Market is slow, NIB prices up through the roof, not much movement in the market, less machines moving means less hype about new games that people have in their collection, drop off from lockdown where, let’s be honest, most people had more time on their hands which set (I imagine) all time high engagement levels.
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Is the forum in a bit of a lull?
- Thread starter JAG555
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AllstarDK
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Wow banning Col is like banning pinball. One of the most helpful people I’ve ever come across.
Too few games are changing hands and games are becoming increasingly customized.
It was the easy buying and selling that enthused me. 10 years ago the games being sold were basically unmodified originals. A Fish tales was a Fish tales and it cost a grand. It was not some re-released vault edition with £1,000 topper, exploding node boards, flipper cooling fans, side blades, colour dmd .....
You could easily sell them a few months later plus or minus 100 quid. Folk knew what realistic prices were. You did not get a Bad Cats on ebay with £8k buy it now.
I bought games I didn't know at all - Fish Tales, Paragon, BK2K, Funhouse, Roadshow, Vector .... just to try them. There wasn't much money on the line if I made a mistake.
It was the easy buying and selling that enthused me. 10 years ago the games being sold were basically unmodified originals. A Fish tales was a Fish tales and it cost a grand. It was not some re-released vault edition with £1,000 topper, exploding node boards, flipper cooling fans, side blades, colour dmd .....
You could easily sell them a few months later plus or minus 100 quid. Folk knew what realistic prices were. You did not get a Bad Cats on ebay with £8k buy it now.
I bought games I didn't know at all - Fish Tales, Paragon, BK2K, Funhouse, Roadshow, Vector .... just to try them. There wasn't much money on the line if I made a mistake.
paulg100
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personally the recent drama and woke police has been a massive turn off for posting.
Games cost too much, but I don't think it's fair to blame customisation for a lack of enthusiasm.
Most people don't pay extra for (most) mods and the ones that do add value (e.g. ColorDMD) have a well-known price. And you can't expect people to replace parts that wear out with meticulous copies of the original, instead of taking accounts of improvements in technology (e.g. ColorDMD).
There is currently a cash grab by Stern who've increased the size of their factory, and need to keep the lines busy by reissuing LEs with different art packages and - it seems - 'vaulting' older titles.
Some of the older titles being re-released though, e.g. Medieval Madness, are just responding to demand. There aren't enough good condition ones around for the number of collectors who now want one - that's not about snazziness (or, it shouldn't be. I've not seen a Haggis Fathom in real-life, but it feels like it wasn't done as sensitively as it could have been).
Yours, a pinball player who powder coats/adds colour screens and LEDs everything
I haven't followed the recent drama but if the forum is heading woke, it will die.
The woke mind virus ruins everything it touches and makes folk miserable by breeding a grievance/ offence culture.
I remember a few years back hearing that someone had moaned at a tournament about the backglass on Strikes and Spares. Maybe they could go to the Louvre to moan about the art there. Much racier stuff.
The woke mind virus ruins everything it touches and makes folk miserable by breeding a grievance/ offence culture.
I remember a few years back hearing that someone had moaned at a tournament about the backglass on Strikes and Spares. Maybe they could go to the Louvre to moan about the art there. Much racier stuff.
Agree with this 100%. Thought this for me was one of the last places freedom of speech was OK but clearly not. People taking offence at everything and 'triggered' over the smallest things need to take a look at themselves.
I'll probably even trigger someone on here just for saying this. The world is getting more divided and for some reason, people just don't want to be happy anymore.
We'll for me. I'm very happy
. Smile and enjoy life. It doesn't last long.
Can we get real for a minute. You are calling the three administrators, who make sure you have a forum, "the woke police". We are not nameless and faceless people trying to control your freedom, we are trying to make sure the site exists and stays running.
All three of the admins made a unanimous decision. If you don't get that decisions, or are able to respect it, you need to go back and listen to "The Times They Are A Changing" by Bob Dylan from 1964. Because the world moves on and no amount of complaining on a web forum will stop that.
All three of the admins made a unanimous decision. If you don't get that decisions, or are able to respect it, you need to go back and listen to "The Times They Are A Changing" by Bob Dylan from 1964. Because the world moves on and no amount of complaining on a web forum will stop that.
Lecari
Site Supporter
Since a few people have mentioned about the forum being too 'woke' and opened that can of worms:
I no longer feel comfortable posting here because of how many members supported casual racism (and casual sexism / religious discrimination) and the use of outdated and offensive phrases. Even after several members (our friends!) explained why these terms are hurtful and how they have impacted their lives on a daily basis. I don't see how you can call these people your friends yet ignore how they feel, and say they are just being 'triggered'. Maybe it's that when you say those words, you don't mean THEM (someone wrote something along those lines), but that's not how it works... I found that quite shocking and I am still trying to process that disconnect people seem to have.
All people were asked to do is to not use racist / sexist / or other discriminatory language. What exactly were people wanting to share, that they no longer feel like they can? I'm a bit confused by that. Nothing on the forum has changed in that respect, I'm pretty sure that was always the case.
