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My reflection on the e bay thread

I get what calimori is saying and have huge respect for why he is asking some questions but also seen this with many forums as a small community grows things change.


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Sadly, the money side of it probably plays a part.

When a FT was 700 quid (8) years ago that was one thing. Now they are 2500 quid and that changes perceptions.

The higher value will support saving games and willingness to undertake thorough refurbs. But it will also impact enthusiasm to loan games out, to take games to shows, "to generally "share".

Buying a FT for 700 quid and then selling it 6 months later for between 600 and 800 was a very different proposition to shelling out 6k for an Addams Family now, when you might lose a grand on sale.

When assets increase in fiat value, folk can get smug, they can think have cracked this whole life thing....

Another major factor in these spats is alchohol. Just look at the time the spats seem to kick off.

Chuck in the isolation. No events. No league meetings. No real personal contact with fellow nerds. No midnight drinks in the Gateshead Hotel....

Bit more politeness, fewer drunk posts, counting to 10 would help a bit.
 
Neil McRae said:
I get what calimori is saying and have huge respect for why he is asking some questions but also seen this with many forums as a small community grows things change.
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Thing is Neil, if you account for Churn, whilst there may be new users, there are always other that unfortunately fall by the wayside. Number of daily users active hovers around the 350 mark per day and is fairly constant.. so the place isnt actually any "bigger" than it was last year... I'm more than happy with that.
I may do a cull of inactive users soon (those that havent logged on for over a year). Clear out the dead wood so to speak.

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I am fully expecting to see a massive dip once some kind of normality is resumed (eg. Restaurants open) and people are "let loose" a little more. I may be surprised... who knows.
 
All this talk reminds me of a mum my wife knows .
She just got told a few weeks ago that she has terminal cancer and won't make it out the year. Most likely dead before summer. Has two young kids under 5. Spent the last 12months locked in her house only to start getting out and be told this.
Oh wait a minute, no it doesn't. That's a proper fcking problem.

Prices are high now. You pay them or you don't. There's plenty of places now where you can still go and play pinball.

One way to counter balance the increase in price is become a Pinball engineer. There will be plenty of work for people with all these newbies paying over the odds for a machine they don't know how to fix.
 
"When a FT was 700 quid (8) years ago that was one thing. Now they are 2500 quid and that changes perceptions."

FT used to be a game on the edge - board set was 2-300 and FT was 2-300 - so often they were parted out. You knew when fixing up a game that you would never get the cost of the upgrade back. Now it seems people expect profit on the game and any upgrades. It used to be that if you had the game in the house you saved paying for all the games you played so that counted against the drop in price.

Fewer games on site will gradually reduce the market for games and at current prices they are uneconomic to put new games on site.

David
 
DAFlippers said:
Fewer games on site will gradually reduce the market for games and at current prices they are uneconomic to put new games on site.

David
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I thought people (I can't remember who, perhaps @philpalmer or @steve brum ?) had previously commented that the cost of a new Bally/Williams game in the mid 90s was more expensive than a Stern Pro game now, taking into account inflation?

If that's true, and the resale value of a 2 or 3 year old game is *definitely* higher than back then, then as long as it's taking coins on site then operating a new game would seem to make business sense now if it did then?
 
andy said:
I thought people (I can't remember who, perhaps @philpalmer or @steve brum ?) had previously commented that the cost of a new Bally/Williams game in the mid 90s was more expensive than a Stern Pro game now, taking into account inflation?

If that's true, and the resale value of a 2 or 3 year old game is *definitely* higher than back then, then as long as it's taking coins on site then operating a new game would seem to make business sense now if it did then?
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Allowing for inflation - as the price per play has stayed the same, the income from a game has been reduced. In the early 2000s you could get NIB Sterns for around 2.5k or lower.

David
 
Calimori said:
Coming at this as a member of this community, I do not see the issue as simply a difference of opinion or that the costs are rising.

There was always banter based on opinion, such as who liked Popeye, Gilligan’s Island or Theatre or Magic or who really didn’t. There have always been conversations about how much someone thinks they can get for a machine, especially on eBay. Though even I can now say I remember the days you could buy a TAF for half what they now cost.
At the start of anything, there are a core group who are focused on making it work. A place to enjoy, like building a perfect pub where folks want to be. Over time, some folks go in a different direction, new folks join. Old folks return. The forum changes and is changed by its members.

The eBay thread is a good example of what I felt was very different when I returned after a break from the site. It use to be about pointing out good options or bad scams, keeping us from bidding each other up accidentally. Maybe talking about prices.
It now feels to be about judgement over what “others” are doing.

I don’t think that is the same as having an opinion or disagreeing with someone else’s. It is about having an opinion that in some way makes someone superior to others or is voiced in a way that could imply someone else is inferior. It might not always be the intention of the poster but it gets picked up by others and rolls on.

I might not want to spend £8k on a TAF that is my opinion. But if I was to say you must be an idiot for spending £8k on a TAF then I am doing more than just offer an opinion.
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Please excuse this if it is a stupid question but has the eBay thread gone? It used to be in Genral Pinball discussion but cant find it anywhere?
 
I locked it so we could de-escalate the situation as there were insults being thrown and my experience from previous times is a post asking for calm get ignored or caught up in heat.
 
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