanding pinball will just screw existing collectors by bringing in newbies who don't know what machines should cost

"These are games that you should not have collected"

Most pinball games aren't worth collecting - many have lost value

"I mean, trust me when I say this, like three weeks from now, how are they going to maintain a hype for the labyrinth? How is that going to happen? It's not going to happen."

All manufacturers making biggest marketing mistake by revealing games simultaneously at shows

"The days of these games going up and up and up in value, they're over. And that is the only reason why you should buy a pinball machine."

Pinball market fundamentals have permanently shifted - games will only lose money or break even, appreciation days are over

"Last weekend I was threatened with the Chicago Police Department. We're going to be called if I showed up to the Pinball Media Mixer."

Threatened with police intervention at Pinball Media Mixer

"Sell it now because we all know that this market is sliding down. When I did that other show that showed you how ridiculous the price has got, what goes up must come down."

Pinball market is sliding down, sell games now

"I still can't believe we had one of the most prominent members in the pinball media tell everybody that shots are the new toys in pinball. That if you just have flow in a game, that constitutes engineering marvel. Get out of here. Like we are not going to count diverters as toys in pinball ever."

Shots and flow are not substitutes for mechanical toys in pinball

"This really boils my blood, people. Do you think that people who cover the auto industry are not invited to an auto show because a manufacturer has the power to keep the media out of the Jacob Javits Center here in New York City? I think it's un-American. I think it goes against freedom of speech."

Pinball manufacturers pressuring show organizers to ban critical media is un-American

"And so the next few months are going to be so eye-opening because what's going to happen over the next few months mark my words people as we head into the holidays and as distributors are seeing six and seven figures of inventory pile up inside their factories. We are going to get spammed like never before from freaking dist"

Prediction: Distributors will spam customers with sales offers as inventory piles up during the holidays.

"There is only really a few times, maybe every couple of years, where you better act quickly or you're not going to be able to get the game for MSRP. And what we've seen since like 2023 began is almost every single new pinball machine that has come out, almost every single new machine has lost about 10 to 20% in value over its NIB price."

FOMO buying and speculation on new pinball releases is foolish in current market