You can call me woke, overly sensitive, 'triggered', whatever - to me it's about being respectful and kind to people I care about.
I no longer feel comfortable posting here because of how many members supported casual racism (and casual sexism / religious discrimination) and the use of outdated and offensive phrases. Even after several members (our friends!) explained why these terms are hurtful and how they have impacted their lives on a daily basis. I don't see how you can call these people your friends yet ignore how they feel, and say they are just being 'triggered'. Maybe it's that when you say those words, you don't mean THEM (someone wrote something along those lines), but that's not how it works... I found that quite shocking and I am still trying to process that disconnect people seem to have.
All people were asked to do is to not use racist / sexist / or other discriminatory language. What exactly were people wanting to share, that they no longer feel like they can? I'm a bit confused by that. Nothing on the forum has changed in that respect, I'm pretty sure that was always the case.
You can call me woke, overly sensitive, 'triggered', whatever - to me it's about being respectful and kind to people I care about.
I think why people were upset was that the unanimous decision was disproportionate to the crime. It was like giving someone a fine of £287,000 for going 5mph over the speed limit. But like you say, it's your forum. I'm just one of the people that make it exist.
32 year ban incoming
Jib
Site Supporter
I don't like that it's been suggested here and before that anyone who questioned the length of Col's ban is supporting racism. I don't use the words that were used, I don't think they should be used either. However, I did ask if a lesser ban could be considered because I believe intent matters and that education can sometimes be more powerful than punishment.
The problem is that this stuff has become a (primarily US) culture war issue. It's ripped through a bunch of hobbies before this one, and I've seen entire communities eviscerated by it.Since a few people have mentioned about the forum being too 'woke' and opened that can of worms:
I no longer feel comfortable posting here because of how many members supported casual racism (and casual sexism / religious discrimination) and the use of outdated and offensive phrases. Even after several members (our friends!) explained why these terms are hurtful and how they have impacted their lives on a daily basis. I don't see how you can call these people your friends yet ignore how they feel, and say they are just being 'triggered'. Maybe it's that when you say those words, you don't mean THEM (someone wrote something along those lines), but that's not how it works... I found that quite shocking and I am still trying to process that disconnect people seem to have.
All people were asked to do is to not use racist / sexist / or other discriminatory language. What exactly were people wanting to share, that they no longer feel like they can? I'm a bit confused by that. Nothing on the forum has changed in that respect, I'm pretty sure that was always the case.
You can call me woke, overly sensitive, 'triggered', whatever - to me it's about being respectful and kind to people I care about.
It shouldn't be political. There's language that is widely accepted to be a racial slur in the UK and there are people, who are my offline friends within the pinball community, who are directly impacted by it. You shouldn't say this stuff and it's about as much about free speech as my four year old yelling "peepeepoohpoohpah" on the bus before giggling hysterically. Even if you can say it, you just shouldn't. No one's oppressing me because I don't verbally abuse everyone I meet - this shouldn't be difficult.
The way this should be dealt with, however, is a 'this isn't okay, okay?', a slap on the wrist and hope the person is decent enough to realise they were being a dick.
The trouble is, by giving a six-month ban for something that wasn't a personal attack, once, late at night, to a popular member of the community (who's popular because - for the most part - he doesn't act like a complete bag of underwear), it's become a 'culture war' issue. There's a history, since at least 2015, of people wedded to 'anti-kyriarchy ideology' deploying it in online hobby communities with a heavy handedness that would leave the Red Guard in awe - should they have been armed only with keyboards and not actual torture equipment.
It's generated a LOT of ill feeling in online (and offline) spaces. It's become a massive culture war issue in the States and people have routinely weaponised it in bad faith - against personal rivals, to try to salvage bad media properties, and so on. I've been seeing it for years and it is truly toxic. Everytime. Always.
That's what some people are responding to (on both sides of this). They're not responding to the reality of real people that they might have a beer with. It's just knee-jerk and, having 'self-excluded' from it in several other spaces, I desperately wish it wasn't happening here (for everyone's sake).
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Lecari
Site Supporter
I'm confused, was this directed at me? I never said you did.
I don't think people disagreeing with the length of the ban means they also support the use of racist language. But there are members who have said that the words used were not racist because of the intent behind it, because it was intended as a joke and not directed at anyone in particular (and likely there are others who agree but don't want to say so publicly). I am hoping that this is the minority.
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I think it’s a minority. I think there’s a larger group of people who desperately wanted to defend Col’s use of language as non-racist because racists are bad people. Col is not a bad person and thus - vis-a-vis - couldn’t have said something racist.
As evidenced by voting intention in the upcoming elections, the number of blazing bigots of the Laurence Fox variety is thankfully quite small.
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peepeepoohpoohpah
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I think it's too late now. The damage is done, people are reluctant to post replies in case they say the wrong thing.
In all seriousness, we have a couple of students who do school/nursery pickup, because - otherwise - it's nearly two hours out of my day travelling between sites. We had a lady doing a few pickups recently whose main experience consisted of having two autistic (teenage) brothers (both my boys have autism diagnoses).
