Pinball Investments

Song of the Week

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets (say that name out loud a few times, it’s fun!) hail from Perth in Western Australia, and have been cranking out psych rock since 2014. Weird World Awoke is their newest single, off their forthcoming album Carpe Diem, Moonman, which is set to release in just a few short days.

I had been looking for something a little heavier with some bite to it, and Weird World Awoke fits the bill. I particularly like some of the metal-inspired guitarwork going on throughout, as well as some of the lyrics that speak to the joys of hurtling through middle age in modern times. It’s Friday, so crack open a beer and play this loudly when you’re ready to wrap up the day.

Pinball News of the Week

The Score Card #3: April Flippers Bag Big WPPRs

Let’s kick things off with the latest edition of The Score Card series by Matt Owen, rounding up all the competitive pinball news and happenings of the last month. This is such an active scene, so I’m glad to have someone like Matt on our team keeping up with it all.

Numerical Evidence That Pinball Machines Are Not Investments

I’ll probably expand this into a full article on Kineticist next week, but seeing some of the work that the LoserKids are doing with their new series on pinball market trends got me inspired to dust off a long-dormant side project in our games database. I had been slowly logging the original MSRP for modern pinball releases, with the goal of comparing the MSRP to the current expected resale value.

Well, this week I made some significant progress. And what I’ve found is that the adage spoken in some parts of the community, that pinball machines are not investments, rings true.

Going back to 2017, if someone had purchased all game releases and all the various trims of those releases, they’d be out $1,869,030 (adjusted for inflation). And if one were to sell those same games today, they’d net proceeds around $1,610,469, or a loss of $258,561 (14%).

If that same person had instead taken the equivalent amount of money as the MSRP value of a game at release, and invested in a S&P 500 index fund like VOO, they’d have a portfolio valued at $2.79 million today. That’d be a nice gain of $917,778 (+49%). Not bad!

Of the 183 releases analyzed, only 36 are above water, and that includes 8 new releases where we don’t have secondary market data to analyze yet.

The Getaway: High Speed II Tutorial

Though we had a newsletter hiatus last week, that didn’t stop us from publishing new pinball content, as we did with the latest tutorial from Noah Crable, where he burns rubber on the Steve Ritchie all-timer, The Getaway: High Speed II.

The Weird World of Pinball Arcade Hybrid Machines

Matt Owen takes a trip to Past Times Arcade and gives us a peek into the weird world of pinball arcade hybrid machines. There are some crazy ones here!

PinballFX New Releases

We’re slow on physical game releases right now, so let’s highlight some virtual ones instead. PinballFX announced a new licensed game, Tomb Raider Pinball, plus the addition of 9 Williams games to the PinballVR lineup. Tomb Raider releases June 15, while the Williams VR titles get released May 15.

TWIPYs Update: We Need Your Help!

Following the successful completion of this year’s TWIPY Awards, we planned to run it back in Houston with The Wormhole crew for next year’s edition (with improved internet, of course, and some other tweaks and adjustments). However, we received a bit of a curveball in that The Wormhole was unexpectedly shut down with no plans to return.

This means we’re searching for a new venue for the 2025 TWIPY Awards. Ideally, we’re looking for somewhere that can hold 50-100 ticketed guests with access to food, drinks, games, and a strong internet connection. Bonus points if located near a major airport, other pinball activities, and extra points if you have streaming equipment on site.

The TWIPY committee is currently exploring a range of options and is evaluating multiple scenarios. But the first step is understanding what our options might be, and you don’t always know what’s out there until you ask.

If you have a venue that you think could be an option, feel free to email me at [email protected], and we’ll take it from there.

Pinball Map Location of the Week

Ryan and Scott from Pinball Map run a regular series that highlights one new or interesting pinball location each week. This week, Scott writes about Pin Grounds Coffee.

I didn’t start drinking coffee until my mid-20s. Before that, I was the kind of guy who downed six cans of Mountain Dew Code Red a day. This was a refined palate once linked to wholesome nerd energy, but is now maybe a bit too close to crystal meth vibes for comfort. I was high on caffeine all the time, yet I regarded coffee with deep suspicion. These days, coffee is a major part of my life. Even my kids know my behavior shifts depending on how much I’ve had, and they adjust their strategies accordingly. Is that the first step toward admitting I have a problem? Maybe, but I’m not conceding anything just yet. So, as someone who now identifies as a “coffee guy,” and who thinks about pinball far more than I ever imagined, I deem the arrival of a new coffee + pinball spot a win for the wider pinball world. Pin Grounds brings us that win.

Located 15 miles west of the dreaded Chicago O’Hare Airport (itself once the home of a notable amount of pinball machines, but no longer), Pin Grounds has emerged from the spent beans of our youth to serve up a refreshingly diverse pinball lineup, paired with what I can only assume is a thoughtfully brewed cup of wake-up water. According to their website, their mission is to “cater to the pinball mornings,” and I couldn’t be more supportive of this. Why is pinball always a nighttime thing? I’m exhausted at night. Imagine how much better you’d be at pinball if it was your first act of the day and was accompanied by a stimulant. It just makes sense!

Pin Grounds has clearly embraced the merch hustle, and that’s a strong signal of pride. They’ve got a solid logo, eye-catching coffee bag designs, and even a reasonably priced enamel pin. One of their bean lines is cleverly named “Multibeans”, a definite win. Another, “Orbitor,” nods to Stern’s Orbitor 1. The branding is cohesive and intentional. And with a lineup of 15 machines, it seems like it’s worth the trip, even if you’re some kind of monster who doesn’t drink coffee. Congo (🐒), Johnny Mnemonic ​​(🧤), 300 (🎳) and Victory (🏎️) are the ones that catch my eye. Confusingly, they don’t have Orbitor 1. This makes no sense.

Pin Grounds Coffee is located at 31 W. Irving Park Rd. Roselle, IL 60172. Their current hours of operation are Thursdays from 5:30p-9p and Sunday from 8a-Noon, but they plan to expand those hours in the future. Do they serve flat whites? Let us know.

Pin Grounds Coffee
31 W. Irving Park Rd. Roselle, IL 60172
Website

Meme of the Week

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but this seemed to hit a nerve with folks on Facebook, so enjoy!

Links of the Week

• Enjoyed my time with one of our favorite new creators, Dirty Pool Pinball, for the first episode of their new podcast series. Check it out for some fun banter on pinball media, the state of game code, and more.

• Speaking of The TWIPYs, we caught a bit of shade coming from Mr. Zach Meny in the latest Pinball Show Podcast; I clipped the relevant bit so you don’t have to listen to the full 90-minute episode. Insert big sigh and eye roll emoji here.

• LoserKids interviewed TWIPY winners Brian Soares and Reby Hardy about their latest, The Hangover Pinball.

• The Pinball Junk Drawer visited the Spooky Pinball factory.

• Stern Pinball announced a bunch of code updates coming soon in their monthly Stern of the Union series. Some of these have already been released. This does raise the question, however, why doesn’t Stern share code roadmaps on launch? 

• Stern also made the official announcement that they would be vaulting The Mandalorian. RIP Mando.

• The Spinner is Lit podcast previews The Golden State Pinball Festival.

Poll of the Week

Last Week’s Poll Results

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