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How Many Pinball Manufacturers Could The Industry Support?
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<blockquote data-quote="Worf" data-source="post: 43860" data-attributes="member: 1047"><p>There's only room for one, maybe two manufacturers. The problem is pinball machines are expensive new - you're talking about a $4000-5000 machine to purchase. And most people playing will only pay $0.50 for a game. Maybe $1 if it's particularly good or novel, but soon it'll dry up. So you're looking at anywhere from 4000-8000 games to recoup the initial purchase price. This does not include maintenance of the equipment (think probably $200 a pop for parts and labor, plus the game is out of service for the duration), which require a new bunch of play to recoup.</p><p></p><p>So the money aspect is actually hard to justify buying a new machine every year or so when they come out. It's why video games overtook pinball in the 80s - the machines were far simpler (the joysticks broke sure, but those are cheap and on hand - whereas special parts for pinballs are much harder to come by).</p><p></p><p>So in the 90s, you had a bunch of awesome tables released, but it also killed future table sales because operators were operating them far longer - why buy a Medieval Madness when TZ and such were generating good money? After all, the machine may be a flop, will cost lots to maintain, etc. etc. etc.</p><p></p><p>Then in the 2000's, arcades disappeared when consoles were good enough and social enough that people stopped going to quarter-eaters and played at home "for free".</p><p></p><p>Then you have a manufacturer like Williams, who could build great pinball machines, but the problem was their production system. Williams' factory is geared to producing tens of thousands of machines - they really can't handle economically production runs of 4000 machines. Contrast with Stern, who is a much smaller operation and whose factory can build any number of machines - though they cost more to build than Williams machines once the numbers got up there. So Stern can survive purely because they're small enough, while Williams needed the volume. In fact, until 1998 or so, the pinball revenue for Williams was decreasing to the point they were starting to make a loss on them. (Then they released Pinball 2000 which made lots of money, but the writing was on the wall).</p><p></p><p>Why Williams didn't divest the entire Pinball group to Stern, no one knows, though it's suggested that pinball might be revived sometime later which would mean Williams still had the capability of making pinball machines. In fact, it was suggested that Williams bring back the older out of production pins that were still popular, like MM as a second run. But again, Williams couldn't do it economically.</p><p></p><p>Pinball sims on computer and tablets/smartphones/etc are popular because pinball is popular. But a sim is easy to do - it costs very little (a few bucks), and everything's virtual. It's easy to code up a playfield toy that would cost $500 in real life and there's a chance a manufacturing flaw may break it, costing the operator hundreds of dollars to repair. Well, in a sim, that doesn't happen, unless it's programmed in, and fixing it is trivial.</p><p></p><p>So it's quite unlikely someone will be able to break in and join Stern - most will stay virtual purely because it's a lot cheaper, and the public can't really support it. Plus, a real table has to balance the operator's interest (short games, more money) against the player's interest (longer games per credit). A virtual pin doesn't have to do this, so it can concentrate more on fun. Get a bad ball? Restart if you want, it's not costing you tokens.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Worf, post: 43860, member: 1047"] There's only room for one, maybe two manufacturers. The problem is pinball machines are expensive new - you're talking about a $4000-5000 machine to purchase. And most people playing will only pay $0.50 for a game. Maybe $1 if it's particularly good or novel, but soon it'll dry up. So you're looking at anywhere from 4000-8000 games to recoup the initial purchase price. This does not include maintenance of the equipment (think probably $200 a pop for parts and labor, plus the game is out of service for the duration), which require a new bunch of play to recoup. So the money aspect is actually hard to justify buying a new machine every year or so when they come out. It's why video games overtook pinball in the 80s - the machines were far simpler (the joysticks broke sure, but those are cheap and on hand - whereas special parts for pinballs are much harder to come by). So in the 90s, you had a bunch of awesome tables released, but it also killed future table sales because operators were operating them far longer - why buy a Medieval Madness when TZ and such were generating good money? After all, the machine may be a flop, will cost lots to maintain, etc. etc. etc. Then in the 2000's, arcades disappeared when consoles were good enough and social enough that people stopped going to quarter-eaters and played at home "for free". Then you have a manufacturer like Williams, who could build great pinball machines, but the problem was their production system. Williams' factory is geared to producing tens of thousands of machines - they really can't handle economically production runs of 4000 machines. Contrast with Stern, who is a much smaller operation and whose factory can build any number of machines - though they cost more to build than Williams machines once the numbers got up there. So Stern can survive purely because they're small enough, while Williams needed the volume. In fact, until 1998 or so, the pinball revenue for Williams was decreasing to the point they were starting to make a loss on them. (Then they released Pinball 2000 which made lots of money, but the writing was on the wall). Why Williams didn't divest the entire Pinball group to Stern, no one knows, though it's suggested that pinball might be revived sometime later which would mean Williams still had the capability of making pinball machines. In fact, it was suggested that Williams bring back the older out of production pins that were still popular, like MM as a second run. But again, Williams couldn't do it economically. Pinball sims on computer and tablets/smartphones/etc are popular because pinball is popular. But a sim is easy to do - it costs very little (a few bucks), and everything's virtual. It's easy to code up a playfield toy that would cost $500 in real life and there's a chance a manufacturing flaw may break it, costing the operator hundreds of dollars to repair. Well, in a sim, that doesn't happen, unless it's programmed in, and fixing it is trivial. So it's quite unlikely someone will be able to break in and join Stern - most will stay virtual purely because it's a lot cheaper, and the public can't really support it. Plus, a real table has to balance the operator's interest (short games, more money) against the player's interest (longer games per credit). A virtual pin doesn't have to do this, so it can concentrate more on fun. Get a bad ball? Restart if you want, it's not costing you tokens. [/QUOTE]
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