I still can't work out if she quit simply because she was about to move house to start a zookeeping apprenticeship, or whether it was because the boys gave her absolute hell. She was naturally anxious, easily embarrassed and offended and, once they realised this, they kept shouting (on a crowded bus), "you are Hitler!" "you're a Nazi" "You're Medusa. YOU ARE STONE!" "you are dead!" "you are dirt, you eat dirt, this is dirt, EAT IT!", "peepeepoohpoohpah" and "BUM!!!" Usually my older boy (age 7) led the taunts, but with the younger one (age 4) giggling away maniacally like Salacious Crumb. By the end of every 20-minute bus journey, she told me she just wanted to die of cringe.
The day she quit, I told my older boy, and he immediately asked, unprompted, "is it because we kept insulting her?"
I kept telling them not to do it, but it turns out it's easy to stop them. You just ignore them and they stop. Now, I warn people 'I know they look like children, but do not feed the small trolls'.
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gnarled112
Site Supporter
We definitely need a thread moaning about prices in garden centres. They make NiBs look a bargain.
The main audience for buying/ selling/ designing/ importing/ assisting with repairs/ taking games to shows/ organizing shows connected to pinball is middle aged and older men. Not all of whom will have the most fashionable of views.
The main audience of the Women's Institute in my village is middle aged and older women. I assist in the running of the village hall and the WI does things like baking, fashion, wildlife, historical talks....... but never arcade/ pinball/ video games. Not all of whom will have the most fashionable of views.
Pinballs are heavy, expensive, require large vehicles, require frequent maintenance, have a large element of nostalgia, amusement arcades/ video games/ early PCs were overwhelmingly male pursuits so this is no surprise.
If the site goes woke it will lose its core audience and the site will die.
The BBC has gone woke and audience numbers have plummeted. The comedy that once was Faulty Towers, The Fast Show, Little Britain, The Office, Harry and Paul ...... just isn't funny anymore and shows are being cancelled. Terry and June was never my favourite but now has trigger warnings.
So folk go online for proper comedy like Ricky Gervais.
Radio 2 is killing its audience by firing Ken Bruce, Simon Mayo, Vanessa Feltz ...... they all set up shop elsewhere and grew audiences there.
If folk are leaving here and going onto Whatsapp groups - it's exactly what's happening to woke organisations like Bud Light, CNN, BBC, Harvard University ....
The main audience of the Women's Institute in my village is middle aged and older women. I assist in the running of the village hall and the WI does things like baking, fashion, wildlife, historical talks....... but never arcade/ pinball/ video games. Not all of whom will have the most fashionable of views.
Pinballs are heavy, expensive, require large vehicles, require frequent maintenance, have a large element of nostalgia, amusement arcades/ video games/ early PCs were overwhelmingly male pursuits so this is no surprise.
If the site goes woke it will lose its core audience and the site will die.
The BBC has gone woke and audience numbers have plummeted. The comedy that once was Faulty Towers, The Fast Show, Little Britain, The Office, Harry and Paul ...... just isn't funny anymore and shows are being cancelled. Terry and June was never my favourite but now has trigger warnings.
So folk go online for proper comedy like Ricky Gervais.
Radio 2 is killing its audience by firing Ken Bruce, Simon Mayo, Vanessa Feltz ...... they all set up shop elsewhere and grew audiences there.
If folk are leaving here and going onto Whatsapp groups - it's exactly what's happening to woke organisations like Bud Light, CNN, BBC, Harvard University ....
I, for one, appreciate the problem of having such a level of verbal diarrhea baked into my very soul, that I am unable to post without fear of accidentally uttering strings of racial epithets, pledging my support for extremist political views and just being personally unpleasant at every turn. It's wholly better that I simply do not risk it, because I am simply just that unable to help myself.
It's so bad that it even crosses over just verbal diarrhea - I find myself unable to stop myself from typing out those foul words, hitting Post, and being mentally stunned and unable to edit or delete the post afterwards. It's an incredible and embarrassing problem.
...That's what it sounds like, to me, when people bring out the 'afraid to speak' chestnut. Do you not hear yourself?
Then again, I see the ease in which the whole 'woke gone mad' thing has been agreed upon to be affecting the forum, tut-tutted about, and I just groan. It's like a giant shared roleplay.
It's so bad that it even crosses over just verbal diarrhea - I find myself unable to stop myself from typing out those foul words, hitting Post, and being mentally stunned and unable to edit or delete the post afterwards. It's an incredible and embarrassing problem.
...That's what it sounds like, to me, when people bring out the 'afraid to speak' chestnut. Do you not hear yourself?
Then again, I see the ease in which the whole 'woke gone mad' thing has been agreed upon to be affecting the forum, tut-tutted about, and I just groan. It's like a giant shared roleplay.
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Well that didn't take long did it? You don't need to lecture me on how to conduct myself.
Well, time to unwatch this thread as I feel my brain cells vanishing by the minute.
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