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The Continuing Death of Pinball
angkor writes: "To me, the first video games were something like electonic versions of pinball machines, so it's sad to hear that pinball is apparently dying off." I'd really like to see a pinball game based on Zoolander, but I doubt even that would be enough to reverse the current trend.
for me, the graphics just don't cut it anymore
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Oh man!!! First FreeBSD, Linux on the Desktop and now this?! I don't know how much more of this I can take!!
Please someone, tell me this isn't so!!
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It should be re-captioned, "These dorks are playing pinball. They must not know they are in college and should be drinking beer, and having sex with girls!"
Netcraft has now confirmed: Pinball is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Pinball community when recently IDC confirmed that Pinball accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all arcade machines. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Pinball has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Pinball is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last the recent Sys Admin comprehensive gaming test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Pinball's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Pinball faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Pinball because Pinball is dying. Things are looking very bad for Pinball. As many of us are already aware, Pinball continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. Non-computer Pinball is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core players.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Computerized Pinball leaders state that there are 7000 users of Pinball. How many users of non-electronic Pinball are there? Let's see. The number of computerized Pinball users versus Pinball posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 computerized Pinball users. Pinball posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of non-computerized Pinball posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of non-computerized Pinball. A recent article put computerized Pinball at about 80 percent of the Pinball market. Therefore there are 7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Pinball users. This is consistent with the number of Pinball Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Midway, abysmal sales and so on, non-computerized Pinball went out of business and was taken over by Sega, who sells another troubled arcade machine. Now Sega is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Pinball has steadily declined in market share. Pinball is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Pinball is to survive at all it will be among arcade hobbyist dabblers. Pinball continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Pinball is dead.
(This has been a test of the moderation system. We now return to your regular geek whining, already in progress.)
Agreed... but for a slightly different reason. The excuse I've always heard from arcade/bar/etc owners is that the cost of keeping a pinball machine in good working order is just way too high: frequent maintenance, hard-to-find parts -- you name it. It's become purely a labor of love thing these days.
And I say this quite sadly, mind you -- pinball kept me sane all through college. Nothing like a quick hour or two of Addams Family or Pinbot after a long night of studying.
P.S. - If anyone knows a place in NYC that still has well-maintained pinball machines, I'll gladly name my first-born after you. (Keep in mind that the more time I spend playing pinball on your advice, the less chance there is of there actually *being* a first-born -- so weigh your options carefully...)
Yes,
I can't agree more. All of those pinball games are far too much to upkeep. I think they are obviously the singular reason for our current economic trend. All currently working pinball games (actually I only need 3 or 4 of them) should be sent directly to my house to keep our economy moving in a forward direction. You know, it's for the good of the country.
-RF
Do any of you know how it is really spelled? So far there are 4 replies, and they are:
"We have it... although I think we call it fooseball."
"We call it "foosball"."
"...playin' any of that there foozball..."
"Well, we're familiar with it as "fussball""
I'd really like to see a pinball game based on Zoolander
I would pay good money to play such a game, but only if it was really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
Is your browser retarded?
After pinball was removed from your life you must have been VERY glad to find slashdot.
Pinball, what can I say, I would play pinball when I was out with my parents, I still play it now. My new job has me going about 400 miles away every month, for a week at a time, which means the dreaded hotel. Normally I stay at Holiday in, but my first week up there (first day on the job no less) the company made the reservations at the Best Wester. Well, they have the Twilight Zone (a machine I will own one day) and that is where I will be staying on all subsequent trips. I love that game. :)
Hotel: Thank you for calling how may I help you
Me: Yes, what pinball games do you have?
We could just encompass all the spellings by calling it f***ball. Of course, that would probably tend to be misinterpreted...
I have nothing to allude to, and I am alluding to it.
tacky seaside village here in Kent, England
Hmm:
Tacky - check
Seaside - check
village - check
Kent - check
6 arcades - sounds about right.
this wouldn't be Dymchurch, would it?
By trying to raise profits, they shot themselves in the foot by eliminating a greater percentage of business that would would have been made back on the price. Rather than making 4 million people paying $0.25, they got 1 million paying $0.50. Sound like advise from the recording industry.
It's either that, or the increase in pinball piracy.