Jady - I think you should look at this as a hobby business even after you find a "real" job. There's no harm in following your dream.
A quick lesson in Pinball economics. Pinballs were predominantly made in the USA and exported around the world. It its heyday, not that many made it to Australia. Over the last 10 years, more machines have been imported into Australia than in the period before the Video games. My opinion is that there are more games in Australia NOW than there was in the 70's - 80's. There's tons of reasons for this, but for now, the games ARE HERE.
With so many games, there's a massive market for restorations. In the last two years, the market has spawned another niche - High End Restorations. This is where the growth is. Everyone is importing the games, so the market is there, because the opportunity is there.
Ten years ago, I went to Steve Young and asked if I could manufacture Woodrail cabinets. It was a VERY easy process to put an agreement in place, but the timing was not right. so it can be done. Gottlieb licensing is not as hard as the nightmare with WMS.
Gottlieb playfields - CPR and Wade Krauss are making limited runs of well known titles. Your first task is to contact Gottlieb LLC through Steve Young at Pinball Resource and make some enquires. I'm sure you will be able to strike a deal, but make sure you are 100% confident in the long road to acquire tooling, materials and working space. CPR have moved twice since they started, so you need to keep growth in mind. I'm being positive when I mention "growth", because playfield reproductions are in high demand and you need to get them to market in large numbers.
You also have to take into account that some of your customers will be US and Euro. Shipping can be expensive, but if you become established and work with the other repro playfield manufacturers to not overlap in titles, then everyone's happy.
Surf Champ would be a VERY good start.
Royal Flush, Sheriff, Target Apha, Sky Jump - the list goes on.
Bally titles would be a no brainer - Fireball and Old Chicago would be massive.
From my Business' strategy, I track down project games where I know the playfield will be released. So I'm in contact with CPR often, and I plan ahead according to their schedule - which can be as long as a 4 year wait. But if it means I have the opportunity to buy a poor project game knowing the playfield, backglass and plastics are remade, then I'll hoard these titles. If your venture happens to lock in titles such as Surfer, Royal Flush and Old Chicage, then I'll start searching for those titles with poor playfields.
So I would support the venture by buying several playfields of each title. I currently have around 16 repro playfields, and only half of them are for games in the restoration queue, or games I own.
From my point of view, I should have started my restoration business 10 years ago. The work is out there. The demand is well over my expectations, and the growth is in High end Restorations. The more repro playfields, the more High End Restorations. Hobbyists are starting to learn how to replace their own games' playfields.
I don't know the technical side of things, but I know the market. It would work.
